Directed by Mike Rohl
Written by John Shiban
You guys. This post is aggressively insane. But I will paraphrase James Joyce who said, in re: “Finnegans Wake”: “It took me 17 years to write it. It should take you 17 years to read it.” So. It took me 3 days to write this. It will probably take you 3 days to read it.
Let’s Talk About Setting!
I was just talking with my sister, a middle-school English teacher, about “setting”. She was trying to get her kids to understand “setting”, as well as “Plot” and “character”, the Triangle of Importance in literature. She told a funny story about showing the kids the opening 3 minutes of the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s book, The Road. She had cleared it with the principal, she thought it was one of the best examples of establishing setting that she could think of. The 12-year-olds were not blown away by the setting, they were concerned that what they saw was real. Now, yes, they are kids, but my sister was like, “You guys. No. This is not real. This is a fictional setting. The world has not ended. Don’t you think you would have heard about it? The Rocky Mountains are still functioning properly.” (I can just hear my sister saying all of this. I loved “The Rocky Mountains are still functioning properly.”) Once she whipped them into shape with a lecture about the Reality of reality, they started to get the concept of “setting”, and how important it was to Story.
In the first three, four seasons of Supernatural, one of the strengths of the series, outside of the two main actors, was its clear superiority in establishing setting.
Story does not exist in a vacuum. The setting helps create the circumstances that allow the Story to operate. With the post-apocalyptic setting of The Road, the father-son bond, narrated in tales since cave paintings probably, literally becomes life and death. The continuation of the human race is at stake. Without “setting,” we’d have just another sentimental family tale.
The same goes for Supernatural. The sibling-relationship has also been done to death, and is prone to cliche. Because there was no standing-set in Supernatural in the early seasons, and the roadhouse (the closest thing to stability) is about to go up in smoke, the series had to figure out a way to make each setting in every episode evocative, unique and visually interesting (those wall-dividers in the motels) as WELL as helping to tell the Story. What is so fascinating about Supernatural is the diversity of settings they create, the artistry involved, week to week to week, in presenting entirely different mini-worlds. It helps that the series is filmed on various real locations, so the actors are out in the fresh air, rain on their hair, natural sunlight or rainy light on their faces. These real-to-life details will always help with establishing setting, especially in something relatively low-budget like Supernatural. The location sometimes does half the work for them (true especially in “Folsom Prison Blues.”)
It’s easy to get swept away by the acting and the plot and the psychology. I am interested in those, of course, but I am also interested in Story Structure, and how film-making achieves that. In these re-caps I have always attempted to talk about the entirety of it, not just the scripts or the performances but the artistry of camerawork, lighting and production design.
A Digression Into the Look of the Series, One of My Favorite Topics
That artistry is not so much in evidence now, unfortunately.
The visual side fell off in quality for 2 reasons:
#1. The move to digital, following Season 6. Seasons 1-3 were shot on film-stock, which is why they look as good as they do. Seasons 4-6 were shot with the legendary Red camera, a digital camera but 500 times more sensitive than most digital cameras. You have enormous flexibility with the Red. Season 4-6 look straight-up cinematic, even more so than the first 3 seasons, which were more low-budget-horror-film aesthetic. Serge Ladouceur was like a kid in a candy-store with the Red. It’s like getting to drive a Jaguar as opposed to a Ford pick-up truck. Although the Red is digital, it gives you more flexibility in post-production to create the Holy Grail of what is organic to film only: “grain.” Younger generations have no experience of “grain” and may watch movies from the pre-digital era and wonder why the screen looks so messy. They might make the mistake of thinking it looks bad, or that directors are better now than they were back then. Or, they’ll watch the Blu-Ray of, say, The French Connection, and be pissed that the image isn’t crystal-sharp. Well, that’s film. People who don’t know about grain flood into tech forums to complain about how “bad” the movie looks on Blu-Ray. Thankfully, there are usually others there to “school” them: “No, that’s what it’s supposed to look like. That’s grain.” Film, unlike digital, is an actual object that needs to go through the development process, like any old roll of film needs to. (It can also be scratched and damaged.) You can control how much “grain” is onscreen through the film-development process, essentially like a dark room. That’s the difference between celluloid – made up of millions of actual particles – and digital – made up of millions of little pixels. Those who know about “grain” and value grain, are often pissed off when Blu-Ray companies make the decision to “clean up” a film’s images, removing the grain. They think they’re improving it. You think the folks complaining about messy-looking Blu-Rays are incensed? You should hear the ones who value grain and don’t want it to be messed with. DON’T YOU DARE TO PRESUME TO ‘CLEAN UP’ THE FRENCH CONNECTION, YOU NONARTISTIC NOBODY. IT’S FINE THE WAY IT IS. There’s a whole new burgeoning group of younger filmmakers, and older filmmakers who don’t like the gleam of digital, devoted to creating the illusion of grain while still using a digital camera. An example of a modern movie shot on digital that had grain added to it in post-production is 300. Grain gave depth/texture to the mainly CGI-created images. The Red camera, although digital, is so sensitive that it gives the cinematographer control over the image in a way that a standard digital camera doesn’t. When a low-budget film like Cold Weather uses the Red camera (a huge part of their budget will be taken up with paying for that camera) suddenly the low-budget film (or TV series) LOOKS expensive. Just watch the opening sequence of “Lazarus Rising,” especially the part in the abandoned gas station. That’s the kind of image the Red provides. It LOOKS expensive. With all the Beauty of the series previous to that point, nothing, but nothing, in Supernatural ever looked as good as that opening scene in “Lazarus Rising”. Same with the scene later in the same episode between Bobby, Sam and Dean in the hotel room. That is one of the best-looking scenes the show ever did, before or since. And Castiel’s entrance, a high watermark in the series as a whole. The difference in “look” from the previous seasons is noticeable. Season 7 started, and they stopped using the Red, and just went with regular-old standard digital, and it’s almost painful to see how ugly everything looks. The darkness vanishes. The screen is filled with oranges and greens and yellows. Jared Padalecki is a dark and moody-looking man, with sharp Cro-Magnon-ish angles to his bone structure that cast GREAT shadows, hiding his eyes. The Jared-shadows are better than the Ackles-shadows, Ackles’ face being softer and curvier. The Jared-shadows are lost once we hit Season 7. And Ackles’ fortunate DNA combo of pale sensuous-vulnerable coloring sprinkled in freckles and feathery-shadows-cast-by-long-eyelashes are also lost in Season 7, his vibrating-with-life skin hidden under orange-hued pancake makeup. Both men are still gorgeous, but they have been flattened out. Flattening those guys out is a CRIME against BEAUTY. A couple of favorite episodes come from those seasons, but one has to tolerate the ugliness. The series became darker again in Season 9 – or at least moodier, and Ackles’ face is no longer a flat orange. Some of the Season 9 episodes look washed-out and exhausted in interesting ways (“The Purge” comes to mind, with its bleak existential palette: everything determined by the mood of the final scene, a fave for me in the whole series). The darker scenes post Season 8 look better, although now there’s a lot of glamour in the dark scenes, sometimes approaching the cheesy. (Dean and Cas’ scene off to the side while Crowley penetrates Sam with his column of red smoke so that he can then shout “Poughkeepsie”- because yeah, that makes sense – is a good example. I love that scene but the way it’s lit embarrassed me. It’s a Billy Squier music video from 1983.) They’re still having fun creating lighting effects but it’s not the gloomy black that made up those first three seasons. That unremitting black created a fatalistic atmosphere: Light will never triumph against that darkness. This is the Manichean thing I went on about at one point. Even so-called benign locations like libraries became dark ominous spaces. Something like that takes a lot of care. I do think Season 11 feels back on track, but all you have to do is compare to Season 1 and Season 2 to realize that we’ll never see the show that Black again.
#2 reason for drop-off in Quality in later seasons: The disappearance of Eric Kripke, and the rise of show-runners who didn’t maintain quality control, for whatever reason. Quality Control went out the window with Kripke, although Serge Ledouceur and certain directors (Robert Singer, especially) kept the torch burning, with flashes of that old visual style. (Why did The X-Files maintain the same high quality through its 9 seasons? And, judging from the one episode I saw of the new series, continued on into the present? Because Chris Carter was – and still is – the creator and show runner. It’s HIS idea and he has PERSONAL stake in it, because it’s his reputation, his creation.) Without that personal stake of the creator, much of the distinctive look of Supernatural vanished, and it has not returned. (Not that the people working on it don’t care about the quality of their work. Of course they do. But Eric Kripke would never have allowed the flattened orange/bright-colored “palette” of Season 7 and 8. No way, Jose. Not in a million years.)
I don’t mean to focus on the negative, but issues of Beauty are important to me (which is why the critical dismissal of Angelina Jolie’s achingly gorgeous and personal By the Sea made me so angry that I wrote not one essay about the film, but two.) Season 7 and 8 of Supernatural were, thankfully, anomalies of Ugliness (the Purgatory sections, with its greens/browns/Hi-Def look, so visually pleasing I want to eat them with a spoon, being notable exceptions). Season 7 and 8 stand out. I would imagine there was a serious round-table on hiatus after Season 8 about getting back on track visually. The look of the opening of Season 9 was a course-correct in quality.
Back to Setting. You following?
The final episodes of Season 2 are feats of detailed diversity. Flexibility is the mark of a true artist. The intricacy of Setting in those final episodes represents so much preparation, so many “vision boards” probably. Each episode references a vast library of American cinema, and yet the episodes are not homages, they are their own unique hybrid. And it’s not just the final episodes: Every episode of Season 2 is STEEPED in “setting” that help tell the story: “Crossroad Blues”, “Playthings”, “Nightshifter”, and “Roadkill” (setting there being an unsung masterpiece). “Hunted” deserves a shout-out, for its exquisite visual referencing (if you get it, you get it, if you don’t, you still get the story, but it’s better if you GET it get it) of The Glass Menagerie with the “blue roses” imagery. Diverse specific settings come one after the other after the other … none have anything in common with the other, and yet they all feel like the same series.
The Trajectory of the End of Season 2
“Roadkill” launches us into the final phenomenal sequence of episodes. “Roadkill” sets up “Heart.” “Heart” would not be possible, would not provide the catharsis that it does without the meditation on grief and letting go that is “Roadkill.”
“Heart” is so heavy that we need a break, and so we are launched into the lunacy of “Hollywood Babylon,” the first meta-episode.
“Hollywood Babylon” is so hilarious that that mood continues somewhat in “Folsom Prison Blues,” although the setting is gritty-reality whereas the setting for “Hollywood Babylon” was pure artifice (artifice being actually real-er than reality). The “psychic kids/Yellow-Eyed” thing is not present. It’s a break.
That break is furthered in one of the best episodes in the history of the series and the first one directed by Eric Kripke, “What Is and What Should Never Be.” (I’ll have more to say on this, and the humorous incongruity of Kripke, with his overgrown nerd-boy “OMG I love blood and guts and inappropriate shit” monologues in commentary tracks, taking on the most emotional and SQUISHY episode in Supernatural up to that point.) Kripke was working in new and unknown territory for him – and it was unknown territory for the actors too (“I feel like I’m down the rabbit hole, Eric,” Ackles said to Kripke throughout. Both lead actors expressed to him how surprisingly difficult it was to play the same characters without the underlying close bond), the production team, and the series as a whole. That sense of uncertainty – of not knowing where they were going, but with a devotion to truth and a sense of high risk and probably FEAR on the part of everyone helps make that episode what it is. The stakes are so high (and I’m not just talking about the characters.) “What Is and What Should Never Be” looks like nothing else in Supernatural up to that point. The “setting” is so different that the production team had to adjust their process, too, finding it a huge challenge: “Oh, we have to make things look nice now, as opposed to like shit. Hmm, that’s hard.” “What Is and What Should Never Be” is not really a breather: it’s a descent into the Wonderland of the Past, and the hopelessness of the Present/Future. It’s expressing in the clearest terms possible the DNA of the show (Dean’s in particular). That episode is enormously important in terms of the emotion of the series: maybe the most important episode of Season 2, second only to “In My Time of Dying,” (the reverb of that episode, the “To Be or Not To Be” aspect of it lasts to this day), and “Crossroad Blues,” which sets up the “selling your soul” thing, in continual operation for seasons, before taking a back seat. But whaddya know, IT’S BACK, BITCHES. “Houses of the Holy” is important, too, Story-wise, for its introduction of the concept of angels, softening the audience for what would arrive 2 seasons later. As well as aspects of faith, and that final scene in the motel room. For me, those are the big three of the season, the ones that have carried through the series the most to this day. “What Is and What Should Never Be” is also, frankly, a vehicle for Jensen Ackles. It’s a star-making episode, designed to highlight him as an actor.
And “All Hell Breaks Loose,” Parts 1 and 2, which loop us back to the Wild West atmosphere introduced explicitly in Episode 2, with the roadhouse. It’s a Breakfast Club scenario in frontier America. “What Is and What Should Never Be” has softened us so much that we’re at risk. Yellow-Eyes returns, monologues at Sam about the nursery. Dean sells his soul to a hottie at a crossroads. The whole thing ends with that cemetery scene that looks so bad it feels deliberate, like something out of a Roger Corman movie, you half expect Boris Karloff to come staggering out of the mist, arms outstretched. Dad returns, misty-eyed longing glances, and then the final moment, a repeat of the final moment of Season 1, Episode 1, but reversed.
Each one with its own setting. Each one with its own mood, theme, but they all pour into the whole, providing extra puzzle pieces, filling in blanks. It’s extraordinary.
Personal Digression Involving “What Is and What Should Never Be” Which Is a Tangent But I Don’t Care, and Which I Should Probably Just Hold Off and Post During That Episode’s Re-Cap But Considering How Long It Takes Me To Get To These Things I’ll Just Share It Now. Forgive the Coyness of Tone. It Will Be Clear Why That Is Necessary.
Before my script (or one scene from it) was filmed last winter, the director had asked me during the planning stages for my First Choices for the male lead. #1 on the list should not be a surprise. Not only do I think he’s phenomenal, but, and more importantly, I thought he was also possibly get-able. Not a sure thing, because he’s too excellent to be a sure thing, but potentially. In other words: I wasn’t rattling off A-Listers who would have no impetus to do a low-budget short that maybe no one will ever see, plus they live in a mansion in Italy and are filming movies back to back in Turkey and then Bulgaria and then Tokyo. But I thought if he was available for the one night of the shoot, happening in L.A., he might actually consider doing it. (And I still think that. Every guy who read it wanted to do it. They turned us down because they were out of town or already working. Confidence-builder for me, I’ll tell you that. The guy who ended up taking the part called his agent after reading only one and a half pages and said, “Tell them I want to do it.” You have to be willing to be like: I WROTE THIS GREAT THING. YOU’RE PERFECT FOR IT. WILL YOU BE IN IT KTHXBYE. It never hurts to ASK.) I also told the director in my “pitch” that this guy has a rabid fan base (meant as a compliment) and that his fans would TRAVEL – perhaps even buy international airline tickets – to see this thing if it made it into a festival. This intrigued the director. We wanted a name, or at least a familiar face. The director had never heard of him – insane!! but that’s the status of this actor in the industry: his fame is completely contained to one network – and so I told the director what Supernatural episode to watch to get a feel for who he was as an actor. The only episode I told him to watch was “What Is and What Should Never Be.” I thought that episode was the clearest representation of him as an actor, and also showed him displaying the qualities necessary for the male lead I had written (I had written the script long before I ever saw an episode of Supernatural). The director’s first response when he called me after watching the episode: “Man, that guy is pretty.” hahahaha He is a classic jock-straight-boy out of central casting – he played minor-league baseball for a while (he was that good), he’s also on multiple fantasy baseball leagues that take up much of his free time, he’s a catnip-for-the-ladies kind of guy, a trash-talker, a beer-and-wings dude-bro, no disrespect or insult meant and not to say that some gay men aren’t jocks as well or don’t enjoy beer and wings – but the director is straight and my family is made up of guys like that, and most of the guys I date are guys like that – I get along really well with guys like that. Me: “So what did you think of him?” No pause, automatic response: “Man, that guy is pretty.” Erotic muses do not appeal to just one sex. They are universal. Straight boys lose whatever homosexual panic they may have and gush like teenage girls. So we went ahead and made the offer to the agent of the “pretty man” (you can understand why I’m not naming him, although who the hell would read this). He and I, randomly, are signed with the same agency. Clearly in different divisions and on different coasts, but such things are how connections are made (potentially). He had been with one agent since the beginning of his career, and suddenly, in August, 2014, he switched to the one I had signed with in 2012. (That sounds like he was following my lead. hahaha Not what I mean at all. I happened to see the news item about his agency-switch in the trade publication I read all the time, and when I saw it, I wondered if something were happening with him in terms of how he thought about his career. If some sea-change was at work. That’s usually the case when an actor moves to another agency after being with the same one for a long time. It sends a message to the industry, it’s an attention-getter.) His old agency is a gigantic MONSTER and his new agency is smaller where clients can (ideally) get more personalized attention, although I have no idea if that is why he switched. The head agent in the acting division represents him, which speaks volumes, so maybe he felt lost in the shuffle at that other behemoth. It could be for any number of reasons. I wondered if he had one eye on what would happen post-Supernatural whenever that came. (A notorious holdout in all things social media, he signed up with Twitter less than one month after the agency-switch. Not a coincidence. It had nothing to do with encouragement from other cast members – who barely have time to bathe they’re so busy Tweeting – or pressure from the fans. Or at least that wasn’t the only impetus, I guarantee it, even though there is no smoking gun telling me it is so. New agent clearly said, “You’re not on Twitter? Well, THAT has to change.” That’s what good agents do.) So when we sent the script to his agent, we mentioned that agency connection, plus we mentioned the producer, who is also a “name” in the industry, to show we weren’t just some goofball film students who didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Not surprisingly, pretty man’s “people” turned us down because, you know, the man is perpetually out of town. He’s the epitome of Busy. I was amazed they would even take the time to respond. I thought that was pretty nice. (I am tremendously happy with the actor who eventually said Yes to us, who has a terrific career and a recognizable face, which we wanted. He was wonderful, and perfect for the role.) But the fact remains: if I wanted to show anyone what this “pretty man” can do, someone who’d never seen the show before, I’d show them “What Is and What Should Never Be.”
“Hollywood Babylon”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, and Winchester Chameleons
But before we get to “What Is and What Should Never Be,” we need one more episode to separate us from the lunacy of “Hollywood Babylon” and that episode is “Folsom Prison Blues.”
“Folsom Prison Blues” picks up a lot of the same story-elements as “Hollywood Babylon,” including Sam being a Cranky-Pants and Dean descending into Chameleon-Like Tendencies we never before dreamt was possible. In “Hollywood Babylon,” Sam’s crankiness was more of a hangover from “Heart” as well as a baffled impatience that his brother actually seems to be under the impression that he is now a PA. In “Folsom Prison Blues,” Sam takes it up a notch. He’s furious at Dean’s plan, and throughout the entire thing, he’s hustling Dean along, move quicker, we’ve got to wrap this up, and he’s almost amazed that he encounters resistance. In “Hollywood Babylon” the resistance “makes sense”: Dean’s a movie fan, he’s good at being a PA, he fits in with a group for the first time in, ever, and who would want to return to killing monsters in abandoned houses compared to that? But “Folsom Prison Blues” takes that same situation, Dean’s adaptability, and digs deeper into it, exploring the depth that had been opened up in “Hollywood Babylon.”
In general, as I’ve babbled about in most of these re-caps, Dean is very competent at his job of killing monsters but at times, when he’s questioning witnesses or trying to flirt his way into morgues, he’s so awkward and revealing and inappropriately sexual that everyone is put off by it and Sam has to intervene. His beauty doesn’t draw people to him: it makes them suspicious. Sam can “hide” and “disappear” more easily. (The most obvious example of this difference between the brothers is “Frontierland”, so embarrassing that I can barely watch it.) Dean being unable to blend in could have been an ongoing in-joke, pleasing but not necessarily complex. “Hollywood Babylon” and “Folsom Prison Blues” are a one-two punch adding additional strange-ness to an already VERY strange character. Dean blending in! Dean finding his milieu and submitting to it. Dean, a chameleon, who soaks up the rules of a new environment instantly and immediately begins to work those rules. He’s a quick study. Sam, despite his gigantic size, has a way of easily blending into the walls when he’s on the job. He doesn’t have to work at it. It’s an unexpected layer of complexity: one might suspect that Dean, the well-trained soldier, would be the one who fit in, and that Sam would seem like he was playing dress-up in the hunter life, since he was always an outsider in the family anyway. But that’s not how it goes. The characters are capable of surprising us. Sam doesn’t get sucked into different environments the way Dean does. (Think of “LARP and the Real Girl”, too, exploring a similar brother-dynamic.) While at college, Sam didn’t get distracted by freedom, careening into partying and hooking up. He studied hard, got straight As, and leapt into monogamy. Other sheltered kids go INSANE when they get to college (my first college roommate was one of them. She grew up in a strict born-again Christian household. Once in college, she almost flunked out her first year, because she never went to class. All she did was get wasted at frat parties and sleep with fraternity brothers – sleeping with about 5 guys who were all from the same frat house. No judgment on sexual freedom, so says this Floozy, but what was going on with her was not “sexual freedom.” It was carelessness bordering on recklessness. I was a virgin with no experience with men but even I understood that if you were going to sleep with multiple frat boys, at LEAST make sure they were from separate houses! My point is: The girl had never had any freedom growing up. She had no idea how to handle freedom once she got it. She almost became a Cautionary Tale.) Sam held his own, pouring the work-horse mentality of the Winchester Commando Life into his studies. The “context” of the social-freedom of college and freedom from his father did not change him. And so, it’s difficult to picture Sam becoming entranced by being a PA. Or in love with his role as a convict. He’s more solid. Dean, on the other hand, is completely amorphous.
And THIS is the “mystery” that people feel about Dean, this is the bizarre floating-around quality that you can see in his eyes, that you could clearly see when the Mark took over, that you can see always. It’s not that the Clint Eastwood behavior is a lie or covering-up or anything like that. Dirty Harry is just another sincere aspect of his amorphous personality. There’s the people-pleasing thing that was so painful to witness in the episodes with Dad at the end of Season 1. There’s the soft-mushy-breast-plate vulnerability of Dean in bed with Cassie. (Cover your dirty pillows, Dean! I wanted to say, nervous for him.) There’s Dean shouting sexual come-ons at monsters. There’s the cold-as-ice Dirty Harry with a pistol. The bunker gave us Dean the Homemaker, another “surprise” that made so much sense the second it arrived. It’s an incredibly intricate character, but one of its main thru-lines is susceptibility to CONTEXT. Sam may have demon-blood but he has a stronger sense of self, and sails on through different situations without necessarily molding himself to them. He doesn’t need to. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that he even should (the looks he gives Dean in “Hollywood Babylon” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”) Even the bunker didn’t fill Sam with a sense of safety or pride, like, “Ahhh home” and he looked at Dean with confusion as Dean did everything but bustle around wearing an apron. Sam would be comfortable camping out under the freeway. Sam would be comfortable at a gleaming executive’s table. Doesn’t matter to him. His self is not defined by CONTEXT. (Amelia de-stabilized that. She’s very important, if you can get past the lime-green-Lysol-haze as well as those disgusting hot dogs. Nobody ever “got inside” there with Sam, not even Jess. Sam was able to have a relationship with Jess so serious he was planning on marrying her – without ever once revealing the truth about himself. That’s a bit scary. Dean went on probably two dates with Cassie before spilling the beans. Maybe he even spilled the beans on the first night, because Dean falls in love immediately. (Hello, Tina, thank you for clocking this truth about him in “About a Boy.”) After being such a “Don’t Ever Tell the Family Secret” Tough Guy, Dean tells Cassie all! That Jess/Cassie dichotomy – and what it says about the brothers – is fascinating to me, I come back to it all the time. You would think it would be the other way around, but once they give us what we don’t expect it makes total sense.) There are those smudgy “gaps” in the backstory that allow the writers to add new elements so we’re not just in Dukes of Hazard or CHiPs Land. They were able to add an entire chapter to Dean’s life, the Boys’ Home, and nobody seemed surprised. Both still have stuff to be revealed (Uhm, Sully?). I look forward to possibly seeing more of that, especially now that they have found the perfect young Dean. Those intriguing gaps: Dean at 18, 19, 20. Sam in those same years.
Dean becoming the Best P.A in a 24-hour period was why “Hollywood Babylon” is so funny, but there’s that layer of character depth too: suddenly another element of Dean clicks into place. I, for one, didn’t see it coming in my first viewing of the series, because I was always so struck by the Beautiful Dean’s awkwardness that is so off-putting to people. But in “Hollywood Babylon” he’s not awkward at all! And just as you get used to the idea, along comes “Folsom Prison Blues,” an environment that anyone in their right mind would want to get out of as quickly as possible, and Dean settles in THERE, too, becoming Cock of the Walk “on the yard” in about two hours. Even MORE fascinating! Sam wasn’t disturbed by Dean digging being a PA, but he IS disturbed by Convict Dean. Dean is so comfortable in that environment that he doesn’t even understand why there’s anything weird about it.
These two episodes back-to-back are almost as revealing about Dean as the initially de-stabiling-of-expectations humor of fraidy-cat Dean in “Phantom Traveler” or the mortifying moment in “Tall Tales” when you realize how Dean perceives himself.
If “Hollywood Babylon” and “Folsom Prison Blues” had been separated by a couple of different episodes, they wouldn’t have the same impact. It’s two sides of the same coin: both brothers having to take on fake identities for the entirety of the episode, as opposed to only a couple of scenes during the questioning/investigative portion, and how both brothers deal with it. Sam flies so under the radar in “Hollywood Babylon” and “Folsom Prison Blues” that it starts to seem like a crazy otherworldly gift that Sam has: he’s so TALL and so GORGEOUS that you would think that he’d stand out more. But he doesn’t. With all his discomfort in “Folsom Prison Blues,” his blending-in is more subtle than Dean’s, but it’s there. Dean immediately becomes the “Star” in both scenarios, taking the bull by the horns, and devoting himself wholeheartedly to his “role.” And Dean’s a “Method Actor.” He’s not faking it in either environment. Sam doesn’t play a role at all. He remains himself and yet, like I said, he naturally just fits in – not because he’s amorphous but because he is never anything other than himself. The schism in Sam at this point, the visions, the demon-blood, make his breaks with reality that much more frightening. If SAM isn’t solid, then what will the world come to?? In “Hollywood Babylon” he’s damn near invisible. In “Folsom Prison Blues” he actually looks more like a convict than Dean does (the gloomy taciturn face, compared to Dean’s sexual-come-on gleam), you’d never question that Sam did something really shitty and deserved to be thrown in the clink. Nobody looks twice at him, like “Why are you here?” But Dean revels in his role, as well as revels in the fact that each environment has clear RULES, and if he knows how to do anything, it’s follow the rules. He loves rules. He submits totally to CONTEXT. (Consider Cassie. He fell in love because she provided another kind of context. He doesn’t appear to have even resisted it at all.)
The whole thing is crazy-deep and not linear at all. It’s a SWIRL, with gaps in-between, things not explained, the characters in the process of revealing themselves while also hiding, the colors of all of this bending into one another.
Chameleons.
“Folsom Prison Blues” Reference Library
To state the obvious:
Recorded at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio in 1955 (the year after Elvis “hit”), Johnny Cash walked into the room with some different things going on, different from the other wild white country-boys (Carl Perkins, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis) on the Sun roster. Sam and Cash futzed around with material, and eventually recorded, oh, little-known songs such as “I Walk the Line,” “Cry, Cry, Cry”, and “I Walk the Line.” (All of those classics would end up on his 1957 debut album.)
Johnny Cash had been stationed overseas in the early 1950s and had seen a documentary called “Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.” Cash always cared about the downtrodden (unlike Carl Perkins or Elvis, he did not hail from abject poverty), and cared especially about prison populations (then and now, an unpopular cause). His stance would get more and more radical until he turned himself into a symbol of protest, the Man in Black.
“Folsom Prison Blues” has one of the most terrifying lines in music:
“I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
It’s scarier even than Eminem’s “Kim,”, because you know that Eminem is just throwing (an insane) shit-fit. But Cash’s narration is bone-chillingly cold. (Cash said later that when he was writing the song he was trying to think of the worst crime possible, and that was what he came up with.)
I love this clip, of Johnny Cash performing the song in 1959 on the “Town Hall Party.” (I can’t get enough of the “Town Hall Party” clips on Youtube.)
Over a decade later, in the midst one of the worst years in American history, Cash decided to do a live concert at the actual Folsom Prison. He felt that societal/financial/racial issues in the culture had to be addressed, the situation was urgent, and he was a Christian, and “ministering” was also important to him.
That live album is one of the greatest concert recordings of all time.
I realize this isn’t like a forgotten masterpiece or anything. Everyone knows how great this album is.
First song performed in that 1968 prison concert was, of course, “Folsom Prison Blues.”
(And listen to how that rowdy group of prisoners cheers after the scary Reno line.)
Along with the title, “Folsom Prison Blues” pulls out all the stops with cinematic references to Hollywood’s long love-affair with prison and escape-from-prison dramas. Dean references The Great Escape twice, and Escape from Alcatraz once. There are even more references visually and subtextually. I clock:
Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a single reference to the greatest prison movie of them all:
Dean is more in love with the movie thing than Sam is, so no matter what moment comes up in “Folsom Prison Blues,” another prison-movie-reference pops into Dean’s mind. It makes it fun for him. He knows about teardrop tattoos. Not just because he has assimilated convict-rules into his psyche, but because he probably saw this movie.
And he probably responded to it with rapture, because who wouldn’t respond to this with rapture?
Along with his weird amorphous nature, he has an encyclopedia of movies in his head, ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice. McQueen and Eastwood and James Garner help form Dean’s conception of who he should be as a prisoner. Other references to crime/incarceration include Nick Nolte’s famous mug-shot (which I won’t link to because I love him and he is so much more than his mug-shot) as well as the name of the Green River Detention Center. Charles Bronson (who was also so memorable as the claustrophobe in The Great Escape) in Death Wish, a guy who takes the law into his own hands, gets a shout-out (although I think there’s another reference embedded there, an even better one, and I’ll get to it.)
Other Things of Note
Perhaps most importantly, Dean knows that if he doesn’t rise quickly to Alpha Status “on the yard”, he’ll be prime sexual bait. He was BORN to be the pretty Bitch Boy, and he doesn’t have to go to prison to know that. His Dad used him as sexual bait, probably from the second he got hair on his chest, although he has no hair on his gleaming-breast-plate chest. Okay, then, grass on the infield. Dean doesn’t even question his success in that role. He makes that crack about trading Sam for smokes, but there’s a whistling-in-the-dark quality to Ackles’ line-reading. (Ackles knows the character better than the script-writers do sometimes. That sexual stuff is Ackles’ contribution.) Dean knows that if anyone’s gonna be attacked in the shower, it’s gonna be him. He needs to assert dominance, and FAST. He’s only supposed to be in there for two days or whatever: he’ll be damned if he’s gonna be sexually assaulted in that short time. Fuck THAT. He’s BEEN sexually assaulted in his life, he operates in an atmosphere of the threat of sexual assault, so he’ll do his damnedest to avoid that shit HERE. The threat is present the second they get off the bus and see the prisoners chomping at the bit on the other side of the gate. Sam is visibly uncomfortable with this, Dean is blasé. That’s the kind of reaction he gets everywhere he goes. He survives it by making himself into an even BIGGER target. “Come and get me now!” Dean often cringes at being touched, even gentle touches, because of the Sexual Atmosphere he creates, either consciously or unconsciously. But also, he can be shocked when someone resists him, or DOESN’T look at him like he’s bait (that hilarious scene in “Shadow” when Meg is allllll about Sam.) Sam’s look of sheer terror when he sees his glowering bunkmate is not what’s going on with Dean across the hallway. Dean struts into his cell, friendly but aggressive, loudly taking up space, joking that he “calls top bunk” as though they’re at summer camp. But he’s not just joking: he really wants the top bunk, and he thinks maybe if he says it like that, with the charm-onslaught, he’ll get what he wants. (Why, Dean. Why. You always try this, and it never works, so why.) Or, it’s his way of breaking the ice, maybe they’ll share a good laugh. The other prisoner scoffs at Dean, throws his stuff on the top bunk, and glares. Dean looks slightly put off, but only slightly. He’s used to this reaction to his bizarre jokes and chummy-flirty stuff. It’s familiar ground. Meanwhile, Sam gulps down panic. Openly.
AND. Let us not forget the return of the glorious and gorgeous Charles Malik Whitfield as Agent Henriksen. Ackles and Padalecki are such charismatic actors that you need real heavy-hitters who can come into that dynamic and hold their own. Jim Beaver does. Samantha Ferris does. Mark Pellegrino does. Felicia Day does. Mark Sheppard does. Sterling K. Brown does. Misha Collins did (I’m sorry, I don’t think so anymore. I know he’s so loved, so I’m sorry, but gotta call it like I see it.) Lauren Cohen does. Ty Olsson does. These characters enter for the first time and my reaction is: “WHO is THAT.” Supernatural has not forgotten “Nightshifter,” has not forgotten that secondary Arc, competing with the other Season 2 Arcs of “psychic kids” and Yellow-Eyes. Sam and Dean’s encounters with real law-enforcement inhibit them in ways they cannot control (and makes me wonder why on earth they would allow themselves to be incarcerated at all, especially under their real names! Dean has planned enough for his time in the slammer that he took off his necklace and ring, probably hiding it in the Impala’s glove compartment. But he didn’t plan for Agent Henriksen. Why? Wouldn’t Agent Henriksen have been fresh in their minds? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, or that it’s a flaw, I’m saying it’s an interesting and revealing slip on the part of the characters. They underestimate Agent Henriksen, which is so great, because Sam and Dean are normally such paranoid people. Maybe they think they’re better than everyone else, better than regular law-enforcement certainly, who end up just bungling their cases, a la “The Usual Suspects.”) What I love about Agent Henriksen showing up so early in “Folsom Prison Blues” is that it throws Dean way WAY off his game. He’s more freaked out by Henriksen than the prospect of being tossed around in the showers. Ackles plays that first interrogation scene brilliantly, attempting to re-create the élan (i.e. in Sheila Terms: Dean’s Burlesque) that was so attention-getting and riveting to the cops in “The Usual Suspects,” but he fails to “rivet” Henriksen in “Folsom Prison Blues”. (The “riveting” works, however, on Mara Daniels.) In Agent Henriksen, Dean has met his match.
Dean is
1. arrogant: he thought he could beat Agent Henriksen, he thought he was 10 steps ahead, because Winchesters Rule
2. a chameleon: although he talks a good game about wanting to clean up the case and feeling loyalty to Dad’s friend – there’s something false about that, something there that’s a cover-up for how much he, frankly, enjoys prison life. How much it relaxes him and ALLOWS him to be the most natural uninhibited version of himself. Dean is not confusing to the prisoners: they look at him and realize: “Oh. He’s not a sexual plaything after all. He’s an Alpha Dog. Let me kow-tow to him.” Prison limits moral/ethical choices, and that’s relaxing for Dean. He’s not terrified by Tiny. He plays with Tiny. He goads Tiny, sensing Tiny’s weak spots. And then he makes things right with “poor … giant … Tiny”, and he does so man to man – and it’s one of Dean’s most relaxed and sure-of-himself scenes in Season 2, because Dean’s openness works FOR him in prison instead of against him. Once he’s proved himself, he can be as vulnerable as he wants and nobody will punish him for it.
What Agent Henriksen does is change all of this. He sees through the facade. Dean can’t escape Henriksen’s piercing gaze.
Wrapping it up: the final sequence, split between two cemeteries, is major-motion-picture effective. The sequence withholds information, tricks the audience, builds enormous tension, and then – at the perfect moment – reveals the truth. But, and perhaps best of all, the truth is NOT revealed for the first time by showing Agent Henriksen looking around frustrated, or showing the two different cemetery signs. The truth is revealed by the smile on the public defender’s face as she gets into the car. It’s a goosebumps-worthy moment, and a REAL payoff. The sequence is stunning, masterfully conceived, and masterfully assembled by the editor afterwards. It’s a great example of an IDEA that started on the page in the script, and then is executed to perfection, with nothing lost in the transfer from page to screen.
Sorry So Long. This is Why These Things Take a Long Time. My Autumn Break Has Resulted in a Buildup of the Need to Chatterbox
Let’s get to the re-cap.
Teaser
Outside of the setting, there are a couple of nods to prison movies in the teasers, all of them visual.
First off, the look is gritty and distinctly un-beautiful, befitting the setting and the color scheme set up in the teaser (greys, blacks, and oranges) is maintained throughout except for the first scene in the Archaeological Museum. It’s a real location. A “yard” surrounded by fences and barbed wires, with prisoners milling around. The casting of these guys, the look of them, is so right-on that you would think Sam and Dean were really on location in Alcatraz or Attica or something. I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but …
… come on. That guy won’t ever play a millionaire. Similar to the revival gatherings in “Faith,” the “yard” scenes are filmed in a cinéma vérité style, which seems like it would be much easier than the more artificial and planned style, but it actually is quite difficult. That opener, not just the footage, but the way it’s edited, the camera restlessly roaming to take in the scene (the cards, the weights, the guys pacing), looks like a documentary. Nothing is landed on. Nothing is highlighted. The setting is established in the first second. And setting dictates style (or, it should: in the early seasons of Supernatural it always did).
After 4 seconds of that (but boy, what you can get done in a well-thought-out 4 seconds), the teaser moves onto a set of a cell block. (But imagine if this had been the first scene of the teaser, as opposed to the Yard. We wouldn’t get that verisimilitude feeling, that documentary feeling: this would so clearly be a set, and so some tension would be lost). It’s dark, with stark shadows of bars, and the camera is about at knee-height of a regular-sized man. I imagine that was to be able to show the ceiling: the barriers are on all sides. Also, any time you show a ceiling, it helps with the illusion that you are not on a set. A set has fake walls stretching up into open air off-frame.
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, in 1939, helped normalize the sight of ceilings in the frame (something you almost never see in movies before that). It helps visually, obviously. The camera is often almost at floor level, so they had to cut holes in the floor, mounting the camera beneath. But they wanted to show those damn ceilings. The ceilings are a showman’s trick: THIS IS REAL. THEY ARE IN A REAL ROOM NOT A SOUND STAGE. (Even though they are on a sound stage.)
Two construction workers move down the hall, speaking the exposition, very boring, and so Mike Rohl fills the screen with other things to look at to distract us: the ceiling, the bar-shadows, the metal-worker in the foreground, showering sparks around him like a Nordic God, plus the gentle camera move, the camera moving forward into the hallway, as the workers approach from the other direction.
When they go into the old cell, literally the only light source is from the flashlights. (They still do that, on occasion, like the first time Sam and Dean enter the bunker. I love it when they are brave enough and confident enough to do this.)
Next up: The cold-wind of the Nurse-Ratched-Ghost swoops by them (told you there was a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest nod! A sadistic nurse? Check.), fluttering papers down the hallway (I love that they randomly put papers in that hallway just so they could flutter about. Sure, it could be workers’ permits or whatever, but I think “we need something to SHOW that there’s a wind” is reason enough).
And the next series of shots I love, because they clearly need to be planned for beforehand so they would match: from fluttering-papers there’s a cut to a horizontal pan through a thick wall, and the pan keeps going, revealing the old cell block hallway through bars. Right as the camera gets to the center of the hallway, there’s another cut, but the camera keeps panning right, across Randall’s prison cell. It appears to be all one take because of that camera move, but it’s not.
You can’t create a sequence like that in the editing room. You have to have planned those horizontal pans from the get-go.
Randall is played by the wonderfully craggy-faced and yet somehow gentle-looking Jeff Kober.
Kober has been in everything. I think my first introduction to him was when he was a regular in China Beach, a series that was Appointment-TV for me at the time. It was a major moment for rejoicing when they finally got the music-rights issues worked out and released the series on DVD. Usually he shows up in a guest spot role, a one-time only thing. But he’s had recurring roles in a lot of things too, China Beach, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sons of Anarchy, and most recently The Walking Dead. He looks working-class. Hard to picture him playing a suave millionaire. I didn’t see the episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia where he appeared, but his character name there is “Creepy Guy,” and that’s about the size of it with Kober. There’s something malleable about his face that gives him the flexibility to play someone villainous, or to play someone pained. (In “Folsom Prison Blues” he gets to do both.) There’s something unformed there, something accessible, and yet he’s not Forrest Gump, he’s got a cunning streak. He’s not bitter. He’s probably done horrible shit. He appears to me to be fully institutionalized, probably in and out of juvie, and then in and out of prison for all of his adult years.
Like Dean, he finds prison relaxing. He can get some reading done, at least, which is how we first see him.
And there’s the first reference to a prison movie, which will come up again in dialogue later:
That’s Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz, of course. (Another connection which you can’t help but put together if you watch way too many movies: Escape from Alcatraz was the final collaboration between Eastwood and director Don Siegel, their most famous movie made together being Dirty Harry, a film assimilated so deeply by Dean that it’s part of his personality. Dean sees Dirty Harry as a “How-To” manual.) Escape from Alcatraz also features an escape, of course, but one of the similarities to “Folsom Prison Blues” is Eastwood’s character getting thrown into “the hole,” which happens to Dean, it happens to Tim Robbins in Shawshank, it happens to Steve McQueen in both The Great Escape and, more harrowingly, in Papillon. Eastwood also befriends a guy in the next cell over, reminiscent of Steve McQueen in the “hole” in The Great Escape, and mirrored here with Dean and Lucas as well as Dean and Tiny’s chat through the infirmary screen.
So, you know, have at it with this shit, I could go on.
In re Randall: What is the name of Tim Robbins’ character’s alias in Shawshank? The one who makes it possible for him to siphon off all of those funds and then go withdraw all that cash post-escape? Randall.
The minute-hand stopping with a thunderous echo is a nice creepy effect throughout, and so is the fact that the video-monitor showing Randall yelling for help is fuzzing-up due to Ghost on the Loose.
Here’s yet another example of the deliberate-yet-casual beauty of every single shot in these early seasons, where the greatest amount of care was put into every frame.
LOOK at the detail in that shot. That took TIME to set up and the shot lasts 2, maybe 3 seconds. Look at that room beyond on the right, with the shafts of light. God, what a rich atmosphere for a short shot in the teaser with a no-name character. It’s that kind of detail that is often lost in the series now, the amount of CARE put into short nothing scenes is striking and helps make every scene in every given episode have a mood that links it up to the whole.
A couple more feasts-for-the-eye shots:
— Lighting on guard’s face when he says into his walkie-talkie: “Lights out B-Block”.
— The following massive shot where you see the lights go out, and the grate far above, and his small figure remains just slightly lit.
There are other great atmospheric details in the teaser:
— the very familiar-tone of the dialogue between the guard and Randall. Except for the fact that Randall is behind bars, and for that first smash of the stick, it’s not particularly adversarial. Randall’s a 10-year-old kid being told to go to bed NOW, it’s past his bedtime. Plus, he and the guard know each other well, they’ve been through this a million times.
— the old camera-as-monster trick, closing in on the guard
— and the super-melodramatic final shot, the camera scooting across the walls and then climbing up on the diagonal to Randall’s terrified face peeking out through the bars.
1st Scene
Three Months Later
The first part of the lengthy multi-setting first scene is filmed in a “thriller” kind of way, complete with “tense” music, our first clue that what we are looking at is not quite on the level. It’s a slick and indistinct style. They’re in an Arkansas museum. You know why they’re in Arkansas? Because Johnny Cash was born in Arkansas, that’s why.
The museum looks like a shitty office building or a doctor’s office. (Clearly all the money for the episode was spent on that cell block.) Sam grumbles about “the plan.” I think he has a point. Wouldn’t it have just been simpler to just get jobs at the prison as cafeteria workers or janitors? I’m sorry, I won’t rain on the parade.
In my first time viewing, I assumed that they were after some voodoo artifact or something, especially when I saw them breaking into the glass cases, and taking out a knife and a tomahawk. They stand back to back, fingering their phallic weapons, lost in fantasies of their conflicted masculinity. Hahaha. No, they’re just waiting.
Still, it’s great to look at.
There’s some interesting eye contact stuff between them as they’re being cuffed, and it was the kind of behavioral stuff that I couldn’t really interpret in my first time viewing. Dean clearly hates being cuffed, it makes him panicky, but then he throws Sam an almost jaunty “Hey man, it’s all going as planned” look that I couldn’t interpret, and Sam submits to the cuffing with less expression, but boy, is he a thundercloud. He’s furious at Dean, not the arrest.
The mug-shot section is obviously beloved by Supernatural fans, but one of my favorite elements is the off-screen voice of the over-it unimpressed cop.
Sam takes Thundercloud to a new level…
… while Dean is having a ball.
Should he be Nick Nolte? Should he be Zoolander?
We all know what he chooses.
As funny as all that is, the “ching” of the comedic trope “ba-dum-CHING” is in that offscreen voice. “Shut up.” The cop isn’t riled up in the slightest. He’s not entertained. He’s not annoyed. He’s bored. NEXT. Unsurprisingly, Dean’s Burlesque fails to do the job. Judging from his behavior, though, he’s not trying to get anything from his Burlesque this time. He’s just goofing around. And it’s always fun to see this bizarre character goof around. It’s fun to see Sam goof around, too, because there are way more barriers between Sam and Goofball-Dom. And Padalecki is FUNNY, like all great Straight Men are funny. The Straight Man is the one who ALLOWS the comedy. Cary Grant, a great Straight Man, said he learned how to do it by standing backstage in his vaudeville years and studying the act of George Burns (Straight Man) and Burns’ wife Gracie Allen (Goofball). Dean’s Burlesque in “Folsom Prison Blues” runs so deep that we see that it IS him. His prison burlesque suits him. That’s funny in and of itself, but it’s Sam’s REACTIONS to his brother’s Burlesque that drive the joke home. The all-important “ching” in other words. Too many directors know how to do the “ba-dum” but they fail with the “ching.” And without the “ching,” you got nothing. Dean is all “Ba-Dum.” Sam is all “Ching.”
The scene continues with a pan up from beneath a table to show Dean sitting by himself in the interrogation room. Think back to those great interrogation scenes in “The Usual Suspects,” when the POV shifted to the cops’ perspective. We could see the brothers as the cops saw them, and they looked crazy and dangerous, but then brilliant and intuitive. (A similar thing happens in “Folsom Prison Blues,” but not with Agent Henriksen of course and not in this scene. We’ll have to wait for the “visiting room” scene between Dean and his public defender to get that POV shift, where we are asked to see Dean through her eyes.)
The following scene is a masterpiece. Dean is Burlesquing it up when Agent Henriksen enters, because Dean has only spoken with Henriksen on the phone. He has no idea what Henriksen looks like and no idea the cool-smart mo-fo he’s dealing with. Dean doesn’t respect cops. They get in his way. He’ll breeze through the bogus interrogation, no problem, be thrown in jail, and then he’ll be able to get to work. Easy-peasy.
Watching Dean falter is … upsetting? Scary? It makes me extremely uneasy, and that is entirely because of Ackles’ subtlety of showing it. It’s just a glimmer in his eyes, a crinkle of “Wait … what? … WHAT? … Oh shit.” That kind of work is vulnerable, the kind of vulnerability that has nothing to do with shedding tears or doing a sex scene. It’s the kind of vulnerability that only the great action heroes (Harrison Ford, Burt Reynolds) allow themselves. Maybe it’s because they’re so strong as actors they can afford to let us see their cracks and flaws. Ackles is like that. He lets Dean weaken, get nervous. It’s a piss-your-pants kind of look. He’s not invested in Dean being on a pedestal. He’s invested in truth. This may seem elementary, and it is, but so many male actors are unable to do this. (You see it all the time in acting classes. Not that women are inherently more talented, but that women are not afraid of their emotions and are okay with being vulnerable. Sometimes, male actors have to really work to show vulnerability because they got vulnerability shamed out of them since they were kids. You have to break that conditioning.)
And it’s subtle what he does with his malleable face. It’s internal. The interaction starts off with bravado, and “I think I’m adorable.” (And Dean actually does think that. He doesn’t say “awesome.” He says “adorable.”) When Agent Henriksen reveals his identity, Dean’s lit-up “Hey Ma Look I’m a Criminal” expression freezes and unease sparks in his eyes. If you weren’t looking deeply, you wouldn’t catch it. Or if the camera were farther back, you wouldn’t see it.
There’s more to come as Agent Henriksen goes on with the charges (and I’ll get to him in a minute), with backup from his smirking partner (Kurt Evans). Dean attempts to keep the “game face” on, but he is legitimately thrown. At points, you see him collapse into an “oh fuck” state …
… before wrapping himself back up in the shreds of Burlesque to toss out a jaunty comment. But it’s weak, and he knows it.
The vulnerability of the man is highlighted by the stark lighting (seemingly realistic but completely created and carefully chosen: those bars of white on the walls, as random as the papers fluttering in the teaser but there to give the frame some interest) and the fact that he doesn’t appear to be wearing makeup, so his freckles show clearly. Freckles make him look like a little-girl orphan. The “seemingly realistic” look helps: When his eyelashes cast shadows it’s not an “effect,” created with carefully placed lights, it’s just what those eyelashes do normally. In other words, Dean is stripped of protection: even Serge Ladouceur and Jerry Wanek have abandoned him.
Agent Henriksen makes Dean seem like a Beta Male. This hat-trick wouldn’t be possible without Charles Malik Whitfield’s performance, a mixture of licking-his-chops relish, back-and-forth banter with his prisoner that doesn’t allow Dean any room to maneuver (not even inside), and, crucially, the sense that this man has lost sleep over Dean Winchester. His marriage probably fell apart because he couldn’t talk about anything else. Or maybe more than one marriage.
That’s a lot to play in one scene, and sometimes all of those things are there in one line.
And on top of all of THAT, is something I can only refer to as “showmanship.” Whitfield has a sense of showmanship, something he has in common with Dean. Listen to his line-reading of “I gotta say, I was ….. surprised.” There’s a gentle funky head-roll there. It’s my favorite part of the scene, I never get sick of it. And watch how the look in Whitfield’s eyes changes near the ending of that sentence: from cruel-jovial to laser-beam. It’s so crystal crystal clear.
I think this is why fans love Henriksen so much. He brings SO MUCH to the show. It’s hard to believe he’s only in 4 episodes.
The characters who throw Dean off his game … well, honestly, many many characters throw him off his game, because of his self-perception (“Tall Tales”! “Frontierland”! Help!) … but when someone like Agent Henriksen comes along the entire series benefits.
(I love that Whitfield, despite his success, still teaches a regular acting class. Did you know that Jon Hamm, despite becoming a superstar, also teaches an acting class, the same one he’s been teaching for 15 years, 20 years, the one he started up long before he became famous? Same with Whitfield. This says so much about these guys and their devotion to the craft.)
The standoff is interrupted by the appearance of public defender Mara Daniels (Bridget White). I’m not saying she was chosen for her coloring, the pale white skin and blonde hair, but I will say that it’s perfect visually and thematically. She carries her own light WITH her because she reflects everything. And she gives a very smart – and very … strange? … performance. There’s a mystery there. She’s willing to admit to the intimidating FBI agents that she “can’t put her finger on” what is “off” here, and she is then shown the door. I don’t blame Henriksen for that, but I love that she’s going with her gut. Even if it makes her look bad. The visiting-room scene between Mara and Dean is a stunner: breathlessly intimate. Dean is almost like a cult leader in that scene, weaving a spell over her, and you can see her try to maintain her critical faculties.
In this super-macho episode, where every single male character peacocks for one other, a public defender who is also a woman uses what could be referred to as “woman’s intuition” to help the brothers trick the FBI agent who brushed her off so contemptuously. Would Dean’s “Look me in the eyes” thing have worked with a man? You know, he would have tried it anyway, but still. How often does that work for him with men?
Sometimes it takes a woman to cut through male bullshit. Or: because she responds to Male Beauty (because she is a human being), she is willing to go out on a limb. That’s what’s partially there in that visiting-room scene. I always like to remember that it wasn’t Sam Phillips who “discovered” Elvis. It was his secretary (but really his partner), Marion Keisker, who first put Elvis on tape when he was 18 years old, and then played said tape for Sam. Sam was not impressed. Marion kept pushing, kept recommending Elvis to Sam over the next year, until Sam caved. That’s not how Sam tells it (he takes all the credit), but it’s how Marion tells it, and she strikes me as a more reliable narrator. Marion, a woman, sensed something in Elvis, something she “couldn’t put her finger on.” (How about the fact that he was exotically beautiful, despite the pimples and the awkwardness? I am SURE that that was also at work in Marion, attraction to him, and her reaction was prophetic of the nationwide-group-orgasm that would follow once Elvis took his thing to the masses. She sensed it in 1953. Would Sam Phillips have allowed himself to react sexually to Elvis?)
So something about Dean gets under Mara Daniels’ skin. She actually goes and does what he asks, researching some dumb nurse. And she actually sends him the results of her research. And then, and THEN, she pulls the fast one on Henriksen so the boys can escape.
When she walks in, Dean looks over at her, and he’s shot in profile, and his hair looks scruffy and he looks like he’s a kid in the principal’s office. When she asks him if he’s Dean Winchester, he says “In the flesh.” He’s not strictly batting his eyelashes at her, but there is a little bit of that going on. His voice isn’t strictly Mae West-y “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” but there is a little bit of that going on. It’s an earthy line reading. It’s subtle, but there’s definitely a WOMAN!! ME NEED WOMAN TO GET ME OUT OF THIS. (I’ve mentioned Dean’s batting-eyelashes thing in so many posts, but I tracked down the first reference, which goes into it the most. Sorry for the refresher courses. I’m not crazy about linking to myself so much, like I’m footnoting the re-cap, but it’s really for people who stumble upon these posts out of the blue.)
Mara shuts down Henriksen, and Dean throws Henriksen a weak smile (it’s that “shrugging with his face” thing he does) that’s supposed to telegraph, “Ha ha, I won,” except that it doesn’t telegraph that at all. Even he is not convinced of it.
I’m not sure that one public defender would represent both brothers, but no matter. Sitting in the same interrogation room, Mara holds court, Sam and Dean across the table from one another. Looking back on my first time viewing, I still had no idea what was going on. The exposition doesn’t come until the last section of this big first scene. But both Henriksen and Mara Daniels are talking about cases that stretch back over a year, and this is some heavy-duty shit. Three counts of murder being the worst. Indictments from 5 separate states. I mean, imagine what these guys look like to outsiders. As she explains to them what is happening, Sam can barely hold it together, glancing up at the ceiling, pissed off at Dean’s cockamamie plan that has brought them to this juncture. Dean is calmer now (because: WOMAN), and both brothers make sure to verify that they will be held in the Green River Detention Center.
Booker T. & the M.G.’s “Green Onions” is a perfect music choice to accompany Sam and Dean, handcuffed and in chains, out of the bus, past the yard, and through the prison to their cells. It’s jaunty, it has no lyrics, it’s repetitive, and there’s almost a “Nyah nyah nyah” quality to the melody. Nobody gives a shit about you here, Sam and Dean.
A couple things:
— the shitty battered grey bus. Jerry Wanek has kept the color palette so limited, one of the reasons why the episode looks so great. You never see anything on the screen that isn’t grey, black, or orange. A standard-issue yellow schoolbus wouldn’t fit with the palette. They spray-painted that shit grey.
— That camera move, cork-screwing from the ground up into the air. A shot like that takes half the day to plan and execute and it’s so much more effective than a bunch of different shots edited together. You get the micro and the macro in one movement.
The scene continues with the prisoners’ shuffling walk alongside the fence, with the incarcerated men growling and snarling at the newbies. Just in case we don’t get the memo, one guy points at a newbie and shouts: “YOU’RE MINE.” We don’t see exactly who he points at, but the placement suggests Dean, as does Dean’s reaction to the words, head moving away from the verbal threat, but maintaining a “Hey, nice joke” front, and then the joke cracked over his shoulder at Sam. The horrible joke. Which of course does not go over well with Sam, who is completely uncomfortable throughout. Sam isn’t used to being prey. Dean is, he takes it more in stride.
Driven on by the song the sequence continues, in a pure moment of theatricality: prison guards leading the new prisoners in single-file down a dark cell block with shadows of bars coming down from overhead. Neither Dean nor Sam is in the lead. It’s some other dude, with long hair, and (the joke is) he’s so huge that the very tall Sam and Dean can’t even be seen behind him. Everyone’s walking to the beat. Dancing to the jailhouse rock, perhaps? Everyone holds a towel with a roll of toilet paper on top of it. Then comes the moment I mentioned before.
Here’s Dean interacting with his roommate for the first time.
Here’s Sam interacting with his roommate for the first time.
“Green Onions” continues, and we’re still not done with this enormous chunk of an opening. Next up: the shuffling line of prisoners, with the camera panning-right-behind-the-bars the way it did in the teaser. The camera moves down the line to meet up with Sam and Dean. Look at every face of every guy. Did they put out a call for ex-cons?
And finally, finally, in Sam and Dean’s whispered conversation, we learn what the hell is going on, and what they have been up to. And I’m with Sam. It’s boneheaded. If you feel loyalty to Dad’s old Corps buddy, then have Dad’s old corps buddy get you a job in the cafeteria, or as a janitor. This actually IS too much to ask.
Sam is pissed, anxious, and huddling close to Dean. You can see him wrinkle up his eyebrows with disbelief/scorn when Dean murmurs that Henriksen was “faster than he thought.” That look comes up about three or four more times in the episode. It’s one of my favorite Sam expressions. It’s that “ching” thing I talked about. Dean is funny, but we need that Straight Man.
Dean’s Burlesque is back. Sam glowers and Dean gleams, there’s no other word for it. There’s an interesting subtextual argument here, something mentioned only in passing, and not re-visited, but considering how close the season is to its end, and how the season started (as well as how it will end), it’s a welcome nuance. Sam asks, skeptical, “Dean, be straight with me. You’re doing this for Deacon.” Loyalty to a guy they don’t know can’t be all there is to it. Dean answers immediately with yes, Deacon was Dad’s buddy, he asked us a favor, blah blah … but Sam’s question just hangs there. Season 2 as I said way back in the beginning of these Season 2 re-caps isn’t about its plot with the psychic kids and Sam/Yellow-Eyes. In fact, that plot-line is the least effective “Arc” in the whole series. Instead, Season 2 cares about the stages of grief, and grief takes a long time, and people can act insane in the year following the death of a loved one. (I really went into my thoughts on that in the “Everybody Loves a Clown” re-cap, where the plot is so thin you can barely see it. Who cares about the clown. What matters is grief.) Sam is just starting to get his bearings after the death of Jess. Both Dean and Sam have been acting out in all kinds of ways in reaction to Dad’s death. They aren’t in sync at all (because grief doesn’t progress in identical ways.) I so appreciate Supernatural honoring how LONG the process can be. There’s a reason people in the 19th century wore black armbands for a YEAR after the death of a loved one. A YEAR. They understood grief far better than we do, where you lose your dad and you have to be back at work in 5 days. When I got so mentally sick in 2013, I told the doctor that I was unable to read for an entire year after my dad’s death. He told me that grief actually injures the brain, shutting down unnecessary functions trying to protect itself. It looks like a concussion. To me, that’s what Season 2 is all about.
So Sam’s prodding personal question is bold, and Dean rarely fares well with those. “Folsom Prison Blues” never gives Dean a monologue of explanation. Or a confession: “Listen, I miss Dad …” or “I know that Dad would have been disappointed in us if we hadn’t taken the case …” We don’t need those explicit words because those feelings drive Dean’s onslaught of a monologue about loyalty that follows. The speech is slightly scold-y (“You should care about this too”) and sanctimonious. Big brother stuff. I love how it’s written – it’s a real “speech,” maybe even over-written, but I love how he performs it: Each sentence flows to the next, every word makes its own sense, and his behavior is directed both back behind his head at Sam, and forward at the prison guard, all while he’s trying to look like he’s not whispering at all.
Maybe best of all, though, is Sam’s whiff of an eyeroll after it. It’s very slight, and it’s more irritated than comedic, but it’s an eyeroll nonetheless. “Ching.”
2nd scene
Yes!
1. Food Behavior. Always a good thing in Supernatural.
2. It’s, what, 10 minutes after the hallway scene in Scene 1? And look at how Dean has settled in. He likes the food, he’s able to eat and talk at the same time, he barely glances around, he keeps his voice down, he’s totally at ease. Sam hulks over on the side, urgently hissing at Dean, who compliments the chicken and keeps talking. It’s as though Dean doesn’t even feel all the locked doors around him or the fence between them and freedom. Sam LOOKS trapped, doesn’t he? Like he’s jumping out of his skin. Dean is relaxed and hungry and ready to get to work.
It’s funny: You know about those people who have been “institutionalized.” People who have always been in trouble with the law, and find freedom disconcerting. Charles Manson is perhaps the most alarming example of that phenomenon. I think, all told, Manson has spent maybe 10 years on the outside. He started young. He’s a lunatic, but he has said that he needs to be in prison. When he was out, he was trying to get back in. Institutionalization is a THING that happens, and I’m sure books have been written on it, and social workers are aware of it, and all the rest. It’s not so much a defeatist attitude, and it doesn’t “present” as self-loathing or anything like that. It’s just that the person feels more comfortable in prison, because the options are limited and it’s familiar. I’m not saying this is RIGHT or that the system doesn’t need serious overhauling, I’m just mentioning that the mindset EXISTS. And what’s funny about it is: Dean is already institutionalized. And he’s been “free” for most of his life. But the walls and bars and locks of the Winchester Commando Family Unit, the prison-guard of John, the clear limits on what you could and could not do (you could not have a girlfriend, you could not go to college, you could not make any other plans) … all of those limits RELAX Dean (even if he secretly resented them) and all of those limits make Sam CRAZY.
I mean …
And compare to …
Consider the difference in Dean-Chameleon-Like Qualities between “Hollywood Babylon” and “Folsom Prison Blues.” That’s why I love that these episodes are back-to-back. In “Hollywood Babylon,” we got to glory in Dean being part of the team, and reveling in a sense of community (while still managing to work his case.) In “Folsom Prison Blues,” that very same quality – which we just learned about in “Hollywood Babylon” – is shown through a different prism. Dean does not resist his new context, and he fully accepts how relaxing he finds it.
Sam, on the other hand, looks like that famous Tenniel drawing of Alice grown too big for the house, her back hunched up, her arms sticking out of the windows.
He bucks against the feeling of being imprisoned. Sam’s felt trapped since he was a child. At times, he had looked at Dean with wonder (and maybe some contempt): “Why do you accept Dad’s rules so automatically? What else do you want out of life?” As far as we know, from the flashbacks we’ve seen thus far, young Sam never pushed young Dean with questions like that. The rules were too set-in-stone and there was no space for that kind of ambiguity. And if Dean questioned how his life was set up, if Dean started leaving space for himself, the whole house of cards would crumble. But Sam didn’t see it that way. He experienced his family as a prison.
Most people would want to get out of prison as quickly as possible (Dean isn’t “most people”) … but for Sam …
… it’s his worst nightmare.
And Dean’s relaxation and “no big deal” attitude leaves Sam abandoned. Sam feeling abandoned by Dean is one of the driving forces of the relationship in the episode. It happens a lot in the series (“Everybody Loves a Clown” showed Sam feeling abandoned by Dean because he didn’t feel Dean was grieving properly). The need to be “in sync” at all times is what ends up causing so much trouble. Even married couples need girls’ nights out and man-caves to get the hell away from each other on occasion. But this is the way the Winchesters operate. Dean, sinking into prison-life and submitting to the jungle-law of “the Yard” is alarming to Sam for all kinds of reasons (it’s almost like he sees Dean, really SEES him, for the first time), but one of the main reasons is that it leaves Sam feeling alone. Alone in his drive to GET OUT. (If you think about Sam’s childhood, it makes the situation a full-circle thing with all kinds of disturbing connotations.)
When Dean gets up to leave, he’s as comfortable as if he were walking across his own nonexistent living room. Like: where are you going, Dean? How do you already know your way around? Are you allowed to leave now? What’s the schedule? Sam hustles to follow (almost like, “Wait, don’t leave me here alone”), with an awkward glance back at the trays (Sam wondering if they should “strike” the trays?) and in his jittery-ness bumps another prisoner, a wild-eyed looking-guy named Lucas (Steven Cree Molison).
Sam doesn’t get the rules yet. He thinks he’s in a normal environment. Dean understands immediately, and struts forward from the blurry background to take over. When he tells Lucas to “let it go,” he looks extremely young and extremely soft. Practically mushy, a face like Play-Doh. Freckled Play-Doh. Beautiful but, dare I say, punch-able. Or, adjacent to that, fuck-able. Dean knows all of this. (Or, if he doesn’t, Ackles does.) If there’s anything Dean understands, it’s his own physicality and what it does to other people, the effect it can have, as well as confidence that he can hold his own in any fight. His Beauty is one of the many weapons in his arsenal. He knows he is underestimated constantly. He counts on it.
When Dean charges forward, he’s protecting Sam, asserting his cock-swinging business card to the group, and also – despite the “let it go” – he’s picking a fight and it needs to be a big one. It needs to bring Deacon into the room. It’s part of the bogus plan Dean and Deacon came up with on the phone when setting up this whole thing. (And I imagine that Dean and Deacon’s was a private conversation, and Dean said “Yes” to the assignment without checking with Sam.)
Dean is lost in his Burlesque, wisecracking and actually winking at Sam. In the fight that follows, Dean makes a spectacle of himself, and his superstardom among the prisoners dates from that moment. People will kow-tow to that fearless-baby-faced-gorgeous-psychopath. It’s another version of that Dean “thing”: putting himself on display, flaunting himself. Okay, if I’m going to be the center of attention in any room, even when I hate it and get embarrassed at birthday parties, then I might as well REALLY be the center of attention. Give the public what they want. It’s a very bizarre and interesting duality in the character.
Deacon (Garwin Sanford) comes strolling in to bust up the fight, a macho thin-lipped sadist.
All I’ll say about Deacon for now is that I’m not surprised that he and John Winchester got along.
Dean throws a wisecrack at Sam as he’s dragged off to solitary, like he’s having a ball. Which he probably is. Sam is once again given the final moment of the scene, standing there in the middle of the room, looking completely unmoored without anything to hide behind, not even a doorway nearby, some escape, God, let me escape….
I’ve written about this before but Jared Padalecki is so tall, and so BUFF and so good-looking that it’s amazing how he can make himself disappear. Or at least shrink. Make himself seem small and unsure. (“I lost my shoe…”) He’s extremely talented.
3rd scene
I cherish the opening shot of Dean. It’s one of the most gorgeous shots of him in the whole series. Or, let’s tone it down: It’s one of my favorite shots of him in the whole series, how’s that. It’s stunning. And it’s so brief! So simple! Listen, he would be gorgeous in a used-car commercial shot on video tape, that’s obvious, and Season 7 and 8 proved that you could actually work hard to ruin the signature look of the show and he will still come out looking awesome, but how great is it that this “pretty man” found his stardom in a show that knew how to light him? Knew how to HANDLE that face? Because it’s handsome, for sure, but it’s a very different kind of face and requires people who know what to do with it. Compare Supernatural to Smallville, with the understanding that the two shows had completely different styles. Ackles is gorgeous, but is he any more gorgeous than any other hunk who shows up on Tween-oriented shows? Not really. I mean, maybe, but honestly: not really. Hollywood is filled with Beautiful People. That’s where they all go. I can hear the howls of protest now. But bear with me: Supernatural brought out the true DEPTH of his beauty, and DEVOTED itself to filming him in a way that is almost profound. I wonder if maybe Hollywood is SO full of gorgeous people that sometimes it’s taken for granted? Perhaps. But Kim Manners and David Nutter and Robert Singer and Serge Ladouceur, hit the jackpot with this guy – visually – and they seemed to know it immediately. Not only would they have fun plunging the entire screen into blackness, but they would have fun lighting that face. Everyone “ups” their game in such a situation. (Cinematographers in the 1930s basically took their craft to new heights when they had Joan Crawford to work their magic on. My main digression on this topic, and the devotion to Beauty that is so striking in these first seasons, thanks to Kim Manners, is in the “Shadow” re-cap – scroll down to “The Importance of Beauty”). But what’s really great is that they didn’t seem to have to spend a lot of time figuring it out, the way you can tell that the X-Files team spent the entire first season basically not realizing what a Goldmine of Beauty they had in Gillian Anderson. Throughout Season 1, they stumbled in the dark with it – her hair, her wardrobe, the lighting … they couldn’t figure it (or her) out. She looks almost dumpy at times.
Letting her look dumpy is a CRIME. She’s a GODDESS. She’s VENUS DE MILO.
But they got their shit together after Season 1 and devoted half of their effort to filming her like a Renaissance Madonna from then on out. Suddenly every shot of her could be hung on the wall of the Louvre.
In contrast, an understanding of Ackles’ weird and intense beauty was there from the pilot. I love so much the shot in the pilot of Dean hiding in the police station, which I went on about in the re-cap for the pilot. The Supernatural team hit the ground running with him. If the “look” of your particular show is going to be 90% shadows, you really have to know what you’re doing. Much easier to just put up a bunch of lights, flood the set with light, and get on with your day. That’s why everyone is “flattened out” in much soap opera work, with shadows eradicated. Because everyone is lit the same. It’s just more efficient. But everyone is NOT lit the same in Supernatural: They really really care about Faces. You might not get it just by looking at him … but Ackles’ face is made for shadows. Some whole other THING comes out when he’s half in darkness.
So this! This makes me happy!
And it only lasts 2 seconds!
Then comes both the visual and verbal nod to Steve McQueen’s baseball-against-the-wall-in-solitary scene in The Great Escape.
It’s as explicit a “nod” to its own reference as that lit-up bar, totally out of place in a country inn, in “Playthings.”
Steve McQueen has two famous sequences in The Great Escape, one being his spectacular escape via motorcycle (with McQueen doing his own stunts, because he was a macho lunatic. That whole sequence had been added FOR McQueen.) The second most famous sequence is the image of him sitting in a grey cell, with a bar of pale light across him, throwing a baseball against the wall and catching it, all while talking to a nearby prisoner in another cell.
The scene in Supernatural has all of the Great Escape elements, with the notable addition of a rampaging ghost and a death.
4th scene
Talk about gorgeous.
This is “I can’t put my finger on it” scene, and it’s a great standoff, especially, as I mentioned, that Mara Daniels is bold enough to say she doesn’t know WHY she has doubts. Henriksen can be pretty intimidating and sarcastic. The fact that she sits there and opens herself up to that is an interesting glimpse into her character, plus the hint of a goofy sense of humor in her line-reading “It’s just … strange.” That line-reading makes me think she’d be a lot of fun with a few drinks in her.
One of the reasons the standoff is so effective (and it’s mysterious to me as to why it works so well, but I just know that it does) is that Rohl keeps cutting to the other FBI guy, looking on and enjoying the interaction. Instead of zooming in on the two adversaries, close-up to close-up, he keeps showing us that guy over to the side. I think one of the reasons it works well is that it gives the impression visually that the deck is stacked against Mara Daniels (and by association, Sam and Dean). The other guy doesn’t even have any lines in this scene, but his presence is important. I’m not sure I would have barged in there like that, without having more of my shit together, because those guys are scary together. She doesn’t have her shit together. “It doesn’t feel right …” “It’s strange …” “It’s weird …” “I can’t put my finger on it …” You can see why Henriksen tells her to buzz off because the “grown-ups” are trying to get some work done. Why are you wasting my time with something you “can’t put your finger on”? But it’s that uncertainty in Mara Daniels – not emotional uncertainty or intellectual uncertainty – but … sixth-sense uncertainty … that makes her interesting as a character. She holds the screen.
I like, too, that nobody is “wrong” here. Agent Henriksen isn’t a villain. He truly believes these guys are maniacs on the loose. Mara Daniels has been hired to defend them, and she would defend them even if they were guilty, but she has done her due diligence, pored through the files, interviewed people (including Linda Blair!) and something doesn’t add up. How many people in bureaucratic positions like hers let that kind of stuff slide because it’s just too hard to “fight City Hall”?
5th scene
And let’s not forget Jared Padalecki’s gorgeousness. Similar to Ackles, he’s very handsome, but he also can look … odd. The overshadowing forehead, the thin lips, and then – incongruously – the fact that he appears to be able to blush on cue. It’s a STRONG face (more Joan Crawford-ish than Ackles’). And they have so much fun figuring out ways to make his bone structure cast these beautiful long shadows, plunging the rest of his face into darkness.
Prime example.
And see what limiting the color scheme does? I love what this scene looks like. I love the pauses, too. Supernatural is not afraid of pauses.
After Dean’s show-stopping burlesque, and the bossy-pants “this is how it’s gonna be” monologue, it’s important to highlight how Sam does business. Which is very very different. And equally effective.
My favorite part of this scene is how Sam listens to Randall tell the story. Sam’s opening gambit didn’t go over great, but the interaction picks up steam after that. Randall is not a wild-eyed maniac, and there’s a gentleness in him that is like Sam’s gentleness. There’s a similarity in senses of humor too. You can see Sam egging Randall on, keeping him talking by being lit-up and engaged in listening, and it’s just as obvious as Dean egging Lucas on to throw the first punch, but it’s quieter, almost invisible.
This is how Sam blends in, this is how Sam the Giant becomes so invisible that he is able to operate in ways that Dean never could. For example, Dean would fuck up this interaction with Randall. Dean’s bad at the “questioning” part. He flirts, or rushes. But Sam keeps it casual, asks the questions in a “Hey, this just occurred to me” kind of way. Randall turns out to be okay with talking.
And Sam listening! Why is this such a heart-crack to me? It’s present in the whole scene and I just grabbed one expression that I love, but there are more.
Maybe it’s because, similar to how young Dean looks when he’s butting his punch-fuck-able face up into Lucas’ noggin, Sam looks really young. In contrast to the Thundercloud going on in every other scene.
And, in his own way, Sam understands the rules of prison very well, and how much to reveal, how much not to reveal, how much is too much to ask, etc. Dean isn’t there to take over and “show him the ropes” and he does better than fine (and doesn’t get his face bashed in, either.) In his soft conversation with Randall, Sam’s openness helps bring out another piece of the puzzle. It’s a seduction, but not the sexual-seduction that Dean tries to work on everyone. It’s a listening seduction. I’ve written about Jared Padalecki’s gift with listening before. I think my main monologue about it was in “Nightmare,” because that entire episode was about Sam listening. He’s so good at it that you might not even notice it. Or even realize just how good it is. I always look for how he listens. He never misses any subtlety. Listening is active, not passive. Like all good actors, Padalecki understands that.
6th scene
Back to the Burlesque! After a night in solitary, Dean is released into the “Yard.” Sam is presumably busy mopping up the bathroom in the morning. During that short amount of time, Dean has gained complete control of The Yard. We don’t SEE him do it, we just see the end result as a fait accompli. By the time Sam arrives, Dean has multiplied what was probably a pack of cigarettes, bribed off another prisoner, into a mighty pile of smokes. And I love the griminess of the cards. (Details, details, details.) Because we’re coming into the Burlesque in medias res, we react like Sam does. The look on Sam’s face, watching Dean cackle and goad another infuriated prisoner who has lost to the Master, is ours. How has THIS happened in, like, 2 hours?
The prisoner Dean beats is scary-looking and tattooed and slams his fist down, and Dean laughs, “It’s a cruel game, my friend!”
Sam slowly sits down and says, “You don’t even smoke” (Straight Man) and Dean is so busy piling up his loot he can’t even look up.
And I love that he calls cigarettes “currency of the realm.” An old boyfriend of mine wanted to form a band and call it Coin of the Realm, and I thought that would be a really good band-name. But then I was gaga over him, so your mileage may vary. Dean is so lost in his role that there’s no room for Sam. There’s no room for Sam to delve into what the hell is going on, and why Dean is investing so much energy in “socializing” when they have so much work to do and are going to be gone tomorrow (hopefully). (This is often an error in analysis on Sam’s part. Dean can socialize and get information at the same time. Think of his full-blown relationship with off-screen Sagittarius Amy in “Shadow.” I love that relationship.) But “socializing” here is different than socializing at a happy hour. Sam perceives something new in his brother, an elation, a freedom and relaxation, that would be positive in any other setting. But here … Sam doesn’t even know where to begin.
The outside setting puts them in a raw light, unfiltered, grey-ish and cold. Dean’s freckles are ablaze. There’s nothing between us and him. Well, except for the burlesque. Sam starts talking about the case, but hesitantly, because he’s still drawn into the pile of smokes Dean has racked up, and what does it all mean … does Dean want to … stay here? They commiserate over what they’ve learned, and Sam’s intensity of purpose pleases Dean, who has been pissed at Sam’s hesitance from the beginning.
Sam says he “has a plan” and the look of sheer uncertainty undercuts what he’s saying. It’s great. Neither of them know what they are doing and are making it up as they go. Then, boom, boom, two prison-movie references in a row from Dean: “You’re like Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz!” He’s proud of Sam! Clint Eastwood PLANNED in Escape from Alcatraz, that’s my boy! Sam reminds Dean that they don’t have accelerant, and Dean thinks a bit, and continues his movie-metaphor: “Good thing I’m like James Garner from The Great Escape.” (I re-watched The Great Escape a couple of years ago, and in that re-watch found myself so riveted by both Garner and Charles Bronson. Steve McQueen could take over any movie he was in, just by sheer charisma, but if you recall, he’s not really part of the “group” in The Great Escape. He’s the loner, off doing his own thing, while the rest of them scheme and commiserate. James Garner plays the Morgan-Freeman-in-Shawshank type, the guy who can get you anything. If you need something, a corkscrew, a porn mag, a carburetor, or creme brûlée, James Garner will get it done, even from behind bars. If you’re GOING to be in a life-or-death situation, you don’t want to be with Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, because he’d take off on his motorcycle and leave you in the dust. You want to be with James Garner.)
Sam, who has seen the movie, thinks about this, trying to put the pieces together: Wait, now who did James Garner play, what is Dean referring to … (The details in these actors’ performances) but Dean has already scooped up his smokes and proceeds to yell at the whole Yard, “HEY, FELLAS.”
Fellas, Dean?
And he’s shot from below, to make him seem even more huge on “the Yard”. It’s Dean’s self-perception plus Dean’s reality in one camera move.
7th scene
John Shiban keeps the “pretty sure” joke going, Sam and Dean needling one another with the same dialogue, throwing flaws-in-logic back in each others’ faces. Dean’s the first one with the plan, now it’s Sam’s turn. And instead of Sam’s plan involving HIM starting a fight (you know, it would only be fair, since Dean had to do it the first time), Sam’s plan involves throwing Dean back into the fray. It’s amusingly vicious. Or, if not vicious, self-protective. Plus, Sam senses Dean’s getting off on this whole thing. So maybe he’ll be eager to “get more.” Dean has no lines to suggest that he thinks it’s Sam’s turn to get punched. I love how the things we might expect are often completely non-existent in the Supernatural lexicon.
After his stupid “al dente” crack to the “cook,” a joke just meant to pass the time, Dean proceeds over to sit down with Tiny (Cliff Klosterman, humorously the real actors’ bodyguard and driver and all-around protector. He’s a gentle giant, which makes Tiny’s dichotomy that much more perfect.) Dean could not be more obnoxious. It won’t take Dean long to get punched. Because of the punch-able nature of his whole persona, which he puts right out there. As he did with Henriksen, Dean underestimates Tiny. Tiny is unbeatable as an opponent. Dean looks like a little kid flailing at him.
Physical Skill Watch: Watch how Tiny throws the first punch across the table. We all know it’s a fake punch, right? But watch how Ackles throws himself off the bench backwards. It’s incredible, both leads are incredible in this very physical imaginative way. They launch themselves about, their heads whipping off to the side with various impacts. (I just watched the Charlie/Djinn episode, and after drinking the African dream-root, watch – just watch – the two punches Sam gives Dean. And just remind yourself that it’s all fake, no one is being punched in reality, no one is being knocked out. It’s even more amazing.)
In the melee that follows, Sam slips into the steamy (empty? During lunch hour?) kitchen, and the music goes all funkadelic-tense (a cheese-ball 1980s sound, if I’m totally honest), as Sam glides along the aisle, swiping a plastic salt-container.) Sam somehow knows just where he is going (floor plans? What?), and starts off through an air-vent to get to the old cell block. All while Dean is being thrown about by guards, by Tiny, so wrecked he collapses on the floor. Thanks, Sam, for your plan.
Deacon grips Dean’s chin in his hands, almost more violent than a punch in the stomach. It feels more personal.
Dean cracks that Deacon waited long enough to intervene (a clear, “What the FUCK, man, can’t you fake some of this?” message) and Deacon slams his stick into Dean’s stomach, and then grabs Dean’s head, shoving it down. It’s brutal.
And this is why I say I’m not surprised Deacon and John got along. Like Dean, Deacon is a Method Actor and gets very “into” his role. As he jokes later, he had to “make it look real.” But perhaps there’s a bit too much enjoyment in his behavior? The punch-able quality of Dean’s face (as seen through certain eyes, that is.) The sense that it would be so much fun to not only wipe that smirk off his face, but also mark/scar his beauty, beauty that somehow is so confrontational. I don’t want to psychoanalyze it to death (and the problem with psychoanalysis in some fans is that it tends to morph into “I don’t want anyone to treat Dean badly ever” … which basically means you don’t want there to be a TV show. It’s the “vegan barista” Dean fantasy – I never judge other people’s fantasies, have at it, but I don’t want the show to become those fantasies! Please God no! The psychoanalysts of Tumblr also seem to be in love with “Dean as victim”, poor baby Dean, etc., but that’s too simplistic, in my opinion, at least story/character-wise. WE may question Deacon’s motives. But Dean doesn’t. He and his brother have punched each other in the face. The guys live in a very violent world. Being punched hurts but it’s not that big a deal, AND it’s a way to prove yourself. So Deacon is proving himself to Dean, whose father was the most macho man ever, and Dean may not like it, but he respects it. Very important distinction and far more strange and interesting, in my opinion.) Dean “gets his” later when he gets to punch Deacon back, and watch how Dean goes for it.
All of this is to say I question Deacon’s motives, and don’t buy (completely) his Method-Actor-y bullshit. He enjoys beating Dean up. He enjoys “making it real.” (So does Dean, so they’re even.) It makes me wonder what went on between Deacon and John. Sam mentions that they “barely know” the guy, which suggests that somehow, back in the past, Deacon has met the boys. Maybe when they were kids. How did John talk about his kids? Macho bonding-in-combat and the bonding of Vietnam veterans is different than emotional bonding over a latte. Is it partially Deacon asserting his own macho-ness for a man who is clearly more macho, because that man lives off the grid and fights Horrifying Nightmares? Whatever the motivation, there’s more going on with Deacon than “making it real.” Deacon being so rough with Dean is a version of the male peacocking-at-each-other that goes on in every other male-on-male interaction in the film, from Agent Henriksen to Lucas to the “Yard.” (And just so I’m totally clear: I also think Deacon respects the brothers. He loved John, and it’s good to see John’s kids and how well they turned out – which is funny in and of itself, considering how FUCKED. UP. they both are. Broken Record Sheila: Supernatural is not either/or. It’s “both/and.”)
Cheeseball synthesized 1980s music brings us back to Sam, lowering himself into the grimy old cell-block, pushing open the cell (and he knows which one it was, how? Sorry), seeing the gross blood-stained mattress, shaking out the accelerant from a lighter which Dean acquired because he is James Garner, and watching it burn. (I also like how the camera circles around the door, revealing the room and its white-barred window. It’s slight, but it has those curves in movement that can be so effective. It’s not as insanely curvy as in the Kim Manners episodes: Manners practically is unable to shoot anything without placing a curve in it – but still, it’s nice.)
Beauty Alert. Serge going to town with lighting Padalecki’s face Alert. Shadowed-Eyes Alert.
8th scene
Another favorite scene in the episode.
There’s plot here, and Tiny bites it, and Dean gets a good look at the ghost, so that’s the real purpose of the scene, but what makes the scene special is the unexpected Dean-initiated bonding with Tiny.
The whole thing starts with a panning-to the-left, opposite of the panning-to-the right that made up the teaser and first scene: and it lands suddenly and abruptly on a gorgeous image. I love that random translucent screen between them. What is that? Why is that there? To give the prisoners privacy while they take off their clothes for the doctor? I think not. It’s there because it looks great and it’s more powerful (and funny) to see Tiny’s silhouette.
LOOK at Tiny’s silhouette.
After the amped-up postures of both in the scene in the cafeteria, here, they are relaxed. In themselves. Quiet energy.
Dean makes the first move. “Hey, Tiny.”
Tiny’s voice comes back, “Yeah.”
And it’s so good, the accessibility of that voice. Yet another example of pulling the rug out from underneath audience expectations. He’s not mad. Tiny’s been made fun of his whole life for his size. He was probably 6 feet tall in 5th grade. He’s never been loved. He’s an abused pussy-cat.
So is Dean. Dean’s face is puffed-up and bruised. He looks soft. And more open than how he’s looked with Sam in the entire episode.
Which is why Tiny’s small monologue about his upbringing is so good. Dean seems taken aback and freaked out that Tiny’s brother shot their Dad. But think of the possible connections. Dean doesn’t get the connection, because why would he, but it’s there for us. Abused siblings and horrible families show up in almost every episode in Supernatural, and Sam and Dean sometimes reflect on the similarities, but more often than not they don’t. Families are complex. You can hate your Dad and feel protective of him at the same time. Sam and Dean are not the Menendez brothers, and neither were Tiny and his brother.
When Dean sees the ghost approaching, his “Oh crap” gets a “What is it” from Tiny. That accessible almost-gentle voice. Tiny is no Lucas.
So seeing Tiny go down, his silhouette falling behind the lit-up screen, is painful. Shiban has given us “more” of Tiny. Context. And a connection to Dean, which makes him more human.
Dean’s line-reading in the following scene “poor … giant Tiny” (pauses that have mathematical accuracy) is perfect. It’s how we feel.
8th scene
Sam and Dean in a walk-and-talk across the Yard. It’s not as long a walk-and-talk as the one that opens “Hollywood Babylon” but it’s nearly as satisfying. What walk-and-talks do is place Sam and Dean in the environment, they’re a part of it, they’re strolling through it. They also gives the actors a chance to get out a chunk of dialogue without any cuts, also fun.
The Yard continues on around them, and Sam and Dean are sometimes seen from across a distance, yet another “look” that immerses them/hides them in the surrounding context.
Love it. Sam and Dean aren’t placed in the Yard. They are “found” in the Yard, by the camera.
Sam’s frustration has ratcheted up into panic: Dean hasn’t put together the pieces yet, Dean seems to be identifying more and more with his “role.” Dean maybe wants to stay here, he’d be okay with lingering for months. Even Dean’s wording “poor … giant Tiny” is alarming. Sam tracks alongside Dean, hissing in his ear practically: We have to get OUT. We are LEAVING whether we find this thing or not. NON-NEGOTIABLE. Henriksen is out there. You are way too in love with prison: we are LEAVING. It’s Sam’s version of Dean’s whispered bossy-pants monologue when they’re in line. The “Maybe you haven’t noticed … we’re in jail…” is eloquent. He’s throwing cold water on Dean: We don’t WANT to be in jail, Dean, remember?
I also love the image of Sam “calling Deacon” … what, from the payphone in the hallway?
There’s a cut to their conversation with Sam’s new best friend, Randall. Dean, expert on the rules of The Yard, is in charge, all as Sam looks on, increasingly disturbed by Dean’s comfort with banter and the Barter System. It’s great because as I keep mentioning: Sam’s discomfort is threefold:
1. Henriksen
2. He can’t stand being trapped
3. He is afraid that Dean actually doesn’t want to leave for his own perverse reasons.
Dean’s got cigarettes in his pocket, he’s ready to do business. Randall plays by the rules. (Interesting: in Sam’s first conversation with Randall, where Sam is asking for information, Randall never asked for anything in return. An example of Sam’s quiet effectiveness. When Dean wants something, people ALWAYS want something in return. A side effect of his easy beauty. Guy needs to be taken down a peg.)
When Dean realizes Randall has stalled because he wants more cigarettes and won’t continue until he gets them, Dean gets annoyed and throws Sam a glance. It’s a totally put-upon expression that is so inappropriate and hilarious. He expects Sam to commiserate at least with an eyeroll. Sam, though, can’t believe Dean is actually holding onto his stash of smokes. What the HELL. I have to get my big brother out of here NOW before it’s too late.
Dead serious, like DEAD, Dean reminds Sam, “I earned these.” (Remember the hilarious morgue-attendant sequence in “Bloody Mary”, a fave: The morgue-attendant, like Randall, requires a bribe. Dean doesn’t want to give it up. “I earned that!” Oh really? I’d like to see your W-2s, please, Dean.)
The look on Sam’s face in response to “I earned these”:
He literally does not know what is happening to Dean.
The following scene shows Sam finally addressing the situation in the cafeteria. If Sam’s observation came earlier, it wouldn’t be as funny as it is. Sam has had a build-up of evidence over the course of the episode.
A couple final things:
— It’s a pretty straightforward scene, in terms of the dialogue. Sam and Dean question. Randall provides answers. But I just want to point out the camera moves because it’s fun. There are some establishing shots, showing the three of them in the larger world, but most of it is done in medium shots, one to the other to the other. But what’s interesting in a super-subtle way, was that each time – establishing shot, Randall’s face, Dean’s face, Sam’s face, and then back, the camera is moving just slightly. Not in a handheld way, but in soft pans (to the right, usually). The shots are not static. There are only a couple of shots where the camera doesn’t move (and that’s when the most important piece of information comes out.) Other than that, the camera is on the move. What that does, I think, is create the sense of collective-shared-space: the three of them on the same page. Not just separated-out individuals, but creating something together. The plot itself is also moving at this point, the backstory pushing the story forward. Hence: that small elegant movement in every shot. Every moment like this represents a choice. Mike Rohl might have even story-boarded it out, although it might also have been a decision made on the day of shooting, Serge Ladouceur understanding that the scene may be boring or static or “stock” without those gentle little moves.
— Randall references Charles Bronson with a hypodermic. Charles Bronson is a one-man SWAT Team in Deathwish, taking the law into his own hands like Dirty Harry, a vigilante. But Charles Bronson in Deathwish doesn’t use a hypodermic. I suppose Randall is making a connection, right? Charles Bronson uses a weapon, Nurse-Ratched-Ghost uses a hypodermic. Sure. But another Charles Bronson comes to mind, the convict referred to as “the most violent prisoner in England.” The guy’s story is unbelievable. He escapes repeatedly, a huge flight risk. He wreaks havoc. He attacks guards, other prisoners. He also has written books and has come out with a fitness program, just to add to the absurdity. He’s been locked up in psychiatric facilities, because he seems so insanely violent, and he’s just this notorious and famous guy, whom people love/hate because he bucks the system. A prisoner in an adjoining cell was once interviewed about him and he remembered a moment when Bronson was acting out so violently that the guards/medical personnel came in, held him down as a group, and – with Bronson screaming in agony – poked him with a hypodermic to knock him out. Maybe this is stretching it, who knows, but it’s my party and I’ll Bronson if I want to. I went through a phase when I was – well, not obsessed with Charles Bronson the prisoner – but definitely intrigued. I “followed him” in the news, and so that hypodermic part stuck in my mind.
Just throwing that out there.
9th scene
Pretty standard brothers’ pow-wow scene, coming 3/4s of the way through the episode, right on schedule. While their discussion is somewhat in sync, Dean’s relaxed nature, plus his beat-up face, pings Sam’s red flags for the 100th time. The best part of this whole situation, that I keep bringing up ad nauseum, is that Ackles is not overplaying any of this. He’s not “telegraphing” how much he enjoys prison, and how comfortable he is. He’s not “acting.” But consider Dean’s demeanor in other episodes. Often, he is very comfortable, but those situations are few and far between. He’s very bizarre socially, he’s always in a state of high-alert, he’s got all kinds of SHIT between himself and happiness. Even when he’s driving, he’s still actively on the lookout. This is why when Dean truly relaxes, it’s sometimes so touching, it’s like a little kid running around on the beach, and you want to cry rather than laugh. I don’t know how he does it, but I just know it is so. Sam – demon-blood notwithstanding – is just more comfortable in his own skin. He’s not a barrel of laughs, and he doesn’t lounge around totally relaxed either … but he doesn’t have the same sort of constant twitchy vulnerability his brother has.
Dean’s behavior in this scene is no different from his behavior in other pow-wows in other episodes EXCEPT, like I said, for that orange jumpsuit and that orange jumpsuit makes all the difference. HOW can he be so relaxed? HOW can his behavior not only not change at all in prison, but actually EXPAND into something so comfortable, Dean OWNING himself and the space he takes up in a way that just does not exist “on the outside”? It’s the incongruity that pings Sam’s radar.
In this scene, Sam has finally HAD IT with his brother.
Dean casually mentions that he “heard in the Yard” that the prison guard attacked by the ghost was no angel himself. Dean keeps talking, but Sam stops listening. This must stop. NOW.
“You heard in the Yard?” Sam asks, with this look on his face …
It’s funny. Padalecki’s voice is funny. The “making fun” aspect of it, but also the sheer incomprehension of tone is funny. Maybe it’s not as funny as Sam repeating “Copy that??” in “Hollywood Babylon” but … well, actually it is that funny to me. Dean is so unselfconscious about the whole thing, that’s part of what makes it so funny. He’s not wink-winking at Sam anymore like he did in the first scene in the cafeteria (“This is how you gotta talk to these guys …”) – No. It’s 24 hours later, and Dean is no longer self-conscious about where he is, who he is, any of it. He doesn’t grin sheepishly at Sam when he says “heard in the Yard”, or he doesn’t give Sam a secret look to see if Sam is impressed, or any of the other weird things that Dean sometimes does (“LARP and the Real Girl” is full of them, but they’re everywhere). Dean completely does not understand what Sam is confused about. How else are you gonna do an investigation in prison except talk to everyone in the Yard?
That leads to another image that is so funny, an image we don’t see: Dean out in the Yard, “circulating,” getting everyone to tell him stories. And everyone spilling the beans. I’d love to see those interactions, the bartering necessary, although by this point Dean probably doesn’t need to barter. He took on Tiny. To the prisoners, the man is clearly insane and deserves respect. Dean’s crack to Sam in the early cafeteria scene was right on target.
Digression On How Dean Looks.
This isn’t so much funny, as part of the “thing” about Dean that Sam is sensing. Sam has no cuts or scratches on him. He hasn’t engaged with prison life at all. I’m sure he and his roommate lie in their bunks at night in awkward silence. Dean would either be chatting up a storm or trying to stave off some kind of sexual attack. Maybe both at the same time.
I’m trying to get at something here, and it may be stating the obvious:
Now obviously you couldn’t make either of these guys look ugly. But you CAN make them look like SHIT. Sam looked like SHIT in the “demon trials” sequence. Like, he legitimately looked AWFUL. Makeup job, yes, but Padalecki inhabited it. Dean looked like SHIT too in Season 9, oh, Season 9, how I love thee, with the scruffy beard, the red-rimmed eyes, and the all-over dissipation/depression exuding off of him. Makeup, sure, but all of that stuff was coming from his inside, too. There are many more examples. Sam looked so bad in the Lucifer-hallucination sequence of episodes that I practically had PTSD flashbacks to my own crack-ups, two in particular, that actually went down a lot like that one : those episodes with Sam derailing is what it felt like, that’s what I looked like, anyone who has suffered from insomnia would relate to it. It hurt to look at Sam, his agony was so bone-deep. Sam is looking pretty rough now, actually, in Season 11. Not ugly, but ROUGH. 100 miles of really rough road. Ridden hard by life. Part of the natural aging process, along with Ackles’ crinkle-lines and all the rest, but let’s be honest: These guys are actors, and their extreme good looks are part of that package. They have had the same acting gig since they were in their mid-20s. So maybe that’s why their looks, and how they have changed, and how free they at least seem to be with those changes, the lack of vanity, the comfort … comes from that. But they’re both so good, and the makeup team is so sophisticated, that these very good-looking guys are given the chance for so many transformations. They don’t HAVE to be the good-looking hunk. They already ARE that, but here, they get to do more.
One of the reasons I had no interest in actually watching the show (before I actually watched it, I mean) was because of the ads, and the posed shots of the pouting pretty boys on the DVD box sets, which struck me as incredibly stupid. Now I enjoy those pose-y poses as camp, but still: they are not designed to draw me in. They appear to be designed to draw in 13-year-old girls and 19-year-old gay men. No judgment. Important demographics (maybe the most important. Tap into the Tween market and the Gay market, and you’re set.) So I’m not complaining, but those poses do not reflect what ended up hooking ME about the show, which was the power of the acting, these two guys, in other words. In a way, the fact that these two actors ARE so pretty, AND that those promotional shots are so stupid, work in their favor. Their fame is contained in one network to the small audience who watch the show. Factor 1. Working under the radar without a white-hot-spotlight on you sets some actors really free – and that seems to be the case with these guys. They like the level they’re at (this is so rare in Hollywood as to be almost unheard-of.)
I try to talk about their looks in a thoughtful way, because while I’m human and find them Hotties, that’s not really what interests me. What interests me is how their looks are used, and how THEY use their looks. Without being vain, they are highly conscious of who they are visually. This connects them to the great Movie Star Personae of old (it’s kind of a lost art): these epic figures who needed the large screen to express the almost gigantism of their particular powers: John Wayne, Joan Crawford. It’s not easy to do a close-up and maintain a sense of both relaxation and focus, and also to REVEAL your soul (the whole purpose of a close-up). These guys do it naturally, seemingly easily, but make no mistake: there is skill and awareness and technique involved.
The ease with which they seem to accept their good fortune in the looks department helps. They aren’t self-conscious. They feel no need to prop themselves up or protect themselves. They are actors first. Their Beauty then seems almost incidental, or just a fluke of nature. This is as it should be.
I’m not congratulating them for their willingness to “ugly up”, because I don’t believe in that, and I think that attitude is one of the byproducts of modern misunderstandings about what good acting is. A beautiful actress “uglies up” and wins an Oscar. A movie star plays a mentally disabled man and wins an Oscar. The value system is all skewed. And so those who easily and beautifully inhabit themSELVES onscreen, in the way John Wayne used to do, are somehow dismissed, or under-estimated. (I also have a beef with the idea that the Oscars ACTUALLY reflect value/worth, instead of just being an industry coming together to celebrate accomplishments. All of the actors I know look at it the second way. Many of the critics I know look at it the first way. The Oscars are their Super Bowl. Cary Grant never won an Oscar. The statue is meaningless, except as a celebration of an individual accomplishment.) So: the fact that Padalecki and Ackles seem to have no interest in how gorgeous they are, and when they “ugly up” they don’t appear to want to be congratulated for it (“see how ugly I’m allowing myself to look? Aren’t I great?”), is important. It helps the show NOT be an exercise in camp. The bruises look real, the shadows under their eyes look real, the wounds look real, and that’s just on the surface. Underneath all that, they get to be real too.
“Folsom Prison Blues'” storyline of Dean becoming an Alpha Dog in prison in a span of 24 hours is played for comedy. It’s more than that, but on the surface, it works as a joke. I’ve gone on about these guys’ looks because it’s important, and I’m still not sure how they (meaning the whole team) do it. Not too many people in prison look like Jensen Ackles, I imagine. And here he is in prison, and his hair still looks great. You know, it’s a television show. It’s like Dean not having a full-on ZZ Top beard in Purgatory. Or that somehow hair-gel exists in Purgatory. You have to overlook things like that, they don’t really matter.
HOWEVER: there’s something about him in this scene, the hunched-over posture at the table, a posture that still has some fluidity in it – unlike Sam, who is much more rigid – and that fluidity gives Dean a “going with the flow” energy that is different for him, as well as (from Sam’s point of view) alarming since Dean has so “gone with the flow” that he loves being in prison now. There’s also an almost flat-affect thing going on in Dean’s face here, a face that is normally so malleable. He’s internalized something, the rules, the bars, the locks, the walls, the abuse … something … and it’s affected his expression, the one on his face, the one in his eyes. Dean looks both loose AND protected here: maybe a little bunched-up, coiled, when normally he’s much more emotionally fluid.
What I’ve been trying to say, or leading up to saying is stating the obvious, but sometimes I think that’s important: Dean as coiled-up bunched-up battered-bruised prisoner FITS. Which means this “look” and attitude FITS for Jensen Ackles as well. I totally buy it, in other words. It’s NOT just a goof. The way he sits at that table, cuts on his puffy face, the dead-serious forehead wrinkles, the hunched-over posture that is ALSO fluid, like an alert lion … He LOOKS incarcerated. He LOOKS 100% institutionalized.
If a prison-drama movie were being cast in Hollywood, not in a million years would Jensen Ackles’ name ever come up in the casting conversation. (Not only because nobody knows who he is, but because he’s not prison-movie material. He’s too pretty.) Padalecki would be more “right” for a scary convict than Ackles. But Supernatural shows the lie to that kind of type-casting.
Supernatural NEEDED to happen in order to set Ackles free, where he sits at the table in an orange jumpsuit, and something about the look on his face (the makeup, plus what he’s DOING with his face), and the posture … makes us believe. There’s something erotic about that puffy bruise with the cut on top of it. Maybe I’m like Marion Keisker, who responded to Elvis’ pimples and awkwardness, feeling somehow the personality that already existed beneath.
I’ve talked about the “wound continuity” in Supernatural before, and how good the makeup team is with tracking the development of said wounds over the course of an episode. But there’s something about Dean’s wound in “Folsom Prison Blues” … It looks … gotta say it … like it might feel a little good.
Deliberate choice? I don’t know. Not all the wounds in the show look like this. Dean’s forehead scar in “In My Time of Dying” looked brutal, the stitches showing up like Frankenstein. The wounds on Sam and Dean’s face after being clawed in “Shadow” looked horrifying (and also like they would result in scars for life, but moving on …) But the wound in “Folsom Prison Blues” looks tender, like it has some sort of electric emotional charge connecting to the fact that Dean gets off on all of this. A wound like that, on top of the “ready for anything” possibility in Dean’s hunched-yet-fluid posture … makes me see, really see, that he is having maybe even more fun than he had on the Hollywood set.
And that’s what Sam sees. That’s what Sam responds to.
And because this is the scene where Sam finally addresses what he’s been sensing all along, Ackles “plays it up” but in a way so subtle you can’t clock him at it. The self-consciousness – or self-aggrandizement – that was there in “HEY FELLAS” is gone. Ex-cons talk about their first night in prison, and the emotional reaction that happens when you hear that door slam shut. The sound works on them psychologically. (There’s that great sequence in the opening of Shawshank where the old-timers place bets on which newbie will “crack” first and start sobbing on that first night when the reality of what it means to be trapped sinks in.) But eventually, the sound of their doors locking is INSIDE them. It still sucks, but they have internalized the prison. That internalization process happened to Dean in 24 hours. Maybe because he was already halfway there.
My God, this scene is less than 5 minutes long and look at what I’ve done.
And because Sam asks the question … suddenly the situation is not as funny as it has been up until this point. We see Dean in a new way. A new understanding opens up. It’s the flip-side of the same coin that “Hollywood Babylon” was. We “get” something about Dean now that we haven’t really perceived as clearly. In “The Usual Suspects,” even though he was in trouble with the cops and facing imprisonment, he was every fantasy we have about maintaining our individuality, no matter the context. The episode, with its drastic POV shift, is an act of hero-worship. (We need those, too. The show is meant to be epic.) “Folsom Prison Blues” removes the hero-worship aspect and suddenly – after laughing at Dean moving his way up the prison ranks at hyper-speed – in this scene the rug is just slightly pulled out from under us.
My very first post about Dean Winchester talked about how the show messes with us by making us worried for him. Normally, we don’t worry about typical action heroes. We don’t worry about Dirty Harry, his physicality or his immortal soul. He has no second thoughts about being a killer, because those people deserve it. If everyone acted like Dirty Harry, our society would be in total anarchy. But Supernatural sets us up to be CONCERNED about Dean. He’s vulnerable, he’s susceptible, he’s at risk. “Folsom Prison Blues,” especially in this scene, with a beautiful wound on his head that looks … somehow … pleasurable, shows us how “at risk” Dean really is. And he doesn’t know it, or, more importantly, he doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t think of it that way, he sees nothing weird about himself. He is not worried. It will take Dean 7 more seasons to get worried about himself. He gets worried about life situations and he worries about Sam, and other people he cares about, and he worries about going to Hell. But worried about himself takes longer. Sam understands much earlier that Dean should be more worried about himself. (“Don’t you care about yourself? What’s wrong with you?” he says in Season 3.) That’s the gift of having the time to stretch out in multiple seasons, no rush. Dean’s a tough cookie. He’s not going to sit around angst-ing about his persona in the world, and what the life has done to him, and how much he has lost. There are glimmers of it all along, the biggest one of all coming up in the final scene of the next episode, but in Season 9 it takes center stage. And it’s not a catharsis for Dean: it’s as threatening as any monster he has ever faced.
Sam impresses upon Dean firmly that they only have 5 hours before they have to leave, and when he sees the look on his brother’s face, he takes the Big Brother role. He must be as forceful as possible, because Dean loves the prison bars too much. SOMEONE has to be in charge.
The bell rings, and up Dean gets, like he knows what he’s doing, where he’s going, what time it is. Off to see the lawyer. As though the lawyer has anything to do with anything anymore. That’s the look on Sam’s face. Why invest in our made-up “case”? We have no time.
Sam underestimates Dean. Underestimation is Dean’s ace in the hole.
10th scene
“I wish I could, but I can’t. I’m just gonna have to ask you to trust me on this.”
“Why should I?”
“I’m not what they say I am.”
“Everybody says that.”
“Look, if you’re as smart a PD as you think you are, you can tell with just one look whether or not your clients are guilty. So I want you to look at me. Really look. And you tell me. Am I guilty.”
There are some great exchanges in this scene, it’s very well-written on both sides. Mara Daniels has a similar look on her face initially to Sam’s expression when he’s been looking at Dean. What is going on with this guy? He seems so “off” but there’s also something I can’t put my finger on …
His pleas of innocence must be resisted. She knows she’s being charmed and manipulated. Or she feels she is. Or she WANTS to feel she is because it’s easier than thinking he may NOT be a monster and everyone else is wrong. She has a job to do. She’s seen a lot. As a PD she represents murderers and rapists and tries to get them off on technicalities. My first boyfriend was a PD in the rough rough town of Philadelphia and there were times when I’d be like, “Why can’t you be a prosecutor and go AFTER the bad guys?” I knew the answer, and I believe in everyone’s right to representation, but still … You’re putting rapists out on the street because they weren’t read their Miranda rights. Or the crime scene was messed up by the cops. Or whatever. It’s enraging! I get it, but still! The burnout rate in PDs is almost as high as the burnout rate in social workers and teachers, exacerbated by the fact that they are not compensated well. (That first boyfriend finally had enough of representing the scum of the earth, and went to work for a huge corporate law firm, protecting gigantic corporations from lawsuits. We had broken up by that point, but still I was like, “Okay, your job is even more evil now.” hahaha Finally, after years of selling out, years of taking huge salaries, he’s back to being a PD and one of his cases reached the Supreme Court. Cases you might have heard about. He really cares about the Constitution. Mara Daniels does too.)
Mara Daniels is used to the guilty. She is used to “monsters.” Part of her job is resisting the charm of the psychopath. She doesn’t want to be played.
Dean likes smart tough women. He responds to them well, and when he dates, which is almost never, he picks someone like that. He can get intimidated, like he did with Ellen: her intelligence picked up his pain so intensely that he felt the need to slam the door shut on her. But they worked it out. He’s intuitive. His mom was smart and tough. He remembers that.
But he’s also manipulative. He has to be. He uses whatever is in his arsenal, sometimes inappropriately (why are you flirting with a morgue attendant? Why are you flirting with a tough-looking guy on the street. Why are you flirting with a Marine putting together his gun? You will NEVER get a good response from this, Dean), but here, with Mara, he has a sense it will work. And he’s more grounded here than he is in those other flirty scenes, where he seems desperate and grasping at straws and also like he’s not in control of himself. The sex-thing is automatic with him, it’s where he operates from.
This scene is the same … but different.
He puts himself on display for her. He puts himself on display for everyone. He knows how to do that, and he CAN do that. His looks help and he knows it. When people refer to him as yummy-looking or you’ll taste good or whatever … it’s stressful and traumatic, and he hates being touched, it takes a lot for him to tolerate it … but still: he can “turn it on” when he has to. It’s a conflict within him, and I love internal unresolvable conflicts.
When he asks Mara Daniels to “look. Really look.” it’s the clearest and most self-aware version of his exhibitionistic streak I can think of. He’s throwing himself on her mercy, and he’s using his face to do it. Hard to imagine him pulling this with, for example, Lisa. There’s a comfort there as well, from Second One, but once the thing gets going, he’s got that undercurrent background-noise of anxiety and self-loathing. He’s not good enough to sleep in a nice bed, he’s going to hurt her in some way, eventually, and etc. He’s not able to “turn it on” when he’s vulnerable. Either he gets instantly tender with no protection (like he does with Cassie, or, more recently, like he did with Tina in the bar) OR he goes inward, self-loathing, or dismissive. (Castiel forces him to see himself in a different light. His value goes up, way up, and it takes some getting used to … that anyone, let alone Heaven, would value him that much. And it makes him a little crazy at times, a little megalomaniacal. I MATTER. THEY NEED ME. He’s actually HURT when they drop him and choose Adam instead.)
But here, he’s easy, confident with putting himself on display. And he knows it needs to be done. And he doesn’t have to flirt to do it.
Mara Daniels is an equal part of helping to create all of this. She sees Dean only through a pane of glass, but she’s also SEEING him. You’re still not sure she’s gonna take the bait, but the doubt is there.
As with Linda Blair in “The Usual Suspects,” as with Officer Kathleen way back in “The Benders”, women see beneath that gleam. Women show up for him. There’s less barrier there. Maybe it’s a stereotype (women as intuitive and softer), but that’s a byproduct of operating in a mostly-male world. Women do represent something precious and valuable in that environment. There’s a reason Rita Hayworth was such a symbol to the soldiers in WWII (my piece on Gilda in the upcoming Criterion Collection release – out on January 19th, people, order it now! – of the film talks about what Rita Hayworth symbolized to a generation of men.) To men, caught up in the insanity that men create, women represent something else. Women are not dismissed at all. They take on extreme importance. You’d think women would all fall over like ninepins because of Dean’s beauty-sex-possibilities, but many of them don’t. They see inside him, in a way men rarely do. Sometimes Dean hates being penetrated like that and resists. But sometimes it is the most relaxing thing in the world and he goes into a Zone with himself that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
11th scene
Back in the cinéma vérité of The Yard, Sam and Dean meet up in the middle. It’s a fun scene because the argument looks real, and in a lot of respects it IS real (similar to the argument meant to trick the Trickster in “Tall Tales.”) Faking an argument allows them both to let off some steam and express the hostility that may be underneath their partnership and sibling-hood. But it’s an “act,” an act meant to bring Deacon in, an act meant to help facilitate their release.
Dean planted the seed with Mara Daniels, but he didn’t think she bought it. He HATES leaving a case unsolved. The argument Sam and Dean have is a continuation of an argument they’ve had throughout the episode, and while I suppose you could say they’re just going over the same ground, that’s not really true. What happens now is bigger, the final straw. You only get to the final straw by repetition of “same ol’ same ol’.” It’s maddening.
Dean tells Sam Fine, you go, but HE’S gonna stay. Under the guise of finishing the case. But come on. Dean wants to keep hustling the guys in the yard and having a set bed-time and set meal-times. Their fight is quickly explosive, and the guards (including Deacon) descend from all sides pulling the guys apart. I hadn’t seen Deacon hovering nearby, but obviously he was.
It’s well worth remembering that “Deacon” has not been identified at this point. The brothers mention him all the time, but you assume he’s just in the background somewhere, an offscreen ally. The actual “Deacon” has not been put with his name yet, so up until now we’ve only seen him as a brutal guard who gets off on violence. (Talk about “letting off steam.” This is who Deacon is. Nobody around him seems “surprised” that Deacon would treat prisoners this roughly, and in this following scene in the laundry-room the other prison guard is not taken aback at all when Deacon tells him to leave, he “wants to handle this” himself. Deacon is no angel. He’s a brute.) Once we see that the brute is the Deacon they’ve been referencing throughout … hmmm, very satisfying.
It took me multiple viewings (I’m slow) to pick up on the weird-ness in Deacon’s character, the underlying hostility, the relish for violence. I don’t know how I missed it. Maybe because anyone who seems to “like” Sam and Dean, and help them out … automatically sways me in their favor. RESIST, SHEILA, IT’S A TRAP.
The look on Sam and Dean’s faces as Deacon swaggers towards them gives the suggestion that they, too, are not sure who Deacon is. Maybe they haven’t seen him since they were children. That effect could be just a manipulation on Mike Rohl’s part, to up the tension, but maybe not. Deacon’s big smile lets them know that he’s their guy (if you go that way, interpretively), or, they already know, but Deacon has been so awful to Dean, that night-stick in the stomach, that maybe they think it’s a trap, that Deacon has tricked them, won’t let them out at all. Who knows. It’s a wonderfully rich moment if you pretend it’s not just a trick to lead the audience on.
As Deacon uncuffs them, Dean won’t really look at him: That man beat the shit out of him, his stomach still hurts from the nightstick. Fuck ACTING, couldn’t you hold back a little. Deacon’s response is joshing (“we’re all Tough Guys here, thought you were tough”), and those assumptions of behavior are accepted on both sides, however pissed-off-edly by Dean. Deacon’s enjoying himself. Consider the alternative of how it COULD go: Dean gets uncuffed and immediately hauls off and punches Deacon in the face. That, too, would have made sense, but it’s better, I think, to show Dean accepting the rules of the game he has chosen to play. Deacon’s like all the men he knows. The men who raised him.
Sam and Dean’s argument about whether or not to stay erupts AGAIN. The actors find the variety in all the different-yet-same arguments, even though the episodes are filmed out of sequence. They understand the momentum of the story and can dip into whatever part of the timeline any given scene takes place in. By the time they arrive here, the anger is so close to the surface it barely needs a nudge to come flaring out. They’re like a couple on the verge of divorce submitting to a reconciliation mediator one last time.
San and Dean are trapped in the Winchester Belljar. I’ve talked about that airless Belljar before: first in the re-cap for “Provenance”, but it appears the main Lecture-y Lecture comes in the re-cap for “In My Time of Dying.” Dean and Sam getting sucked right back into their argument is part of the Belljar Effect. It’s not that they enjoy themselves, it’s that they find such standoffs irresistible. So maybe there is some enjoyment in it. They are so wrapped up in each other that Deacon has to speak sharply to get their attention. The moment is driven home when Dean and Sam turn on Deacon, as one, and bark, in unison, “WHAT?” Like: we’re involved here, why are you interrupting our fun. Even brute Deacon is taken aback. Maybe this is part of the genesis of the “tender” family moment that comes later. John Winchester raised boys like this, and John would be proud. Uhmmm …. okay.
I love this show.
Mara Daniels’ letter brings on the Dean that is the “Dean Starring in an Awesome Movie About His Own Awesomeness” Dean. I can’t find the post where I went off on that first, but I know it’s there somewhere. Dean starring in his own Autobiography which is Awesome is a version of the Burlesque, but the Burlesque is mainly directed outward, whereas “Dean Starring in an Awesome Movie About His Own Awesomeness” in mainly inner-directed, although sometimes thrown at Sam to make a point. “I think I’m adorable” early on in “Folsom Prison Blues” qualifies, although usually it has more of a STRUT to it. Dean has self-loathing, sure. Dean has demons, sure, Dean is fucked up, sure. But to IGNORE all the evidence on the other side of the scale, the sheer STRUT of who he is when he thinks he’s awesome (and yes: he does often think he’s awesome, it’s not over-compensation at all) is to ignore the beautiful rich complexity of the character.
When Dean goes into that mode, this is how he feels about himself:
Like, not an exaggeration.
How can one man have self-esteem like that? How does he manage it? Isn’t he embarrassed? It annoys the crap out of Sam, who races in to take Dean down a peg, which is what happens here, but when Dean is Strutting Awesomely Through His Own Awesome Credits Sequence he’s untouchable. I love that aspect of him (especially now from the perspective of Season 11, since that tendency in him has pretty much disappeared, an unspoken result of what life has done to this man.)
Dean throws Sam a look of awe. He is impressed with himself. It WORKED. He had “gone for it” and it WORKED. Please, someone give me the credit for my “velvety smoothness”, or – you know what – forget it: I don’t need the credit, because I KNOW how awesome I am, and screw you if you don’t get it.
It’s so entertaining.
Sam’s annoyance at Dean’s complacent revolving-around-his-own-beams-of-awesome shows up in his tone, which mostly resembles that of a harassed and snotty substitute teacher. Mara Daniels hit the micro-fiche. We get Nurse Ratched’s horrific backstory (“She had severe cerebral edema,” Dean says. “Someone bashed her head in,” Sam helpfully explains to those of us in the audience who don’t know what the words “severe”, “cerebral,” or “edema” means.)
Before Dean and Sam are allowed to crawl into the vent and escape, there must be a moment of sincerity. Would be interested to hear what other people get from the moment. (Well, I feel that, in general, about the whole episode. Love to hear from you all. But come on now, someone buy your Verbose Hostess a DRINK.)
Deacon gets quiet and manly. Dean and Sam quiet down in response. But there’s something weird about the language: “I can’t thank you enough …” As though Sam and Dean saved Deacon’s wife and kids. I’m not saying Deacon doesn’t care about his job but maybe he wants the ghost “out of his prison” because there can only be one Vicious Son-of-a-Bitch behind those walls and that would be him. The prisoners are more afraid of the ghost than they are of him, and THAT Deacon can’t tolerate.
“Your Daddy … raised you right,” says Deacon, as though he is bestowing a blessing on two grieving sons. But their shared reaction (perfect that they’re in the same frame, and not broken up by two close-ups that would “highlight” the weirdness of the moment) is excellent.
They are both so awkward. Neither of them can even say anything. Ambivalent feelings towards what those words have actually MEANT in their lives, and everything they have been asked to give up (in a lot of respects, this moment with Deacon alone leads us into the next episode, especially the scene at the graveyard and the raw blasted-open final scene.)
What do you say: “Thanks?” Or “We agree, Dad was great”? Or “We like to think so”? None of it would be true. AWKWARD.
And it’s Sam who responds (“We owe you”), which one may think would be Dean’s line, since that has been his fierce stance throughout, but instead Sam says it, and so there’s more weirdness. Sam’s mixed-up feelings about John (Resentment plus Grief plus Unfinished Business plus Loss and Regret that he butted heads with the man so much) have been on the table since “In My Time of Dying.” The words ring slightly hollow, coming from Sam. Dean would have said them with more conviction, but consider the fact that he DOESN’T.
Dean “gets his” in the final moment with a cocky gleeful psychopath’s grin. Punching Deacon is gonna be FUN. And in their Macho World View, Deacon knows Dean will have fun with it, accepts that Dean will have fun with it, and it’s all part and parcel of how John raised them right. It’s bullshit, but it’s great! It’s Sam and Dean’s world, not ours.
Deacon has held up his end of the bargain: The Impala waits for them outside. While Dean is happy to see his car, he still … STILL … expresses a rear-view-mirror yearning about wanting to see Agent Henriksen’s face. Sam takes his familiar school-marm-y tone. Until Ratched’s bones are burned and they are 100 miles away, Sam will not trust that Dean won’t do something drastic just to get himself incarcerated again.
12th scene
Sam and Dean have vanished into thin air from out of the prison and Deacon is in big trouble. Deacon acts his part well, except for the enormous snafu of letting slip the lawyer tidbit. Agent Henriksen already has an opinion about that lawyer. She’s a bozo, gaga-eyed about those boys. Everyone has been busy “acting” in this episode (except for Sam and Agent Henriksen) and Henriksen can SMELL the deception all around him. He had these guys in his crosshairs, so close, so close, and now they’re gone. And now his THIRD marriage is going to fail. The stakes are high.
Quick cut to Henriksen interrogating Mara Daniels, the smirking partner looking on from the side. Mara Daniels sits in a clearly submissive position, pleading her case with not-convincing hand gestures, as Agent Henriksen stalks like a panther. She holds strong, but she’s trapped. The scene cuts away before it resolves. It’s left hanging. Will she spill the beans? From the look on her face, I thought she might.
When she tells Henriksen that Dean asked her to do research on a prison nurse who died in 1976, Henriksen straightens up and says, “WHAT?” (Oh, Mr. Whitfield, you are awesome.) His reaction reminds me of Jessie’s now-legendary comment about Henriksen (or at least it’s legendary to me):
I think every time they leave a motel their garbage bins are full of print-outs of crazy satanic woodcuts. How hilarious it would have been to watch Victor Henricksen travel behind them. “So they went to the library and photocopied twenty pictures out of a book on Appalachian folklore and looked at them for a while. Then they emptied a can of salt onto the carpet of their motel room. Then they walked around the victim’s house and had a D&M with his five-year-old. Then they bought a gong from a hippie shop and went and got drunk on top of a car in a park somewhere. Then they murdered three dudes and desecrated their corpses. Then they had a ‘Dr Sexy MD’ marathon on pay-per-view and the next day they drove 3000 miles to some podunk town in Florida.”
Does this sound like normal criminal behavior? That “WHAT” is so funny to me because even with Henriksen’s strength, smarts and devotion – he’s not getting it yet, and he KNOWS he’s not getting it, and it’s driving him batshit insane.
“They wanted me to find out where she was buried.”
“Did you find out?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you tell them?”
“Yeah.”
Mara Daniels should win an Oscar for how convincing her performance is here.
Final visual note: Henriksen is surrounded by utter blackness (similar to Dean’s closeups in the cabin in “Devil’s Trap.”) Nothing to distract, no lights, no blurred-out office. It’s like a portrait, a Goya, a Rembrandt. The style and how he is placed in the frame in front of that blackness removes him from the workaday world and the literal reality of the scene and puts him on the Winchester Level. In the Belljar. Nothing else exists.
13th scene
Complex and multi-faceted, small moments in multiple locations, a building convergence, wrapping-up moments with Deacon, Henriksen, Mara, and Sam and Dean, there’s a lot happening in this sequence and it’s put together so simply. Each section is a piece, you can’t see the whole thing yet, you make assumptions, then you’re wrong … and the final dawning realization comes and only then do you get the pay-off with Mara Daniels’ smile as she gets in the car, and Henriksen’s final expression. It may not be as satisfying as the stunner of an escape scene that closed out “Nightshifter” (hard to top that), but this one is complicated and yet you never lose your perspective of where you are or who you’re with. It’s also almost goofy. A real crowd-pleaser. Sexy, even.
Just for fun, let’s look at the structure.
The whole thing is mostly wordless, first of all. Nothing is explained in language.
Mara doesn’t show up in the first half of the sequence at all, so when she does arrive, it’s a jolt, and even before you see her smile, you guess what has happened, and you feel a shiver of pleasure run over your body. (Or … I do. Sorry.)
At first, Rohl goes back and forth between the Sam/Dean and the SWAT team racing through Mountainside Cemetery (Mountains? In Arkansas?) – giving the illusion that Henriksen is closing in on the brothers.
So I’m going to be a total nerd, and count the shots, because that’s where you really see the skeleton of the structure. The whole sequence put together is like a song – with nearly-identical verses, choruses, and a musical bridge breaking it all up. The pace is orchestrated (it’s not all rush rush rush, there are moments of stillness too.) The little separate chunks are nearly symmetrical, with no one “chunk” prioritized over the other, adding to the sense of confusion and chaos.
This is perhaps the nerdiest I’ve been here, but why not. Let’s break it down. If you’re interested in this nerdy film stuff, watch the scene again, ignore the acting/story and watch how it’s put together. I counted out the shots contained in each chunk. This wouldn’t be fun to do in a more straightforward scene but this one is pretty complex and ambitious. Doing this is fun too because it gives a glimpse of how these people work, what their DAY looks like, in set-ups and close-ups and reverse-shots and all the rest. These are the “chunks” on any given day.
Shots per “Chunk” + Arc Assignment
Arc: Henriksen
1. Cars
2. Another angle of cars
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Sam and Dean digging up the grave.
2. Corkscrew shot upwards of Sam in the grave.
Arc: Henriksen
1. SWAT team emerging from vehicles.
2. Another angle of SWAT team emerging from vehicles.
3. Henriksen emerging from vehicle.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Shovel hits coffin.
2. Shot of Sam.
3. Shot of Dean.
4. Shot of Sam.
Arc: Deacon
The “thriller” music drops out suddenly. Now there’s just silence and the sound of a dripping faucet. This is the “bridge” of the overall song.
1. Deacon washing his face
2. Longer shot of same moment camera panning around the room to land on the clock
3. Lights flicker.
4. His breath shows.
5. He looks around him.
6. Longer shot of him looking around him (so we can see that no one is there)
7. Deacon close-up as he turns and walks right into Nurse Ratched.
8. He looks scared.
9. She roars like a Balrog.
10. More Deacon being all scared.
11. Close-up of her face.
12. Deacon flies across the room. (Thriller music returns, leading us back into the “song” of the scene after this bridge.)
Arc: Henriksen
1. SWAT team moving through empty cemetery
2. Henriksen moving with them.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Close-up of salt being sprinkled
2. Sam sprinkling salt into grave
Arc: Henriksen
1. SWAT team moving forward.
Arc: Deacon
1. Deacon, on floor, looks up behind him.
2. Nurse Ratched zooms across the room.
3. Deacon startled.
4. She grabs his chest.
5. He convulses.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Overhead shot of Dean pouring lighter fluid into the grave.
Arc: Deacon
1. Full-room shot of Nurse Ratched hovering over Deacon.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Sam and Dean looking into grave, Sam lighting a match.
Arc: Deacon
1. Moving closer in on Nurse Ratched’s attack on Deacon.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Overhead shot of her coffin/bones bursting into flames, Sam and Dean looking down.
Arc: Deacon
1. Deacon convulsing with black veins crawling up his face, a la the Rabid Humans in the start of Season 11.
2. Close-up of her face.
3. Longer shot of her exploding.
4. Deacon rolls over, coughing, recovering. Hunches up to look around him (and that’s where Alice in Chains starts.)
5. Full-room shot of Deacon on floor looking around.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Medium-shot of Sam, lit-up by the flames.
2. Medium-shot of Dean, lit-up by the flames
3. Mirror-shot of the one before, overhead shot of coffin, corkscrewing down in reverse, so you can see her actual skeleton engulfed in flames
Arc: Henriksen
1. SWAT team led by Henriksen going through cemetery
2. Another angle of SWAT team going through cemetery, ending with Smirking Partner moving into the frame, looking over at his partner
3. Henriksen coming into the shot, dead-center, looking around
4. Dizzying panning shot of the empty cemetery, totally from Henriksen’s point of view.
5. Henriksen looking around, back at his partner. (And this is where those eerie and yet … sweet? Valedictory? … harmonizing women’s voices from “Rooster” come in.)
6. Reverse shot of Henriksen looking back, empty space behind him. “You’re sure this is the right cemetery?”
7. Smirking Partner looking back: “She said Mountainside. Mountainside Cemetery.”
8. Back to full-frontal of Henriksen, turning to look at emptiness.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Pan up from sign reading GREEN VALLEY CEMETERY (Oh, Mara. You’re my hero.) to see Sam and Dean hustling out past the camera.
Arc: Mara Daniels
Female voices stronger now, taking over. Because of course. Mara’s the reason they got away.
1. All one shot: Mara exits office building and moves to her car. Just before she gets in, she smiles to herself (and that’s when the electric guitar kicks in, and the real vocals start.)
Arc: Henriksen
1. All one shot: Henriksen looks through the emptiness, realizing he’s been duped. The camera moves in close to him.
Arc: Sam and Dean
1. Sam and Dean slamming down the trunk, camera following Sam over to passenger side and then across the top of the car to Dean.
2. Shot of Sam looking at Dean across the car.
3. Shot of Dean looking at Sam.
4. Shot of Sam looking at Dean. (The chorus of the Alice in Chains song now kicking in. “They’ve come to snuff the Rooster.”)
5. Full shot of Impala, Sam and Dean getting in.
6. Shot through passenger side window of Sam and Dean. Focus on Dean first, then focus-switch to Sam in the foreground.
7. Full shot of Impala, headlights turned on, engine revving, and they roar out of the frame.
Broken down like that, you can see the mathematics of it. It’s short and breathless in the opening, then the scenes in the middle stretch out, then the ending gets quicker even than the opening (one-shots back and forth), and then the slowing-down denouement.
Maybe taking it apart like this isn’t fun for some of you all, and I totally get it. The story is engaging in and of itself. But when something works it works on all levels: ligthing, costume, makeup, acting, editing … and it’s fun to celebrate when they really really get it right.
Final thoughts:
The move from this …
… straight to this …
… is so pleasing, so dramatic. It brings with it a release of tension/emotion. It’s bold: the catharsis of the end of the episode is not given to Sam and Dean, it’s given to the shared smiles of Henriksen and Daniels, smaller non-regular characters. We move out of the brothers’ perspective, into how others experience them. Any time Supernatural shifts that POV, it’s exciting.
That back-to-back shot smile-to-smile is pleasing, too, because both smiles are unexpected. Sam and Dean sure as hell aren’t smiling. Henriksen’s smile is sexy as HELL, and it reminds me of Linda Blair’s great line reading to herself in “The Usual Suspects”, “These guys …” Henriksen almost admires those two Houdini lunatics. And that dimple! Help!
Henriksen is such a towering figure that neither brother feels comfortable, or even glad it’s over. (Meanwhile, Dean is probably secretly yearning for The Yard.)
That was way too close a call, and they are royally screwed.
Again.
I was a big Alice in Chains fan back in their heyday because I was Gen-X Grunger and all that shit pouring out of the Pacific Northwest spoke to me personally, I took it personally, it was my experience made manifest. “Rooster,” this gloomy anthem (with that almost angelically harmonic female opening) was released in 1993, written by Jerry Cantrell for his Vietnam vet dad. His dad was nicknamed “Rooster” in Vietnam, but Cantrell’s dad never talked about his time over there, and his son only asked once. The song was the son’s way of paying tribute to his dad and other men like him, and also a way to try to empathetically imagine himself into his dad’s experience. The song continues to have great meaning and resonance to U.S. troops overseas (and who knows, probably British, Australian troops, everyone else). It speaks something that only a soldier knows first-hand. Tim Kennedy, a UFC wrestler and U.S. Army vet, used “Rooster” as his entrance song into the ring, especially when he does benefit matches for the troops. It’s military short-hand that song: “I got you. I know you. We know the score. We been through this.” Pretty cool since it was performed by a bunch of grungy Gen-Xers who’ve never seen a day of combat in their lives.
I remember the official music video for the song. You can get immune to music videos, you see too many, they all blend together. But sometimes one comes along that stops you dead in your tracks, and “Rooster” is one of them. Maybe the re-enactments are a little silly but the attempt is sincere, to pay tribute to his father’s experience. The whole thing opens like a documentary. It’s quite emotional.
In terms of “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Rooster” could refer to the Vietnam War bond between Deacon and John, the whole genesis of the episode. The Marine Corps meant a lot to John, his service is something his sons are proud of, and when an old friend from the Corps needs help, you help. Those are the rules.
Consider too: “Rooster” was written by a young man attempting to understand his father. A father who wouldn’t talk about things, who couldn’t talk about things. It’s a father-son song. (Poor giant Tiny? Sam? Dean? You can’t walk two feet without finding fucked-up fathers and sons in this damn show.)
The lyrics are pared-down and evocative, you can tell they are personal. It’s “pills against mosquito death,” “Gloria,” pets and sweat and Army green.
Because the song starts up as Deacon slowly recovers, it connects to him at first. It’s his. The instrumental opening of the song is long, with the female voices coming in eventually, and it’s a while before the male vocals start. The whole sequence is timed perfectly with the song (they edited those scenes down to the millisecond to match it all up). Those floaty-harmonizing women’s voices underline Henriksen’s moment of disorientation, but then connects us over to Mara Daniels in the next moment. Women. Women’s voices are the first vocals you hear in this song about Vietnam, women wailing, crying, keening. The way it comes across in the episode, outside of Vietnam, is that those singing women hover over Sam and Dean protectively, just like Mara Daniels hovered. Women hover protectively. They help usher the boys to safety. Don’t knock it. We all need it. The hovering-valedictory-protective mood doesn’t last long and when she bursts out in a grin, the electric guitar grinds in (give her a couple of margaritas, this chick is a blast). Her grin bursts open the end of the sequence. The song proper roars to life, but the tension doesn’t ratchet up with it, and even Henriksen feels that down-turn, that “it’s over, it’s over now” in his to-die-for dimple-smiling “You have got to be fucking kidding me” look that follows.
Thinking of the episode coming next, “What Is and What Should Never Be,” and then the two-parter that closes it all out, the lyrics are prophetic of what is to come, on into Season 3, prophetic of death, and yet also the up-ending of the natural order (Rooster ain’t gonna die), the loss of whatever was left of their innocence, the first real crossroads deals made, the descent into darkness even darker than Season 2. The song hints at where they will be going. Way beyond where they can be reached.
Beyond the pale, even for them.
Ain’t found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stinging sweat
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullets scream to me from somewhereHere they come to snuff the rooster
Yeah here come the rooster, yeah
You know he ain’t gonna die
No, no, no, ya know he ain’t gonna dieWalkin’ tall machine gun man
They spit on me in my home land
Gloria sent me pictures of my boy
Got my pills ‘gainst mosquito death
My buddy’s breathin’ his dyin’ breath
Oh God please won’t you help me make it throughHere they come to snuff the rooster
Yeah here come the rooster, yeah
You know he ain’t gonna die
No, no, no ya know he ain’t gonna die
OMG YAY!!!! This is one of my top 5. I’ve been waiting for this one, and I can’t wait to read it!!!
Your exclamation points make me happy!!!
One of my favorite episodes too. Can’t get enough of it.
Let’s discuss when you finish reading, which should be about 2 weeks from now.
YES!!!!!! I just knew you were going to post a recap today. I felt it in my blood. Okay, total lie. I check every day. Because I am weird…and obsessed.
This is one of my absolute favorite episodes. I have been to the Riverview Hospital (which is an abandoned mental hospital in Vancouver) where they filmed the majority of this episode. It is a MASTER example of “setting.” I felt the prison vibe the whole time I was there. It adds so much to the reality of this episode. The whole complex is full of dark trees and even though you are close to a main road you can’t hear it. It seems completely shut off from the normal world. Even the sun seems dimmer when you are there. The show actually uses the complex frequently for shooting but even after 8 years it was 100% “Folsom Prison Blues” when I got out of the car.
Thank you for checking every day. :)
Busiest autumn in recent memory – I just couldn’t get to it. So thanks for hanging in there.
Oh, and I suppose I could put up a 4-paragraph re-cap but obviously that isn’t my style.
Wow. You’re right. I will have to read this recap several times to get everything. It’s like watching a Supernatural episode repeatedly to get all the nuances. I’m on my 9th viewing of Baby and I still need to watch it again.
Anyway…let’s start with your take on Dean. I agree with everything you say but I think the reason for his amorphousness is because he is the oldest in a very dysfunctional family. His mother died when he was 4, and he was raised by a man who really didn’t care about raising a child. John loved both of his sons but he really didn’t care about raising a normal human being. So poor Dean gets his personality from movies and other men and books and fairy tales. Oldest kids get their identity from the adults around them because they don’t have older siblings to emulate. If there is no one around to give them a soul, they either end up very empty or they create their own, but that personality is never as solid because it’s not really based on anything solid. They become the creature that they need to be and never really find the creature that they are meant to be unless they are very very lucky and/or find a great therapist. Sam, lucky bastard, had Dean.
Also, thank you for clearly explaining why the setting works so well and so quickly. The people that make Supernatural have the ability to put you right into the setting by the end of the teaser or worse case, the end of Act 1. I’m never confused about where I am or when I am. It’s clear as a bell.
Your comments about Padalecki and Ackles acting is also so cool. They are clearly a matched set. They know their characters and each other so well and respect and more importantly trust each other. The intelligence of realizing 10 years ago when they were both so young that this was only going to work if they were both fully committed to the show and more importantly each other makes watching them a pleasure. Their method of acting in some episodes reminds me of Hitchcock’s better movies. In some of his movies, you could turn down the sound and still understand what was going on by watching the actors’ faces and eyes. There is a sequence in North by Northwest when Leo G. Carroll explains everything to Cary Grant (in a ridiculously short time). The entire dialogue is drowned out so you hear nothing but you understand everything simply by watching their faces. As you say, SPN is not afraid of silence because they know what they have. They don’t need pages and pages of dialogue or exposition.
Carolyn –
I haven’t reached your # of times viewing Baby but I’m getting there. It keeps revealing its gifts. My favorite scene at present (and that will change) is Sam and Dean hanging out in the car talking about God, prayer, and dreams. Extraordinary scene.
// The intelligence of realizing 10 years ago when they were both so young that this was only going to work if they were both fully committed to the show and more importantly each other makes watching them a pleasure. //
So amazing, right? They got it immediately: this will live or die on our chemistry. I’m sure the “chemistry read”, as it’s called, with the two actors put together in an audition to see if it works – was automatic. How I’d love to see that tape! It must have been similar to Padalecki’s audition tape: the performance is already complete, it is recognizably what we would come to know as “Sam,” and he doesn’t even have the role yet. THAT’S how you audition!!
// In some of his movies, you could turn down the sound and still understand what was going on by watching the actors’ faces and eyes. //
I cannot even tell you how much I love this observation.
// SPN is not afraid of silence because they know what they have. //
I hadn’t thought of it that way before – think you’re totally right.
I totally agree with everything you say about Dean! My one “thing” with it though is that I’m the oldest child and not all of the details of that “type” apply. (Except for feeling like “The Leader” of my siblings sometimes – inappropriate now, because we are adults. Probably inappropriate back then too but whatever, I was 8 years old and the Queen Bee. Also, the “type” applies in that my parents made all their mistakes on me. I would never say that to them, but it’s true. I have issues my younger siblings don’t have because by the time they came around my parents had learned more about how to be parents. Just the luck of the draw.)
I think the amorphous thing comes from that first trauma, like you say – having a memory of Mom’s love and having it ripped away, his former “context” obliterated, and he had to adjust immediately to the new “context” of his lunatic dad. Dean has gone into life with his own sense of autonomy and personal choice ripped away from him – EARLY. Dean adjusts to new “contexts” – has had to in order to survive. Maybe there was evidence of it before – but for me, never as clearly put out as in “Hollywood Babylon” and “Folsom Prison Blues.” Both played for hilarity, but with that deeper thing going on underneath. Sam never needed to make that adjustment to new contexts – he was born into it.
So I’d say that I think “context” has to do more with it than a natural result of placement in the family line-up.
Thank you for reading – I realize this post is a monster!!
Love the birth order thoughts here – but I agree with you, Sheila, that it has more to do with family context than birth order for Dean. I would also add that not only did Dean have to adjust to the new context after the initial trauma of the fire and Mom’s death, there were likely repeated shifts of context and expectations of him afterwards. All of my clients who had abusive childhoods learned to read a room in a split second. It was necessary for their survival. Every time John came back from a hunt, Dean had to figure out which version of John was coming back, and he had to figure out quick, and adjust to John’s expectations of him. Sam would have had to as well, and he definitely would have picked up on the tension, but Dean likely shielded Sam from the worst of it, not to mention the fact that Dean provided to Sam exactly the constant that he did NOT have for himself after losing his mom. At least, not until Bobby.
Natalie – Thanks for the perspective, as always!
// All of my clients who had abusive childhoods learned to read a room in a split second. It was necessary for their survival. //
So interesting. Have you seen Room yet? :) There are scenes where she looks around assessing the threat level, and the kid does so as well – and sometimes they mis-read things, but the feelings are real. They’ve earned those feelings: no one is to be trusted.
The conversation about “context” has been so interesting in this thread. It’s gone through all these loop-de-loops – I think it’s an important element of the show. I know it came up originally because of Dean blending in to two different contexts back to back in Hollywood Babylon and Folsom Prison Blues – but it’s really been developed in this thread in ways I like thinking about.
Dean as Shield is really interesting – and sad – because the kid was 7 years old – he had no business being a shield. But he did what he had to do, and Sam was littler and he had to protect Sam. I suppose – taken outside of a modern context – it is this very impulse in Dean that allowed the human race to develop compassion/selflessness at all – concepts that seem like they should have been bred out of us by evolution – but haven’t been.
If the older ones don’t protect the younger ones, we’re all screwed. On the most basic level. And the fact that human beings are helpless for SUCH a long period of time – compared to, say, bear cubs, who hit the ground running. But human beings need protection, really, for years. I’m no anthropologist but it seems to me that the development of human connection and caring might have something to do with that. You can’t just leave the kid behind in your cave. You have to step up and watch out for it. I may have this all wrong.
So it’s that ambiguous thing – playing out in the characters’ lives and inside them: Dean cannot give up that role. He has no life outside of it. And he NEEDED that role when he was a child, because it probably helped HIM survive too. (Not that there’s an excuse for what John did – but in terms of sheer basic survival: Dean did the best he could and taking care of Sam probably helped level him, stabilize him.) All of this has been at a HUGE price for Dean. I love how that is all still playing out. I’m now re-watching Season 8 – not my favorite – although there’s a lot of good stuff there. Dean is so BETRAYED that Sam went off and had his own life – he is the crankiest CrankyPants ever for a good 8 episodes straight. It’s great!! And Sam, for the most part, plays right back into it – with a couple of explosive “get off my back” moments – but still: that’s something you’d say to a Dad, not to a sibling with whom you supposedly have an adult relationship. They both are doing the same dance over and over …
Maybe this is why people feel it’s repetitive – but to me … I don’t know, that’s FAMILY.
And each season the context changes. One goes off the rails, then the other … but that same conflict – the “can’t live with him, can’t live without him” thing – is playing out.
//human beings are helpless for SUCH a long period of time// So true and so relevant to the Winchesters (I’m on mobile so if you guys covered this already, I’m sorry!) It’s not just humans who are so helpless at birth. Look at animals with similar lengthy development like elephants who have the same protective predisposition as humans, to take care of their altricial young at all costs. One thing to consider is that survival is predicated on the herd, many adults looking out at all times for the young. I would argue that humans developed that way as well (it takes a village to use the cliche). Where societal dysfunction occurs is when the larger group and the stable structure it provides breaks down providing no help when it comes to survival of a child. All the being said, is it any wonder Dean is a mess when it comes to caring for Sam? There is no herd around him. John has chosen to segregate his children not just from society but from other hunters (Pastor Jim, Caleb and Bobby living two states away or more do not constitute support). Dean’s instincts had to kick in on a basic level to protect beyond John’s imperative to “watch out for Sammy”.
Paula – thanks for elaborating on that!
I hadn’t thought about the herd part of it – and the “herd” feeling loops us back into this re-cap and the re-cap of the episode before.
Dean LOVING the “herd”. A herd sets him free in ways you just couldn’t have predicted before then when he seems like such an uncompromising “family business” loner.
But human beings cluster up – just like animals cluster up – and so Sam and Dean, whizzing by communities in their car without stopping, are separated from that important human trait.
//There are scenes where she looks around assessing the threat level, and the kid does so as well – and sometimes they mis-read things, but the feelings are real. They’ve earned those feelings: no one is to be trusted.//
That’s exactly it. Unresolved trauma like that results in constant vigilance for new threats. And any misreading is likely going to err on the side of caution – safer to see threats that don’t exist than to miss the ones that are real.
I have not seen Room yet – I really want to! It was only at one theater around here, and not one that I’m able to get to easily. I’m hoping it’ll be available for rental soon on Amazon.
//But human beings need protection, really, for years. I’m no anthropologist but it seems to me that the development of human connection and caring might have something to do with that. You can’t just leave the kid behind in your cave. You have to step up and watch out for it. I may have this all wrong. //
You’re not wrong at all! In fact, that’s why human babies look the way they do – the big eyes, the large head relative to the body, round cheeks, soft skin, etc. – because most of us are hardwired to find that irresistible. (Whether babies evolved to look that way because we find it cute, or we evolved to find the way babies look cute is a chicken-and-egg question that better minds than mine haven’t been able to answer yet, though.)
Paula, I love the point you make about the herd and the isolation of the Winchesters. When I worked for CPS, anytime I found out a family I was investigating was homeschooling, that was an immediate red flag. I think this has been touched on before in the recaps and comments, but the environment John created for the boys was very cult-like. Sam was the one who was able to break free from that – to some extent, anyway; he did still keep the family secrets – again, likely because of Dean acting as the shield/buffer between John and Sam.
Natalie –
Now that we all have been lambasted/scolded by our interloping commenter, it’s good to get back to the discussion.
// that’s why human babies look the way they do – the big eyes, the large head relative to the body, round cheeks, soft skin, etc. – because most of us are hardwired to find that irresistible.
Wow, I hadn’t thought of that! Amazing. How are we so smart without even knowing it?
I had read something somewhere (and it may be bullshit) that cats don’t have as mobile facial expressions as dogs because they didn’t need them as much – they didn’t need human protection as much as dogs did. OR, dogs were valued for their companionship to humans and so dogs developed – over millennia obviously – more expressiveness in their faces because it served them, it helped them out survival-wise. Cats, as we all know, don’t give a rats’ ass about any of that. Or, I know mine doesn’t. :)
I have no idea if this is true.
In re: isolation and family as cult:
Somewhere else in this thread, Troopic and I discussed the whole Quiverfull Patriarchy movement – I thought I was the only one obsessed with them. The Botkin sisters!! One of the clearest and most disturbing examples of “parentification” that I have ever seen. Complete brainwashing. Daughters as caretakers of fathers. Mothers made irrelevant once they lose their usefulness as breeding machines. It’s so creepy – family as cult – plus the homeschooling isolation thing – so that anyone “outside” are seen as terrifying specters of social decay. They make these HUGE incorrect generalizations about what people who aren’t religious are like – because they don’t KNOW any people who aren’t religious.
I’m interested in what you’ve seen in regards to siblings in that kind of environment.
I can see that the oldest child usually “takes the fall.” Or is the most messed up. (Josh Duggar? Although I’m sure the Duggar Kids will continue to generate headlines as they turn into Hot Messes as they grow up … it’s inevitable in that cloistered unrealistic environment that tries to police/silence sexuality to such an unhealthy degree.)
I guess I’m interested in Sam in all of that.
There was a fascinating moment in the last episode (which I thought was superb, I’ve already watched it twice) – where Sam praises his brother – “he’s always had my back, even when I didn’t deserve it.”
That final scene, with the Purgatory apology makes what was going on there more clear … Sam didn’t look happy as he said that line about “he’s always had my back” – he looked guilty.
But because Season 8 is so fresh in my mind – watching it at the same time as this current season – I think of the fake text Dean sent … and the other stuff – and wonder if Sam has a selective memory. (Like we all do, I suppose.)
Lucifer re-framing the Amelia respite as Sam running away, dropping the ball. (Echoing, I suppose, the main fan reaction to that story.)
So do the younger children have guilt about the damage put on their older siblings? Like: “wow, you got the full brunt of all that stuff … thank you for protecting me … but I feel so guilty that I am the protected one…”
That seems to be what is happening, but would love to hear people’s thoughts on it. On Sam and younger siblings.
The domestication thing and big eyes… Disney’s Mortimer Mouse – Mickey’s precursor – had smaller eyes. Walt and Ub figured out that larger eyes were just more appealing. So we get Ariel, with each eye roughly a third of the width of her head. We’ve evolved to respond to such things, they signal “innocence” to us and when you make them bigger (but not too much so), then you get an extra large response. Same for breasts. Or for adding that third brake light that all cars got about 15-20 years ago. If two brake lights make you think “stop,” then three will make you REALLY think “stop.” Until it becomes normal and we all return to the same old response to the larger stimulus.
As for dogs and their expressions, there’s an interesting experiment that’s been on-going in Siberia for over 50 years. A Russian scientist tried to breed foxes for domesticity, and after a few generations of breeding for that behavior (and nothing else), he got foxes with floppy ears and shorter tails. Something in that genome ties domesticity in behavior with those changes in appearance. Very interesting. Here’s a pretty informative article from Scientific American on the experiment.
//do younger children have guilt about the damage put on their older siblings?// Speaking as the baby sister of two much older brothers, there is so much guilt. When you’re younger, you may not understand these family dynamics and act out as a child would. Once you’re old enough to understand, that guilt escalates because you didn’t understand in the moment, maybe made the problem worse by your actions or were powerless to help. There is no way to dissolve those memories, so I find myself still apologizing for things I had no control over as a child.
It is a terrible emotional push-pull with older sibs of anger and love. To this day, my brothers want to protect me or tell me what to do (no one has told them that I’m no longer the 12-year-old kid they left behind when they went off to college). We have epic arguments over the stupidest things that they forget the next day and I feel guilt over and will remember forever. The family Ferris Wheel of emotions.
Is it any surprise that I relate to Sam? That moment in Something Wicked where he offers Dean the prize in the cereal box? GPOY
Sheila – This write-up is such a catharsis, an outpouring of love and frustration which I love love love. Your comments on The Red were interesting. Henricksen and Jessie’s now famous comment always bring a smile to my face. There is so much here that I need to reread this all again tomorrow.
One small comment is the contrast of Deacon’s comment about John Winchester “your daddy must have raised you right” versus Henricksen’s snark about their daddy being a crazy paranoid bad touching them in Nightshifter. Here’s a character, their father, who is not even on the screen but looms large in conversations in these episodes. Complicated and lengthy character reveal. I will be back after I read again,
Paula – In re: Henriksen’s comment about John:
I’m pretty sure in the interrogation scene here, Henriksen references John, too – I’m sure one of you all will confirm that. I can’t remember the line – it’s not as rude as the one in “Nightshifter” but I remember hearing Henriksen reference Dad and just assuming that Dean will come back with another warning, like he did in Nightshifter. But he doesn’t. The stakes have gone up, way up, now that they’re meeting in person.
John Winchester is the gift that keeps on giving. I LOVE it when he’s references, especially now – in Season 10, Season 11. It’s STILL unfinished business – always will be.
This is one of my very favorite episodes – it’s such a pure example of what SPN does at its best – it’s hard not to compare! I try to be fair!!
I am determined to at LEAST get to Season 4 with these re-caps because I am so in love with what that season looks like that everything else practically washes away. I have to watch episodes multiple times just so I can absorb how gorgeous it all looks and focus on the plot/characters.
The acting is so superb and you can see how the Red really really helps in digging us into their Faces, their emotions, the backgrounds …
Kind of like that Casablanca line: “At least we have Paris” – with some of the ugliness of Seasons 7 and 8 – we can all say “at least we have Seasons 1 through 6.”
I’m with you all the way to Season 4 if you do it. So many eps in that season that I would love to hear your commentary on (Lazarus Rising, Sex and Violence, When The Levee Breaks just to name three). All of the things we talk about with the brothers’ interactions and S1 and S2 are blown wide in such a delightfully painful way.
One little detail of the Yard scene in this ep (where Dean is collecting coin of the realm) that makes me smile is that when he stands up to make his speech to the inmates, you can see JP seated but not completely turned away and he is subvocalizing Dean’s line as JA says it. I find it endearing.
//I’m with you all the way to Season 4 if you do it. So many eps in that season that I would love to hear your commentary on (Lazarus Rising, Sex and Violence, When The Levee Breaks just to name three). //
Oh my God yes, count me in!
// you can see JP seated but not completely turned away and he is subvocalizing Dean’s line as JA says it. //
It’s freaking adorable.
I am now in the process of re-watching Season 5 – I’ve pulled out episodes before to re-watch but not the whole thing. It’s insanely intricate and entertaining – maybe one of their most ambitious seasons. Swords and vessels and consent and back-story and Absent Fathers – This is Castiel too in high HIGH gear, where he really has a proper and strong function in the story. The deadpan, the ferocity, the way he moves (like he’s not used to being contained in a human body) – none of that wink-wink to his fans stuff that has become so common. He brings (or brought) SO MUCH to the show. I had forgotten – and it’s good to be reminded of that, since I’m so sick of him now.
He’s so MYSTERIOUS. one-track-mind. very very compelling.
Yeah, JP cracking up – but my favorite JP cracking up is Dean’s blurting ‘SONOFABITCH” in the graveyard – and JP quite openly bursts into laughter, turning his head away. I don’t know how anyone could look dead-on at JA as he explodes SONOFABITCH and not laugh out loud.
oh my god
I was HUNGRY for tthis recap 0-0
you have no idea.
I’m personally here for the psychological aspects and the extra cultural refs (although your review of the camera works and setting make me understand my owx experience even better. No wonder I had problems digesting s7 and s8 visually… :( ). You are a well of endless unformation. Never stop.
Dean is by far the most complicated character UI had ever witnessed, and your deschiphering of him is 1) refreshing, 2) accurate, 3) merciless, and I LOVE IT. WELL DONE.
You naled well his fluidnedd by coining “amourphous”. i agree.
Aften in the series we see Sam visually associated with a split, crack, duality. Dean? A shatter, a mass of glass. A shower of glass falls on him constantly, he shatters mirrors, he is reflected in a bunch of shards. Why? becouse as much as Sam has a conflict in him, Dean is a mess, a blob. So much to contain, I am surprised he is still a whole.
A Dean who. as child, didn’t have a Sam would have a full blown psychopath (Demon Dean?), and a Sam growing up without Dean would have been a full blown sociopath (soulless Sam?). Hence – “we keep each other human”. For the sake of the world and society: DO NOT TRY TO PRY THEM APART. (hope I got the terms right, correct me if I’m wrong?)
Interesting thing about Dean as the older in a very dysfunctional family – as stated in a comment above by carolyn clarke – about who Dean modeled himself after – there is the aspect of his role in the family cell. Dean is the result of extreme parentification.
As WIKIPEDIA states (please take into account this is all from wiki, not my words, I just compiled it):
Literary examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parentification#Literary_examples
Another example of parentification in modern media is the relationship between John and Dean Winchester in the widely popular CW television series, Supernatural. Often Dean finds himself taking care of his younger brother Sam and his father John, taking on the roles of both mother and father for his brother and acting as a guiding force for his father.
This can also be construed as an example of covert incest* (*excerpt. a style of parenting in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult.…along with narcissistic abuse* (*excerpt. … a specific form of emotional abuse of children …parents who require the child to give up their own wants and feelings in order to serve the parent’s needs for esteem… Self-help culture currently assumes that someone abused by narcissistic parenting as a child likely struggles with codependency issues in adulthood. An adult who is or has been in a relationship with a narcissist likely struggles with not knowing what constitutes a “normal” relationship.
The whole article can make your face go white.
If you allow me, to ctrl+C ctral+V my compilation, sorry for length in advance:
Parentification –
Is the process of role reversal whereby a child is obliged to act as parent to their own parent. In extreme cases, the child is used to fill the void of the alienating parent’s emotional life.
Two distinct modes… instrumental parentification and emotional parentification. Instrumental parentification involves… or providing assistance to younger siblings that would normally be provided by a parent.
Emotional parentification occurs when a child or adolescent must take on the role of a confidant or mediator for (or between) parents and/or family members.
Prehistory
… emotional deprivation could lead parents to treat their children (unconsciously) as substitute parent figures… “Spousification” and “parental child”… while the theme of intergenerational continuity in such violations of personal boundaries was further examined…
…the child’s False Self is called into being* (*excerpt. False Self: a defensive facade – one which in extreme cases could leave its holders lacking spontaneity and feeling dead and empty, behind a mere appearance of being real.)… when it is forced prematurely to take excessive care of the parental object… “compulsive caregiving” among the anxiously attached, as a result of a parent inverting the normal relationship and pressuring the child to be an attachment figure for them…
Choice of child
… elder children are generally chosen… the eldest son… forced to take on his father’s* (*mother’s?) responsibilities, without ever obtaining the autonomy that normally accompanies such adult roles…
Narcissistic parentification
…occurs when a child is forced to take on the parent’s idealised projection, something which encourages a compulsive perfectionism in the child at the expense of their natural development…
Disadvantages/advantages
The almost inevitable byproduct of parentification is losing one’s own childhood… In destructive parentification, the child in question takes on excessive responsibility in the family, without their caretaking being acknowledged and supported by others… the child loses his real place in the family unit and is left lonely and unsure… In extreme instances, there may be what has been called a kind of disembodiment, a narcissistic wound* ( *excerpt. …a perceived threat to a narcissist’s self-esteem or self-worth… occurs on a continuum from instances of aloofness, and expression of mild irritation or annoyance, to serious outbursts, including violent attacks and murder… two layers of rage: The first layer… constant anger… the second layer being a self-aimed wrath.) …that threatens one’s basic self-identity…
…parentified children may be left struggling with unacknowledged anger and resentment, may have difficulty trusting… may end up struggling to form and maintain romantic relationships…
However, not all results of parentification may be negative. Some studies have hypothesized that when a child is the subject of parentification, it might sometimes result in them, later in life, having greater psychological resilience* (*excerpt. an individual’s ability to properly adapt to stress and adversity) …more individuation* (*excerpt. …the individual self… innate elements of personality, the components of the immature psyche, and the experiences of the person’s life become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole) …a clearer sense of self, and more secure attachment styles during adulthood…
This is VERY common where a tragedy strikes, in immigrant famililes, war striken societies and other catastrophics.
So it’s far fetched, Actually it fits to a T.
Dean, from a Falce Self and Hollowess, to a Clear Sense Of Self.
That’s the turmoil, the conflit. A chameleon in a color pallette in a funhouse off mirrors.
Oh Sam, lucky bastard indeed, he had Dean.
I have so much more mon my mind, your recaps give me so much life! ThanQ so much for making them! I check everyday for any bleep from you on the subject! It’s fascinating!
So following your analysis, here’s the question, Troopic. Since we’re giving Eric Kripke the credit for creating this lovely vision that is Supernatural, do we think that he thought this whole analysis through or (which I think is more likely), the psychology of Dean and Sam evolved over time as the show evolved. That the characters became deeper and broader as JA and JP grew into them. I think the relationships of JP, JA and JDM were solidly constructed from day one and then built on over time. Thank God someone had the courage to keep putting more layers on that foundation because that’s what keeps us coming back week after week. I can’t wait for the new episode. We know that Dean and Cas will rescue Sam, and we know that they are going to have to do something particularly nasty to pull it off, but I’m looking forward to the scene between Sam and Dean. First Dean will make sure that Sam “is good”, then will come the scolding. It’s their pattern, it’s what they do, but how will they do it? That’s what makes this fun.
I agree – the foundation was there, but the continuous acting and writing and the layering made all that possible. The fact that such a label fits so well to a character on TV is still phenomenal.
Carolyn – it’s a very interesting question, right? How much of this was deliberate?
I think Eric Kripke understands siblings. Especially brothers. JP and JA do too. It’s an intuitive understanding – the way anyone who has siblings “gets it.” You wouldn’t put that into words – the psychologists do – but that’s not how you experience it on the ground. You just KNOW it.
and so I think Kripke put that into the characters from that first episode – and everything was able to build from there. The “monster” was incidental: The siblings and Dad were the series’ real reason for being – and while we out here don’t relate to fighting vampires because vampires don’t exist – we relate to family relationships, good and bad – because we all have them, for better or worse.
I totally agree that the relationships set up from the get-go were both specific and also broad – and that’s why we are still learning more about it – because it’s not TOO specific. There’s wiggle-room. Also those flip-flops in expectations: you’d think SAM would be the one to so-and-so, but instead it’s Dean, and vice-versa.
And that’s real too. We all know that. None of us line up according to type.
It’s so great. And yes: we know how it’s all gonna go, but it’s the HOW that makes it so much fun!
Okay, Troopic, this is so much to absorb and I’ll be back but first off:
So gratifying for me to know that people are excited when I post. Seriously: it makes the work worth it. I thank you!
Secondly:
You say my analysis of Dean is “1) refreshing, 2) accurate, 3) merciless” –
hahahaha I LOVE that combination – especially the “merciless” part – I went into this trying to combat the “poor baby” infantilization (in my opinion) commentary of Dean that I saw out there. He can take the criticism, and Ackles participates in showing us those un-perfect aspects of Dean. it’s what I’m going for, although I never would have put it into those words.
In re: Dean’s flaws: they’re more interesting than his heroism, but I always think of two moments in the series – one comedic, one heartbreakingly clear – that place the character in its context, so high up that all one can do is show the imperfections to give proper shading:
1. The goofball “affirming” waiter in The Mentalists who takes Dean’s order and then compliments him: “You’re a virile manifestation of the divine.” Clearly played for hilarity. But true in the conception of the character. “Divine.” “Virile.” Those two together an uneasy combo – but TRUE.
2. The song lyrics in Fan fiction: “a man without sin …”
Not too many characters could take that kind of hero-worship without the audience gagging. At least the audience looking for subtlety, which I am. Dean’s not a superhero. He’s a man. And because Ackles is so honest about Dean’s flaws and obnoxiousness and unself-awareness – the character can TAKE those comments of sheer Love and Hero-worship.
Okay, onto the rest of your comment.
// he shatters mirrors, he is reflected in a bunch of shards. Why? becouse as much as Sam has a conflict in him, Dean is a mess, a blob. So much to contain, I am surprised he is still a whole. //
Troopic – I love this. No wonder I love all the Dean Mirror Moments. Sam has a few, but Dean was way more. In Season 9, there was practically one Dean Mirror Moment per episode. He is looking for himself, he is trying to understand himself, he is trying to put his own pieces together. The mirror is confrontational – cracked – or broken up by frames – or smudged – he has to wipe it clean – he can’t GET to himself.
// A Dean who. as child, didn’t have a Sam would have a full blown psychopath (Demon Dean?), and a Sam growing up without Dean would have been a full blown sociopath (soulless Sam?). Hence – “we keep each other human”. For the sake of the world and society: DO NOT TRY TO PRY THEM APART. (hope I got the terms right, correct me if I’m wrong?) //
Troopic, I really like this take. The symbiotic nature of their relationship and how they helped each other survive, but also yes: to stay human. What was the season where that really came into play? Season 5? Someone? Bueller? They had conversations to that effect – maybe one by that overpass that shows up so often – although I may be misremembering it.
In re: Parentification: If I am not mistaken: Natalie, a regular commenter here, had a lot to say about this once. Or maybe I read it somewhere else. I think it’s extremely interesting to contemplate – and how it manifests. I am not sure Ackles would go into it that way – it seems more of an instinct with him (I love his body language change in “Home,” when he hears that Sam is talking to Dad on the phone. The sitting up in bed, the hurriedly putting on his shirt … It’s such a deep identification with that role. You want him to be free of it. At this point, Season 11, I don’t think it’s possible – although some of that tension has been loosened up.)
// “compulsive caregiving” among the anxiously attached, as a result of a parent inverting the normal relationship and pressuring the child to be an attachment figure for them… //
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the whole Quiverfull/Patriarchy sub-set of Christianity – where fathers are heads of household, and are told to guard their daughters’ purity – until the daughter is handed over to the husband. Often the marriage is set up between fathers, as opposed to the people wanting to get married. It’s deeply damaging (there’s a whole groundswell of blogs written by people who have busted out of Quiverfull) – The Duggars are a prime example, and they have buried their background in the TV show, and never mention Quiverful or the churches they are associated with – but you can see the result in that kind of parenting in what is happening to those kids now (and I imagine there’s more to come). I feel no schaudenfraude: I ache for those kids who were never allowed autonomy. And the girls sometimes get it worse than the boys – because they are forced into “parentification” and their role in connection to their Dads is one of surrogate wife. The girls “serve” the dad until they move on to “serve” the husband. “Emotional incest” is a term used often on these post-Quiverful blogs – people admitting what happened to them – sometimes as messed up as the daughters being in charge of SHAVING their fathers’ beards. (Google it. It’s so disturbing.)
Thank you so much for checking every day and for hanging in there during gaps.
Every single comment from every single one of you people adds to my enjoyment of this subject.
In re: Dean/eldest son/parentification – perhaps the most archetypal story that describes this is Christ’s parable of the Prodigal Son. That poor older brother, who stayed home and did everything right. The younger son was the wild one, the rebel …
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
I relate to that older brother.
//In re: Parentification: If I am not mistaken: Natalie, a regular commenter here, had a lot to say about this once.//
Yes, I think Natalie wrote about this in one of the first season posts. I can’t remember which one, though I remember that it was the first time I had heard about Parentification.
I also really enjoy talking about the psychological elements of SPN. Particularly Sam and Dean. There is something so real about the two of them that makes it endlessly fascinating to me.
Oh, man, I love talking the parentification stuff with Dean :-) I have said stuff about it in the past – Dead Man’s Blood, maybe? I want to say it’s come up more than once in the recap comments before. (And it’s something that’s still coming up in new episodes! Last week’s exchange between Crowley and Dean: “Don’t worry about Sam.” “I’m sorry, have you met me?”)
I would be willing to bet everything I have that at least one person on the writing staff is extremely knowledgeable about the concept of parentification, because it comes up over and over again. I mean, if I were teaching a course on childhood trauma, I would be showing SPN clips non-stop to demonstrate the effects of parentification.
I don’t know if I went into it before (although I think somebody else – Jessie? – linked to an excellent essay about this in reference to SPN at one point in the comment threads), but the main function of parentification, for the parentified child, is that it alleviates the child’s anxiety. The prime example of this is in Dark Side of the Moon, when Dean comforts Mom after her fight with John. People who are not familiar with the concept will see kids doing that kind of thing and think, oh, isn’t that sweet of him to comfort her, but the real basis of the child’s actions is a sense of “I don’t trust that you can take care of me and keep me safe right now, so I need to take control.” That’s the emotional parentification/emotional incest side of it, but it’s just as true with instrumental parentification. Dean knew that Dad wasn’t going to meet Sam’s needs, so Dean took over (by stealing Christmas presents for Sam from the house down the street).
I found the part on parentified children having potential having more secure adult attachment styles interesting, though. I can’t think of a single case where I found that to be true. And again, Dean is a good example of this: how threatened he is by the fact that Sam’s best memories are ones of individuation and autonomy from the family, or that Sam needed an imaginary friend because Dean didn’t fully meet his emotional needs. Many of the adults I know who were parentified as children end up in codependent relationships and have a very low sense of self-worth. They see themselves as Not Good Enough, because they weren’t able to fix everything. You know, because they were kids, and it shouldn’t have fallen on them to fix everything to begin with.
Natalie – so good, and such a helpful addition. Thank you.
// “I don’t trust that you can take care of me and keep me safe right now, so I need to take control.” //
What is so wonderful about that scene in Dark Side of the Moon, looking at it this way, is that suddenly we see that Dean got it from his MOTHER too. All along, you assume it was just Dad, right? Or I did. His memories of her all seemed to be hazy-wonderful – and (to be fair) in HIS world, that memory with his mother IS wonderful. A psychiatrist might not but inside his Winchester Belljar, he knew who he needed to be, he was able to fulfill it, AND he got what he wanted – a gentle caress/validation from mother.
But that’s what I found so fascinating the more I watched that episode, and listened to everything here. Dean was born into a family where both parents were doing that to him – Mary’s is subtler.
And maybe that happens with older children, but it didn’t happen with me. My parents made mistakes with me, and bad ones, but I never ever felt like I had to take care of them. They never put anything on me like that.
And so, to take this further:
What’s Sam’s role in all of this? I mean, I think we can see it, and we can understand his need for independence – I’m in Season 8 re-watch now, mid-Amelia – and yes, it looks even uglier than I remembered – but there’s SO MUCH THERE to chew on. The episodes are structured weirdly – too many flashbacks – but I got into the zone with it more this past time around.
Dean is so not interested in hearing about the “girl” – and pours on the guilt – like a martyred mother – and Sam pretty much takes it. For about 6 episodes before he explodes. It’s fun when he explodes – because Purgatory or no, Dean’s been punching at Sam relentlessly, and dude, you can’t treat people like that.
Even the not-looking-for-Dean thing – I hadn’t re-watched Season 8 in a while, and my memory of it was that I felt they dropped the “why the hell didn’t Sam look for Dean” thing too soon. I don’t feel that way at all anymore. (This is why I don’t do re-caps of current episodes. It takes me a while to process things.) Now it seems totally obvious. Of COURSE he didn’t look for Dean. His whole family was dead. Not looking for Kevin is a betrayal – but it’s that betrayal that gets Sam sucked back in. He knows he fucked up.
I guess what I’m saying is: I like what a MESS it all is. Everyone is behaving HORRIBLY – meanwhile Benny circles the block, meanwhile Garth breezes in like the picture of mental health, meanwhile Castiel stalks the land – and Sam and Dean are in this prolonged boxing match of rage.
I’m really into it now. I like how it’s set up.
But I’m interested in how Sam not looking for Dean … how you see that, in other words.
I’m still thinking about it. It bothered me so much the first time around, but honestly, that’s because I was way too Dean-identified. I get we all identify one way or another – but that identification can get in the way of seeing what the story is trying to DO.
So now I’m watching again … and it doesn’t bother me as much – because I’m more interested in how the Story and the Conflict are playing out.
Sam says repeatedly why he did what he did – but Dean never says, “Okay. I hear what you’re saying. It must have been wonderful to take a year off. I’m happy for you.” ha. Of course he didn’t.
But because Dean never even really acknowledges Sam’s life during that year off … we don’t get that catharsis. Similar to what happened when Sam came back from Hell and there Dean was, living with Lisa, just as Sam asked … only now, Sam doesn’t give a shit. HA. This show is so messed up and I love it.
Oh, and if I recall correctly, in Dark Side of the Moon: Sam’s response is about Dean “cleaning up Dad’s messes.” It’s all still about Dad, to them. To Sam too.
Nobody seems to realize that Mary was rewarding Dean, expecting Dean somehow to “step up” and provide her comfort and reassurance.
I don’t get the sense that that is in either of the mens’ minds at all.
I can see why you say that this parentification stuff is a very hard nut to crack, with lifelong consequences.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all either if someone on the staff knew this concept very well and had researched it. And in my opinion JA knows it intuitively. Maybe he wouldn’t put it into words or maybe he would use Dean’s words to describe it – but he knows exactly what he’s playing. And he did from the get-go. It showed up almost immediately.
“We keep each other human” was S5 The End *heart crack*
Yes to all of this discussion. If Dean didn’t have Sam as a child and bore the full weight of John’s obsession without the balance between hunting and caregiving, would he have become a psychopath (ala Gordon Walker)? Personally I don’t think so because he had so much of his mother in him that it would have overcome that. HOWEVER If Sam didn’t have Dean as a child, I’m pretty sure he and John would have taken their issues to the extreme and John would be lying dead on a motel room floor (hello, Tiny’s brother?) You know how much I love Sam but he would have gone Full Metal Jacket.
Paula –
// I’m pretty sure he and John would have taken their issues to the extreme and John would be lying dead on a motel room floor (hello, Tiny’s brother?) You know how much I love Sam but he would have gone Full Metal Jacket. //
Ha. That is a really interesting point. I hadn’t considered that before.
Dean was the buffer. Those scenes in Season 1 when he has to break up the fights between Sam and his Dad – the way JA did it was with the slightest suggestion of an eye-roll, like, “My God, guys, STILL?”
“I relate to that older brother”.
Doesn’t every oldest in the family feel that way? Personally, I think that every bit of family psychology could be distilled in two books: The Bible (any version) and “The Hero with A Thousand Faces”.
//“I relate to that older brother”//
//Doesn’t every oldest in the family feel that way?//
Oh, God, absolutely. Especially having a younger sibling who is constantly in trouble. Although, I first heard this story before even having any younger siblings, in my first grade religion class, and I am pretty sure that was the exact moment I became an agnostic – although it took years for me to admit that to myself – because my immediate reaction was, “Well, THAT’S not right.” ;-)
Ha! Me too!
/the whole Quiverfull/Patriarchy sub-set of Christianity – where fathers are heads of household, and are told to guard their daughters’ purity – until the daughter is handed over to the husband. Often the marriage is set up between fathers, as opposed to the people wanting to get married. /
You have no idea how thrilled I am you mentioned it.
This is where my first realization and interest into digging all that info came from – I researched “dysfunctional family types” – as one might say, it was in realtion to a very specific debacle on tumblr, and I found this article:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/04/emotional-incest-part-1-definitions.html
The argument that led to it all, was, obviously, a common shipping war. The question was: “wincest: the result of nature or nurture?” (as in: “a[[buse! abuse! ABUSE! YOU CANNOT SHIP THIS NOOO” that bullhit).
So I had to dig in, looking for all I could find about the nurture part. My POV shifted with time, and I came to the understanding that there are truths here that stand on their own, without looking through the “shipping goggles”.
I even prefaced:
“This meta was written from a wincest-y point of view, but in retrospect, and in light of recent thoughts and other meta I am formulating right now, this seems relevant on its own. So, if you aren’t squicked enough and you are a general person in a shippy environment with enough balls and like psychological ramble from uncertified people – go ahread and bless your brave heart.”
As you can imagine – I read ALL OF IT, and APPLIED IT TO THE CHARACTERS IN THE SHOW.
The result? Disturbingly… fitting?… I actually argue that Mary was the first to apply that method, unknowingly.
Dean’s memory in heaven didn’t strike me anything “cute” or “happy”, but exactly that: a child being the emotional crutch to an adult with no proper emotional support from an equal (John being absent. It’s a thing.).
I think this attitude “leaked” – from Mary to John, to Dean and even onto Sam as a kid and then young adult. None of them ever escaped that loop.
I suspect that Mary also learned that from her own parents – a pettern that actually happens alot in established hunter families (as I mentioned before – war stricken areas, refugees, immigrants, low classs, single parent families… this is very common. As the song goes, “I know, I’m one”).
I relate to that older brother, too. And I am an only child.
If you want to see my “flow chart”….
http://archtroop.tumblr.com/post/118459249767/the-winchester-family-dynamics-a-skewed-platform
Take into account that I’m coming from a fannish POV (at first) but hey. That’s what it is all about, right?
Troopic –
wow, another person obsessed with Quiverfull!! I’m so glad because I can’t talk about it with anyone else in my life because nobody even knows about it. It’s so messed up. And even with the downfall of Bill Gothard (perv) – it still seems to be flourishing. I guess, like any cult, it’s very hard for people who bought the lie to admit just how deeply they’ve been conned.
Are you familiar with the Botkin sisters? I can’t tell you how much I hope to hear that one of them busted out – and I suddenly hear she’s working in a vegan cafe in Santa Monica and trying to live independently.
// I came to the understanding that there are truths here that stand on their own, without looking through the “shipping goggles”. //
I think that’s an essential point!! These things operate as story tropes – maybe not explicitly, or expressed in the plot – but there’s a reason that so many people find their “way in” to this show from so many different angles. It has a richness that way – like Oedipus has so much richness that Freud was obsessed with it centuries later as perhaps a “key” to family dynamics. He may have been wrong – who knows – but he certainly recognized the richness of these archetypal stories, that they make up what it means to be human – because Stories are how human beings started explaining themselves to themselves. You know? Did “Hamlet” create consciousness? Not really – but it certainly expressed it in a way that had never been expressed before – You can honestly say that the world was one way before Hamlet, and after it was another way. The modern world is still obsessed with Hamlet (Supernatural is obsessed with Hamlet) because of the father-son issues, and the procrastination factor – which really ends up being a perfect representation of what a Moral Dilemma looks like. Not to mention the suicide factor, the taboo of it – the fact that human beings have a choice; ‘to be or not to be.’
So I agree, essentially – that all of these things are “out there” – and good stories pick up on them, use them, bury them, whatever. Audiences pick up on that.
Thanks for your thoughts on the Winchester dynamic. I agree that Dean’s memory isn’t “cute” – it’s sad – but I do find a tenderness in it, a place where he knew his role was set – and while yes, he was an emotional crutch, it happens a lot to kids – and in that respect, he was “normal”, if you know what I mean. He could express his love in a way that seemed to HELP her. And then maybe when he was a teenager, he would have been able to rebel – and break out from that role – and they would have adjusted their relationship (kind of like what you see in What Is and What Should Never Be – that’s a kind of proper mother-son relationship – she cares about him, still, but she wants him to go back home to Carmen. He’s a grownup. He has his own life and she accepts that.)
But that adjustment wasn’t ever allowed to happen. So of course Dean romanticizes that moment with his mother, hugging her in the kitchen. He got to BE with her, and feel like he helped her. He couldn’t save her ultimately, but at least he gets to remember that he was a good son to her.
Sam’s comment – “you were always cleaning up Dad’s messes” brings a look of incomprehension on Dean’s face – because that’s not how he remembers that moment at all.
Kind of brilliant, right? This is how memory works in families – children can feel that they had completely different childhoods even though they were in the same family.
Or – something that seems precious to one (like Dean’s memory of his mother) seems fucked-up to the other.
Great great stuff.
Thanks for your flow-chart. I will check it out.
I love that people love this show so much they make flow-charts.
Now all we need is an architectural floor-plan of The Bunker and we’ll be all set.
//Are you familiar with the Botkin sisters?//
The link I provided about the emotional incest article goes into that specific story in part 2.
YES YES YES and YES.
The stories are eternal. The little subplots entwined through the series are what our reality is made from.
I LOVE your interpretation of NORMAL. I agree, too. In our colture today, it’s hard to explain sometimes to people, that a bit of “wrong” is actually pretty normal”, as in – common, not unheared of etc.
//Audiences pick up on that.//
True. It’s very specific though.
I can’t say enything even remotly as powerful like SPN had ever happened to me. I never seemed to pick up on anything that interresting or signiicant ftom other tv shows, or even movies. SPN is really good.
It works like a damn bible – with 200 interpretation to each phrase.
Oh, and there ARE architectural floor plans for the bunker.
http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Bunker_Floorplan
Troopic – I am laughing at myself at how relieved I feel to know that somebody else knows about the Botkin sisters!!
Don’t you hope that someday they’ll “get it” and bust free? God, I would support the hell out of them. (I already do.)
// In our colture today, it’s hard to explain sometimes to people, that a bit of “wrong” is actually pretty normal”, as in – common, not unheared of etc. //
Yeah. And to do so without glorifying your own problems … it’s difficult. I think the best thing about the Winchester brothers is that they resist self-pity so hard.
Naturally, this has resulted in five NY public libraries filled with fanfic where all they do is cry and confess – and maybe even resistance in fans to conflict in the show (I love the conflict!!) – but again, that’s understandable because the show denies us catharsis – always!! It parses it out so slowly. It’s great. I think that’s a huge part of why it works so well – loops in with the slowest-burn-romance-of-all-time in The X-Files.
May:
I agree: the relationship is so deep and so real. With all of this stuff that they really feel they’re not allowed to say – STILL!
I just re-watched Song Remains the Same – and sobbed when Sam finally told “John” that he loved him – and when Dean broke the news to his mother who he was. You really get the sense of the sheer tragedy of these two guys’ lives in that episode.
Not as crazy about the “it all was foreordained” thing – not sure how other people feel about that.
and Mary’s face as she stares at the angel above Dean-to-be’s crib …
The way things line up in these mysterious ways – the way you can really sense Kripke’s hand in this structure – how it loops together – imperfectly, but those connections are there …
It feels very thoughtful, somehow. Very good storytelling!
and yes: I remember that “parentification” conversation and it was fascinating! Very good context for Dean, for sure.
I’ve given up trying to read this on screen and am printing it out. 70 pages, Sheila. 70 pages! See you in three days! :-)
Are you f***ing kidding me. 70 pages?
I have a book I am going to write in 2016 – one I’ve been thinking about for 3 years – and if I wrote what amounts to 70 pages in 3 days then I could (conceivably) get at LEAST a first draft done in a week.
This gives me hope and inspiration and a push.
Although: sorry for so much paper!!!
Come back! Let’s talk!
It’s pretty awesome.
I’m enjoying reading it ‘off screen’, actually, I tend to rush through long online reads but reading it on paper slows me down.
I love this trio of eps – Babylon, Folsom, and What is …
I have feelings about Mara Daniels the PD too :-)
Yeah, I think this is one of the strongest sequential series of episodes in the series – and that’s including that four-episode sequence in Season 1 – where it seems like they really hit their stride.
But this …
each one so different. Funny, ironic, sad, and then … wow, profound.
Would love to hear more of your thoughts on Mara.
Do you get the feeling that if you sent her a shot of bourbon from across a bar – she’d end up being a blast? Not in a floozy way, but in a BLAST way – like, I’d like to talk with her when she’s not on the job.
Man, I would so like to have a drink with her. I think she would have some very pointed and hilarious opinions about her job, including FBI guys who swan into tow, throw their weight around and think they know her job better than she does. I would imagine most of her peers have gone into corporate law and cannot believe the woman who graduated top of her year is still a PD after all this time.
After this I imagine her going home, pouring herself one drink of the most excellent alcohol reserved for special occasions, shoving files off the sofa, slinging off her shoes and absolutely savouring every moment of getting one over on Hendrikson. She’s not sure what the hell it is she’s done but convinced it’s the right thing and it’s a life changing moment.
At that point she makes the Momentous Life Decision she’s been turning round in her head for too long. She’s a check-the-fine-print, calculated-risk person. But this day has proved sometimes you have to go by your gut and face down the opposition and that’s what momentous life changing decisions are all about. And then she pulls some more files out of her bag and gets back to work.
And when we next catch sight of her she’ll be running for some kind of public office and killing it.
So, yes, I guess I have strong feelings about Mara Daniels.
Holy shit, Helena, I’m almost mortified at how satisfying it was to read that. Almost.
That was awesome.
Also I have a strong sense she’s a died in the wool sports fan, like, she supports the baseball team from where she grew up to the death and can tell you all about how they did 10 seasons ago and what an utter dick the new owner is.
I’ll stop now. I wish she was real.
//I’m almost mortified at how satisfying it was to read that. Almost.//
hahahaha! Happy to oblige!
Helena – I think you’re right on about her. Definitely a sports fan and trash talker. Top of her class and an enigma to her peers, probably gets tons of private practice offers from people who scratch their heads because she’s doesn’t fall into any of the derogatory stereotypes that these litigators or tax attorneys typically shoehorn PDs into like a “flaming liberal”, a “true believer” or an idiot who can’t make it anywhere else. She also drinks hard with the boys but isn’t afraid to be feminine.
That’s something I love about her character and Linda Blair’s, they are beautiful women that work with a lot of men but don’t feel the need to act like a man to prove their worth. They’re just good at their jobs. I love to imagine that Mara called Diana the next day and told her all about Henriksen and what happened with the Winchesters. They bonded on the phone about it and eventually met up for drinks and Diana spilled about the supernatural over some good whisky. After about half a bottle, they grudgingly admitted that those Winchesters are some fine looking men.
Helena –
Oh god, yes, she is definitely a crazy sports fan! She maybe even goes to her old high school’s homecoming game at Thanksgiving-time with her now-grown-up friends from high school, to cheer on their old team.
Paula/Helena:
I know, I love too the image of Mara giving Linda Blair a call. And maybe because Mara is a woman (??), Linda Blair would feel more comfortable saying, “These guys are heroes, not villains. You need to trust me on this.”
// probably gets tons of private practice offers //
Oh wow, yes to this. I mean, my version is an edited version of the story of Mara’s life which goes on for 70 pages and includes all this kind of thing. I also imagine her dad – working class, bootstraps, salt of the earth kind of guy – has his own law firm, and his dearest wish, which he has only ever expressed out loud once, bless him, is for Mara to take it over at some point. And if there are any flies in the ointment of her life, it’s that she’s pretty torn about that. Because, Dad.
I love the idea of professional bonding between Diana and Mara. (There’s already a loose network of sheriffs with stories to tell, so why not detectives and PDs?) Hearing about Diana’s experience would be so000 vindicating for Mara. Diana never met Hendrikson but the minute Mara mentions his name Diana would eye roll, ‘You mean Hendrikson with the String of Angry Ex-Wives’ because he is the stuff of legend.
Also Diana would, after some headway into that bottle of the good stuff, show Mara the video of Dean’s taped confession because somehow it has been leaked onto youtube, and they would both fall off their chairs laughing and agree that Sam seems like the sane one of the pair.
Like I said, 70 pages … :-)
// I also imagine her dad – working class, bootstraps, salt of the earth kind of guy – has his own law firm, and his dearest wish, which he has only ever expressed out loud once, bless him, is for Mara to take it over at some point. And if there are any flies in the ointment of her life, it’s that she’s pretty torn about that. Because, Dad. //
hahahaha
This is so RIGHT ON.
Helena,
Yes to her life story! So well put. I bet she has a really sexy jersey top she wears to watch weekend games. Can I just add that she has family or ex-husband who is police and that is why she walks in to Hendrikson’s office to sit down as a peer and try to consider the Truth. Because she feels she knows his job, or what it should be if you aren’t obsessed and destroying your life over your white whale.
Heather – ha!!
I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that you all have fleshed out Mara Daniels to such a degree that she could honestly have a spinoff at this point.
I should do the same thing for Melanie, my girl in “The Mentalists.”
Just for my own satisfaction.
Thanks, Heather. I like your piece of the jigsaw too.
Yessssssss, Folsom Prison Blues, aka How Green Valley Was My Cemetery.
Rohl and the team kill it. Not a frame in this one that isn’t gorgeous and not a second in which the guys don’t look as good as it’s possible for them to look. You quit talking (you quit talking Sheila! Not on!) once Ratched starts her attack on Lucas but there’s a shot of Dean looking up through that hole in the door that is almost repellantly pretty. (I particularly love JA leaning back and finding his keylight in those scenes).
TOP NOTCH supporting cast in this episode. Jeff Kober’s mouth!! His mouth is so amazing! I love Randall so much I get like actively angry that Sam half-assing that mopping job. Put your back into it child! He is just not. mopping. He should be mopping.
I think one of my favourite moments is wisecracking Henricksen sidekick’s “near went nuts” echo and Dean having a real smooth and perfect Cary Grant doubletake.
Deacon is such a weirdo. You are right about how easy it is to want him to be a faker. The “bickering boys” smile he gets when he’s trying to give them the letter is endearing because it’s the same as my smile. But he’s also a sadist.
At the moment I have only two real thoughts on the real meat of the amazing stuff you’ve written here and they’re both about the delightful intriguing messiness and counterintuitive and just-right-surprises that we get from these characterisations.
The first is the come-to-jesus masculinity of Sam sitting across from Dean at that table near the end, and then thinking about preppy Sam in the next episode, and how skinny and soft he looks, and all the spots along the continuum that JP and Sam somehow manage.
The second is your extensive observations on Dean and rules and that generally gets me thinking about how things have changed, how little he seems to be interested in such things these days(while still being susceptible to particular transcendental forces like the Mark). I guess there are natural rules, which he feels comfortable flaunting, and magical rules, which he has been forcefully subordinated to, and institutional rules, which he actively scorns, and environmental frameworks, which he revels in, and then there is the whammy, the Name of the the Father, which is to say Law, which is to say, that moment (according to some) when your father steps in with the weight of his rules and society’s rules on his back and turns you into someone who exists by virtue of something that’s not quite real. Anyway I have thoughts about that and what it means for outlaws but I literally just found out about Alan Rickman so I don’t know if I’m capable of building on that right now.
I really enjoyed luxuriating in this read of one of my fave eps, Sheila, so thanks!
great googly moogly, that last paragraph is basically gibberish. I should have reread before I posted. I wish I’d never started but now I feel compelled to overexplain. If your eyes glaze over or you suddenly become terrified of penises I can’t blame you.
Essentially, the idea is that your father is never only your father — he is also Rules. That is, in earlier Lacanian psychoanalytic theory there is a moment when your tangible bodily desire is interrupted and denied by your father and your father stops being your father and turns into a symbol, becomes your Father, becomes the Rule, the Law. Suddenly you realise — the world is not just sensual experience and the fulfillment of desire — it is a complex and mysterious set of rules and languages that defines and creates people and conditions their capacity to act. You become a subject capable of meaningful interaction with the world.
So the person who creates Dean as a person and a social being is his Father, and the Gospel of John is a tyrannical outlaw Gospel, and it’s the firm boundaries of Dean’s psychic life — a Gospel that he first must submit to and then either negotiate with or inherit entirely. So it’s interesting to me to think of how Dean has hardened in some respects over the years and how much that began in Season 5 with the imposition of new Law from a new (absent) Father. In the eye of the Father, Dean only exists by virtue of his capacity to capitulate — not just to be overridden, to have his choice taken away, but to actively choose surrender.
To be clear, I’m not trying to talk actual psychology here. I’m talking pattern, metaphor, symbol — anything to do with Freud and his complexes works better the less literally you take it. This is a bunch of wank that would make a very boring paper but it’s fun to think about.
// If your eyes glaze over or you suddenly become terrified of penises I can’t blame you. //
As one who loves penises as a “virile manifestation of the divine” I will not be terrified.
Will read your comment now.
Jessie –
woah, thank you. I don’t know much about Laconian philosophy – although Camille Paglia talks about him constantly (maybe in a critical way, though – I’d have to go back and check. It sounds like it provides some really useful concepts for analysis – like you say, not “actual psychology” – but how stories work. Like Freud and Jung. When post-modernists rejected Freud – I get why they did that. But throwing out the baby with the bathwater, means you are cut off from the powerful symbols he articulated. Again, this is a Paglia steal. Younger feminists hate Paglia because she loves Freud – not his VIEWS – but the framework he articulated. Okay, moving on.)
Interesting about Law – and OUTlaws – this is a context of understanding that is not accessible to me, and I really welcome it. As we’ve discussed before – I get a lot of my framework for SPN from movies – especially Westerns – with their frontier justice, the White Hat/Black Hat – and how those roles can intertwine – and did so more and more as Westerns moved into the 60s and the Vietnam Era. Suddenly, the Westerns were not mythologies of an already-mythological American past – they became modern-day critiques of what was happening in Vietnam. And it WORKED.
Of all of the genres of Story – only horror, Sci-Fi and Westerns are broad enough and archetypal enough to be able to contain all kinds of modern stories and themes. Similar to Shakespeare, the story-structure is not bound to a particular time.
So that’s why movies explicitly ABOUT Vietnam don’t “age” as well as some of those dark Westerns in the 60s and 70s – or The Unforgiven – not about Vietnam but a clear representation of the sheer brutality it took to “conquer” the land and become a nation. Powerful stuff, coming from a rock-hard conservative like Eastwood. That movie will LAST. 1930s and 40s Westerns are much more “period pieces,” showing an era where there was more faith in those old stories. And many of them are great – if you can get past the racism. And I get why people can’t. But, on the flip-side, there’s a lot more subtlety there than those movies are given credit for. John Wayne played gung-ho, but he also was never afraid to show the COST for an outlaw like that. (That final shot in The Searchers. He can not go inside. He has gone too far. He will be banished from the human family. That is the price. He IS Dean Winchester.)
// So it’s interesting to me to think of how Dean has hardened in some respects over the years and how much that began in Season 5 with the imposition of new Law from a new (absent) Father. In the eye of the Father, Dean only exists by virtue of his capacity to capitulate — not just to be overridden, to have his choice taken away, but to actively choose surrender. //
FASCINATING, especially your connection to Season 5. I have to think more about that. It’s been a while since I watched Season 5, and I should rectify that – it’s another fave.
Something very very strange happens to Dean in that season – and I’ve sensed it, of course – and can clock some of the moments when it happens – but you’ve put it into a context that makes a lot of sense.
It’s like he gets puffed up at the attention of that second Father – and he knows if he withholds he has more bargaining power. And yet the withholding stops working – and he slides down into capitulation – against his will but it seems like the momentum cannot be stopped. Because of who he is? Because of that OTHER relationship with a tyrannical father who requires submission?
We’ve talked about Dean’s “love” of submission before. Or how, when he submits, he submits so fully. He submits AGGRESSIVELY – like the sexual come-ons shouted at monsters, like his tender on-the-bottom-usually demeanor in bed … He’s punished for submitting, and yet submitting is how he pleased his Dad. He can’t help it.
That does seem to have vanished. I’m trying to think of more recent examples. The Mark? Yes. Maybe – partially – in Demon Dean submitting to Crowley – although that Arc was wrapped up too quickly for my taste. There was way more there and it was MUCH more seedy and explicitly sexual. Very interesting.
Does he seem more complete now?
Maybe. Those episodes following Demon Dean being conquered and eradicated – all of those big talky-talk scenes with Sam – in the car, everywhere – Dean seeming to “submit” to something else – being his own man, opening himself up to uncertainty, to Sam’s comments – resistance gone? Well, so maybe I’ve talked myself into realizing that all of that is just another form of submission – only it’s more “healthy.”
I know when I stop fighting certain truths – there’s a peace that comes – even if I want to keep fighting. I HATE submitting. HATE IT. I think everyone does, to some degree, although I have some New Agey friends who seem to not resist as much. It drives me crazy and I could never do it – but they are in touch with random-ness and the need to not fight it – in a way I am not.
I don’t know – it’s all fascinating.
Oh, and another thing about your comment:
// a Gospel that he first must submit to and then either negotiate with or inherit entirely. //
I can clearly see how he does that.
In Season 5: the requirement that he submit to being “penetrated” and “worn” is resisted – but then acquiesced to – and the way he negotiates it is for self-serving reasons having to do with Sam and the fact that he sees no other way. It’s not just excuse-making – he really is in a bind – but that’s a great example of the whole Submission Narrative – because it stretches out over an entire season. That final moment – when Dean disappears from the motel room to go say “yes” – it’s so AGGRESSIVE, such an aggressive way to submit.
JA understands this so well.
Maybe partially because he understands Acting so well – and actors must, above all, know how to “aggressively submit.”
you can’t keep yelling aggressive submission at me, it just makes me think about Dean asking those cops in Faith if they were gonna put the fear of God into him, and then I go to unwholesome places.
(I do actually love the idea of acting as aggressive submission. That’s so cool).
People would breath much easier if they accepted that we can do to Freud what he did to Sophocles. It’s all storytelling. I think Lacan is crucial because the story he tells is one of language creating us which I find particularly compelling.
So yes! On genre and allegory and the strength of storytelling. I had a strong reaction to Ex Machina and I went reading and I was dumbfounded because everywhere I read people were getting it WRONG and I realised that it was one of those rare ones that’s accessible to a real wide range of allegory. It’s sharp and precise but it’s disconnected from enough specifics that people are reading all sorts of stuff into it. I mean my read is the best and most important of course, but it is still tapping into the way OLD SCHOOL sci fi worked and you don’t see it very often.
And Supernatural is not doing exactly that — its gaps and vagueries and polysemies work differently. In my opinion anyway, although its horror and western elements do do that allegorical work and very evocatively too.
Like RE: Dean and his new Father and Rules — this is one of the things I most love about the show — you have this situation where the metaphysical rules (if you sign this contract then blah, you have to consent to be an angel condom, etc) play into or write large the personal conflicts. And Sam with his demon blood — his not fitting in — his solidity that you write about is so essentially Sam and yet at the same time there is this huge glaring repeating problem of NotSam, who is a visitor all too regularly. And this Sam who doesn’t fit in with his family, who is not a pureblood — the metaphysics and the emotional physics match up and complement and contradict in these HUGELY fertile ways. I have talked about this ad nauseum before.
Re: Other Fathers — in my last couple of years of high school I had some periods of depression and one avenue of escape closed to me and I toyed briefly with the (utterly ridiculous if you knew how despondent I get when I accidentally step on a snail on a wet night) idea of joining the army or reserves, and then my brain kicked in and I realised, Jessie, you have no idea what you’re thinking about. You just want another parent. You just want someone to tell you when to get up in the morning.
Does [Dean] seem more complete now?
This is the crux, I think. I’m not too sure about how others feel about it but for the the Mark has been a really big deal in terms of those meta- and emotional physics. For me it is 100% a comment on Dean’s self-image. I still don’t have my brain all the way around it. But there’s something about how the loss of control and the transformation (masquerading as purification) of the self can operate as something that is both absolutely traumatic and fundamentally a lie but also…somehow…something that might have been almost healing and fundamentally a truth.
It’s like the Mark is Gordon whispering in his ear. This is who you are. This is what you mean. And it’s very plausible, for Dean. It really could be true. It feels true and it appears to have many corroborating facts. But it’s not the only truth and maybe paradoxically it’s the recognition of multiplicity that’s allowed him to settle. Maybe (like when he was coming to terms with his feelings about the deal in S3) being faced with what seems like an absolute he recognises that he has choices and desires that mean something. Not sure. Still thinking. His face when he gets around Amara….
//It’s like the Mark is Gordon whispering in his ear. This is who you are. This is what you mean.// That’s a really big piece of it, I think, Jessie! My son and I watched “Hunted” not too long ago, and I was struck by the similarity between Gordon’s speech about Sam and what Dean says to the young Stein kid in “The Prisoner”. It’s so similar, in fact, that he almost becomes Gordon in that moment.
You’ve hit on a central conflict in Dean with that–acceptance of multiplicity. We’ve talked a lot about Dean’s longing for a black and white world–which is why Gordon is initially attractive, why Purgatory is “pure”, why he took on the Mark without a second thought (except maybe, “I’m damned anyway.”). At the same time, he knows that the world is gray, and that the Rule shouldn’t always apply equally to every situation.
Okay, Jessie, I opened the link on “unwholesome places,” saw the title of the Youtube clip, and BURST into laughter.
That’s really what it is though, you’re right. That’s really what he’s about. I have to think – I totally believe, actually – that that “vibe” is strictly JA’s contribution. Maybe he’s not even aware of it. But Dean is certainly not “written that way” in the pilot, and does not appear to be Kripke’s original conception of him – which is cocky aggressive guy, Han Solo, etc.
Still: thanks for the laugh. That was so perfect.
// I think Lacan is crucial because the story he tells is one of language creating us which I find particularly compelling. //
Fascinating. I was just talking about that above in a different concept to Troopic – that stories (like Sophocles – or like Shakespeare) – helped create us, or at least helped contextualize how we think about “the human condition” – which … is very difficult to get a handle on because we ARE human and how can we actually see what it is we’re doing and why?
// had a strong reaction to Ex Machina and I went reading and I was dumbfounded because everywhere I read people were getting it WRONG and I realised that it was one of those rare ones that’s accessible to a real wide range of allegory. It’s sharp and precise but it’s disconnected from enough specifics that people are reading all sorts of stuff into it. I mean my read is the best and most important of course, but it is still tapping into the way OLD SCHOOL sci fi worked and you don’t see it very often. //
FABULOUS. I have to go back to my Ex Machina post – because I think you commented there and we had a great time discussing it.
There was a Twitter argument recently that went south really fast – it was a male vs. female argument (and nobody keeps their heads there) – about her identity – as female? Does she identify as female? Or is she just a smartly circuited machine who understands that female-ness (whatever that means in her “head”) is what is asked of her – and how she could potentially survive. (Her outfit when she leaves. The most girlie thing imaginable.) The women on Twitter were pissed about that – it was “reductive” – they called it “straight male feminism” – and the poor guy trying to argue with these broads … he didn’t stand a chance, but I was on his side. Gender/sexuality in a state of flux – and this creature understands only that her woman-like shape means she is imprisoned and sexualized – she gets that totally – and she plays into it, and then uses it against the males who reduce her. Anyway, fabulous stuff –
would love to hear more about what you think people got WRONG about that film – maybe we could take that to the Ex Machina thread. That’s one of the movies that stayed with me all year – I think about it all the time.
// this huge glaring repeating problem of NotSam, who is a visitor all too regularly. And this Sam who doesn’t fit in with his family, who is not a pureblood — the metaphysics and the emotional physics match up and complement and contradict in these HUGELY fertile ways. //
Absolutely!
I’m still struggling to articulate this. I tried in the re-cap here. Because Dean is, essentially, chameleon-like and much more transparent emotionally, he’s in a state of flux. His psychodrama is always all over his face. Sam seems solid – so when he goes off the rails, it’s like the whole world falls apart. We almost WANT Dean to go off the rails – how excited were we all about the prospect of Demon Dean!! – let him let loose! – but when Sam does, it’s hugely upsetting. That’s why Soulless Sam was one of my favorite arcs. But in a different way than Demon Dean: because Soulless Sam was SO UPSETTING to me. (at the same time that I loved it and still love how long they let that story-line play out.) I was DESPERATE for Sam to be Sam again …
and now that I’m thinking about it, it seems that that is some of the pressure that Sam himself feels. So I, the audience member, is participating in putting Sammy in a box: Please. Be what I need you to be. Always, kthxbai.
// and I realised, Jessie, you have no idea what you’re thinking about. You just want another parent. You just want someone to tell you when to get up in the morning. //
Amazing. Yes. It has enormous appeal.
// being faced with what seems like an absolute he recognises that he has choices and desires that mean something. //
Interesting. I’m still trying to get my mind around it too. The look of submission on his face when he picks up the First Blade – it’s almost like he’s fainting, or about to climax, or something – something where the body takes over.
It’s fascinating to me that Dean has been conceptualized as so earthy in a lot of ways: the food, the sleep, the sex – his devotion to objects (car, necklace, journal) – but the way JA plays it, and the way the character has developed him – makes him seem like a much more “airy” figure. Floating. Trying to touch down, trying to contextualize himself.
You know, it’s like my cat: If I put an empty box on the floor, she cannot WAIT to run into the box, and curl herself up against the sides. I always think of cats as somewhat wild and not fully domesticated – but they LOVE to be contained, or at least to feel the sides around them. And Dean’s somewhat like that. Even the routines of hunting – with all its danger – is comforting, he can feel the sides around him – he needs that containment.
and in re: Amara:
Yes, when he looks at her there’s that same swoon that the Mark gave. Or Gordon. He’s helpless. It’s a bodily reaction – not in his control at all.
I’m still not sure what it signifies – although I’m also not sure “signifying” is the point.
This is where SPN is TOTALLY psychologically-based. It is not its plot. The plot are just hinges to drape all this rich complex backstory-psychological stuff on.
It’s endlessly interesting.
Dean gets super-unstable when he has to deal with grey areas.
And yet – I’m re-watching Season 5 right now. Just watched Song Remains the Same last night.
The whole “Free Will” conversation … I had forgotten about that a little bit. His resistance to the concept of “destiny” – which maybe part of his skepticism about Sam praying to God. But Season 5 has Dean praying to God, too – out in the salvage yard.
I’m really struck, yet again, by how MUCH the characters have developed. People who think the characters are just going over the same ground can’t be looking all that closely.
Something has been lost over the years – but something gained too.
and we don’t have 5,000 issues we deal with over our lives, if you think about it. It’s, like, the same 10 issues. It’s infuriating sometimes – you’re like, “Oh my God, THIS again? STILL???”
That’s part of what I sense going on in Season 11 – but seasoned by the fact that these two guys are approaching middle-age now. (Especially considering all of the wonderful men who died in the last 2 weeks who hadn’t reached the age of 70. Knock wood. HARD.)
Barb –
// I was struck by the similarity between Gordon’s speech about Sam and what Dean says to the young Stein kid in “The Prisoner”. It’s so similar, in fact, that he almost becomes Gordon in that moment.
//
Hm, I don’t remember that. I’ve kind of blocked the Abercrombie & Fitch ad Stein family out.
These dichotomies between the brothers – and their complexities – is part of the draw. I talked about it a little bit in this re-cap, right – how you might THINK that Sam would be one way – but the reality is DEAN is that way. and once it’s presented, it makes total sense.
I love it when they are unexpected – mainly because it gives us more to think about.
It’s like Dean accepts the grey areas without even knowing it – the power of how he can love people almost forces him into grey areas. He LOVES, man, and it’s hard for him to love. Sam seems more remote from those kinds of attachments – even though it SEEMS like he’s more “normal” in that way (Jess, and etc.) But he’s not: he’s singular, a loner. Ellen sniffs it on him. Gordon doesn’t like him because of it.
Dean is far more “social”. Social again means “grey areas.” Submitting to being a surrogate father, a boyfriend – for the length of time that he did … crazy, in retrospect! (I just re-watched end of Season 5, beginning of Season 6 – and honestly I think that’s the best opener after the summer hiatus in the whole series – although I have a great affection for Dean whooping it up sexually in Season 3 opener, after the gloom of the final scene in Season 2.)
And then when Sam hooks up for a long length of time with Amelia … it’s very very different from Dean’s situation. (So smart of the writers, I think.) I’ve defended Amelia before. I think she’s a great part of the ongoing narrative – and again, unexpected.
You would THINK (or I would think) that Dean would resist domesticity – he’s got that line in “Bugs” about wanting to blow his brains out just thinking about living in a community like that. And he may be restless within it, and drinks too much, and all that, but he submits as much as he can. He doesn’t love Lisa – and I don’t think she loves him either – but they love that they can create a life together and create stability for Ben. That’s something Dean wants to do, and Lisa wants too. So it’s an interesting relationship – and perfect that it isn’t The Greatest Love of All Time. It’s much more equal: the two of them hashing shit out in the kitchen feels much less neurotic than it might if they were swept away by Love. I like it. Dean accepts the rules of the situation and submits: fatherhood responsiblities, getting a job to contribute to the household, not cheating on Lisa, wearing freakin’ sweat pants. He was a wild and promiscuous person – but when he says “yes” to something, he goes all the way.
Amelia is a wreck. Sam is attracted to that wreck, and to the “I don’t know, should we, shouldn’t we” relationship – something I don’t think Dean could tolerate at ALL. Way too anxiety-provoking. Dean fits in with suburbia – suburbia is filled with lots of people resisting their wildest impulses and making those compromises because that’s what they want to do. (I couldn’t do it – hence: I HAVEN’T done it. If I ever “settle down” it will be 20 years behind everyone else, first of all, and it will look very different. Maybe a long-distance relationship. A guy in the service. I don’t know. A relationship made up of Skyping and seeing each other once a month or something. hahaha When I think of that, I feel relaxed. But the lifestyle of suburbia gives me hives just thinking about it. I suppose I could be “open to persuasion” but I doubt it. Turned down offers before. No judgment to other people who have lives that look like that! Most of my friends have and it suits them and what they want for their families.) I know a lot of wild guys (my friends) who are now married and live that suburban life – and it looks a lot like Dean’s life. They’re still somewhat wild – and they sometimes get drunk with their friends, and have poker nights and play fantasy football – but then they also are good fathers, and mow the lawn, and try to be good husbands. It’s not easy – but there are guys who actually like trying to fit in with that.
Sam? I don’t know – The series opens with him having the college-age version of that with freshly baked cookies and sleeping curled up with a woman in the fetal position – but by the time he gets to Amelia, he needs chaos to be part of the relationship. Chaos is honest. He can be honest in chaos. (Also, and I realize I’m a broken record: Sam lied to Jess for the entirety of their relationship. Dean was honest with Cassie, and honest with Lisa. Throughout. He couldn’t do it otherwise. Sam finds it easy. Fascinating.)
So having written all this: Dean is still susceptible to context and can fit himself in to a context. And he can do so without being an out-and-out sociopath, or lying. Plenty of people submit to contexts – it’s part of the social contract. Responsible people don’t act out at work the way they act out when they play touch-football with their friends. Or whatever. We all adjust to different contexts. If you CAN’T, you need to get on medication, or you need to adjust to live a weird off-the-grid life.
Dean CAN get “on the grid.” Maybe not forever, but he was able to do it. Sam? I’m not so sure.
Sheila-
RE: //what Dean says to the young Stein kid in “The Prisoner”. It’s so similar, in fact, that he almost becomes Gordon in that moment.
//
Hm, I don’t remember that. I’ve kind of blocked the Abercrombie & Fitch ad Stein family out.//
I don’t blame you on that point! But I looked it up on the Super Wiki. It’s after he kills the older Stein and the younger, Cyrus, begs him not to kill him as well, saying that he’s not like his family (shades of Sam?) . Dean says, “Oh, you are like them. There’s bad in you. It’s in your blood. Now you can deny it and you can run from it all you want, but that bad…. will always win.”
So it’s basically Dean filtering the situation through the Mark’s influence and through his own psyche and coming up with Gordon’s “little Hitler” justification.
I’m fascinated by how you applied the context idea from the recap to Dean’s time with Lisa and Ben. “Suburbia” is a context, too–I get that! Thanks for sharing your personal experience, too. For my part, I agree, it definitely feels like a conscious decision and in some ways a compromise. When I finally finished my college degree–way back when–I started looking for my next waystation, my next town. I’d tried the east coast already, so I started looking west and making inquiries about entry-level publishing jobs and also grad schools. Then my husband (to-be) made his play. I wound up staying in town–and now, different town in the same state. We live in a little white ranch house, built in 1956, with a refinished basement full of books, dragons, and a signed and framed SPN poster. (Hey, take your pleasures where you can, right?)
To bring this back to Dean and Lisa–I think their relationship began at the point where Dean was “in love with the idea of her” (JA’s words from a con video I saw), but over the course of the year, it turned into real love. Just not the “Love of My Life” type of love. More like the love that builds if you’re lucky, after the swoony stuff fades away. And Ben is a big part of that–“Lisa and Ben” are a package deal for Dean. And he does fit into this context to a surprising degree, which upends our expectations. You say that he is even more successful at it than Sam–which surprises me, but it fits.
I have to think about this some more–in my headcanon, I have always thought that it is Sam who can negotiate “normal life”(since he is more complete) while Dean will forever be outside it. Framed in the doorway with nothing but the desert behind him. :-) But you make a strong case–especially taking Amelia into account–that this might not be true. Or not the only possible outcome, at any rate.
Barb:
// with a refinished basement full of books, dragons, and a signed and framed SPN poster. //
hahaha That sounds amazing.
I hope it was clear I’m not judging people who decide to make those compromises!! I have my own compromises on my own path – it’s just that “suburbia” is such an American concept – and so presented as one of the only ways to really fit in – that it does take some effort to resist (or, to express why you resist without sounding like a bitch.) Like I said, most of my friends and family live in some version of the suburbs – and it’s the most eccentric fabulous group of people you’d ever have the pleasure of meeting! I’m sure you’ve experienced the same thing. People are people whatever the context.
The “suburbs” in Supernatural seem to exist in the cliche-world a little bit – but with Ice Storm-ish twists, like the “open relationship” in that one episode, and the hottie-McHottie suburban moms who drool over Dean’s ass when he shows up at Ben’s birthday party. :)
In re: Ben and Lisa and Dean. I agree that he loved them. And they loved him. I’m not as interested in JA’s characterization of it (I stay away from con footage, in general) – but I get what he’s saying. The appeal is obviously “upped” by the presence of Ben, right? Hard to picture the same situation without a child involved. It’s Insta-Family. His worry that he may have impregnated Lisa also bonds him to her – momentarily. For about 24 hours, he believes Ben is his actual son – and that sense of responsibility doesn’t just go away. In other words, this so COULD have been his life – he seems to feel that. Out there in the ether, is an alternate history where he’s a husband and dad – and he seems to actually believe it. I mean, think of the Djinn Happy Place he goes to: You might think Dean’s Happy Place would involve Slut-Boy rampages, involving strippers and hedonism and all the stuff he doesn’t have enough time for in his real life – but instead he’s in a committed tender little relationship with a woman who gets him – and sticks up for him. That character of Carmen didn’t just come from nowhere. It’s Lisa on a picnic blanket. Dean WANTS this. Crazy!! (Which is one of the surprises – for me – in that whole Lisa/Ben arc. Dean submitted to that context so fully and seemed to know exactly what to do – even though he had never done it before.) I wish in the “flashback” section that opens Season 6, we had seen a bit more of the drinking-too-much nightmare-having Dean – but I get why they didn’t go that way. Dean’s description of what he was like is pretty transparent – and you can imagine how difficult it was. That he didn’t run from that, but allowed himself to BE in that discomfort – and allowed himself to find comfort in barbecues and helping with homework and Sunday morning sex and family TV nights or whatever … is insane to me – and VERY revealing. Again, I can’t picture the same for Sam. Maybe the show will surprise me! It certainly surprised me with Dean becoming so devoted to Lisa and Ben and that whole life.
I don’t know – I’m working this out as I go.
And Amelia is key to all of this. I completely reject the fans’ rejection of her. I think they’re being stupid, and not understanding what that whole Arc provided – if it was revealing that Dean was suddenly manning the grill in the backyard and kind of into it – then it was equally revealing that when Sam yearned to settle down, it would be with this wreck of a woman battling personal demons, and dominated by a loving yet intimidating father. Hmmm.
Impossible to imagine Dean being able to deal with Amelia. He’d get too insecure. In order to give up the hunter life – he needs safety that is as safe as the womb. Lisa is that (and kudos to Sampson, who down-dials the Madonna-ish qualities in the script – and makes Lisa seem like a real woman. Smart, capable, has her own mind, etc.)
Sam, along the way, seems to have lost his feeling that safety exists. It’s nothing to strive for, it’s all an illusion. A relationship with some danger to it (danger involving getting involved, I mean – that this woman might reject you, or that you’re both too messed up to do anything right) – feels HONEST to Sam. I love their dynamic. Neither of them know what they’re doing, and neither of them know what is the right thing to do. Their conversation after they have sex – with her standing in the doorway – it’s so well-written! “That was great. That was a mistake,” says Sam. It’s so …. grown-up. Real communication between two adults – who are also two completely screwed-up confused people.
I don’t know WHAT people would have wanted Amelia to be. There’s a sexist element in some of the fandom commentary I’ve seen – they only want women who are “nice” to “our boys” (yuk) …
So yeah, it’s all kind of complex and unexpected – like that Kim Manners quote.
Dean has a chameleon-like quality – I think the Folsom Prison Blues re-cap up above is why we started talking about this? – which makes him able to adapt. Without lying. He’s not a sociopath. He accepts the RULES, and the rules of “suburbia,” the rules of monogamy, the rules of fatherhood … he does not fight against those. He accepts the rules. He doesn’t come into Lisa’s life, and lie on the couch all day. He gets a job. He maybe even coaches Little League. He cooks. He makes sure they have dinner together as a family every night.
He didn’t even have an upbringing like that – but he is able to create it. (A good friend of mine – male – grew up with an abusive terrifying father – who was in the Mafia on a really low grubby level – and who also was charming, in the way Ray Liotta was charming in Good Fellas. My friend basically had to raise himself. He’s one of the guys I mentioned in an earlier comment about wild people who make compromises and go live in the suburbs. My friend could have been something insanely crazy – like a criminal or a bookie or a bar-brawler. For his 16th birthday, his dad bought him an hour with a hooker who took his virginity. He was grossed out the entire time but his dad was so imposing/intimidating and he was also thrilled that his dad “took an interest” in him – he couldn’t say no. – I met the Dad a bunch of times, mainly at my friend’s beautiful wedding. He was a blazingly charismatic guy. Who carried a huge wad of bills in his pocket at all times. So, you know. Buying a hooker for your kid’s birthday was “fathering” to this man. So now, MY friend is a husband and the father of two girls. Well, two young women now. And he lives in a beautiful house in the suburbs, and his wife is awesome – we’ve all been friends since college – and his daughters are great and one is in college and one is getting ready to go to college – and he has re-created himself, by an act of sheer will, and the love of a good woman, into a man who knows how to be a good father. He was DETERMINED to be there for his girls in a way his dad was not there for him. He’s an actor, and he gave up the prime years of his career so he could be the stay-at-home dad while his wife worked. He had to DECIDE to do all that because he had no real-life examples. No male role models. The lack of male role models – or the fact that they are so few and far between – is one of the stealth-bomb aspects of SUPERNATURAL – rarely commented on outright, but in a way all of the men deal with. Think of Bobby’s childhood. Sniff … I think the lack of male role models is the juice on which the entire show runs.)
Dean had the same kind of ability as my friend did – or at least the same longing. Like he says to Sam at one point – he felt like he was being given a chance to do things better with Ben.
HUGE appeal, right?
Having said all this – I do wonder what the show has up its sleeve, in terms of personal relationships for the guys. I get why they might not want to go that way – introducing someone new, a new regular, is never an easy thing, and to find a way to fit it into the story without compromising the story totally …
Well, it would be hard, but I have faith in them. They may not have interest in that at all, however. At least not until whatever End Game there is (if there ever is an End Game. Knock wood.)
Wasn’t there just a conversation in this season about having a different kind of life, a raising-ankle-biters kind of life? I don’t know, can’t remember, don’t care – it’s an ongoing theme, right?
It’s interesting, too, how the answers flip-flop. Or how sometimes it’s Sam asking the question, sometimes it’s Dean.
I think their relationships to all these different women (and men, too) – help us see these guys in different lights – give us perspective on things that we just wouldn’t get if the whole thing was the two guys sitting around talking. THEY can’t see what they’re doing half the time (neither can most of us in terms of our own lives).
and lastly – honestly, I think either one of them getting married or long-term dating someone (without the woman being clawed to death by a Wendigo eventually or whatever) WOULD wreck the fabric of the show.
We need that epic archetypal Lonely Man on a Quest thing to keep it all afloat.
Oh, and if you feel like continuing this conversation – let’s take it to the bottom of the comments section. I’m getting totally lost! :)
Jessie, your paragraph wasn’t gibberish, it was awesome.
// Suddenly you realise — the world is not just sensual experience and the fulfillment of desire — it is a complex and mysterious set of rules and languages that defines and creates people and conditions their capacity to act. You become a subject capable of meaningful interaction with the world.//
I have to talk about this in relation to what is happening right now on the show !SEASON 11 SPOILERS!
We have Amara, the feminine, the darkness, the everything-as-her; a oneness that would mean no individuality, no autonomy or subject. And we have God, the masculine, the Father, who created individuals, subjects, and as you put it, “creates people and conditions their capacity to act.”
It is amazing to think that these layers have been playing out to what now seems like an almost inevitable conclusion. Dean as the feminine, drawn to Amara, who demands the ultimate submission of self. THIS IS TOO COOL!
// It is amazing to think that these layers have been playing out to what now seems like an almost inevitable conclusion. Dean as the feminine, drawn to Amara, who demands the ultimate submission of self. //
Heather – I know, right?
These Arcs there from the beginning and twisted about in all these interesting ways. Sam “submitting” to Ruby, to insomnia, to having no soul – all of these are somehow outside pressures. Dean’s in internal, a yearning for that feminine, for submission.
I just binge-watched Season 5 over the last week – and it’s SUCH a good Arc, I think – really inventive. And Dean’s growing conviction that he needs to Say Yes, that giving consent to being “taken over” is the only way …
His thoughts about this and actions are more aggressive than, say, submitting to the Mark –
but it’s in the same realm.
Loving Season 11 so far.
“repellently pretty”
hahahahahaha I know! How the hell does he do that??
That double-take is great. Dean’s sense of humor and absurdity (weakened by the threat) still in operation.
// Sam half-assing that mopping job. Put your back into it child! He is just not. mopping. He should be mopping. //
Ha!! So true! Dude, you can talk and mop at the same time. Dean is out in The Yard as we speak taking over … you can at least mop with conviction.
“come to Jesus masculinity” is so right. It’s insane. And he doesn’t have to work at it. And then with the yellow tie in the next episode – and the LOOK on his face that is so different and soft – just amazing.
// turns you into someone who exists by virtue of something that’s not quite real. Anyway I have thoughts about that and what it means for outlaws //
I would love to hear more on this score. I found out about Rickman, by the way, from your comment. I read the comments here before checking the news. So i totally get that reeling “oh no” feeling.
I have a volunteering gig that involves cleaning the hall afterwards and the number of students we get through who just limply lever a mop handle back and forth…I can’t pretend I don’t have strong personal reasons to stridently criticise Sam’s attempt at mopping.
And yes, Bronson, a thousand times Bronson! Although the movie for me, one of my faves. For institutionalisation yes, and its chaos, its lack of bodily integrity, and its gender play. Such a good movie.
// I can’t pretend I don’t have strong personal reasons to stridently criticise Sam’s attempt at mopping. //
hahahahahaha
Yay!!!!
Family obligations prevent me from reading this today, but I’m looking forward to it! (Insert Jimmy Novak’s “Understatement” GIF here.) And all the smart funny comments that will appear while I’m away.
Thanks for this!
(Yay!!!!)
Lindah –
I love the exclamation points of excitement – it makes the work put into these damn things (which I realize I don’t HAVE to do, I LIKE doing it) worth it.
Jimmy Novak’s “Understatement” gif is so perfect I could probably use it every day and it would cliche itself into the ground. But I can’t help it!
As usual, as *always*, these reviews of yours are love letters. And not those kind of embarrassing, gushy things, full of hand-flails and dopey sighs, but the kind of love letter that very calmly and deliberately says ‘I love you, and now I shall tell you why’.
Even when criticizing, it’s all about *love*.
And, also, again – the technical bits you put in are amazingly interesting to this ‘outsider’ to the world of film – thank you for that!
I think the one moment in this episode that I love probably the most is Sam and Dean’s fight, and Dean shoves Sam back/away from him, and it is so very *abrupt* and violent. He’s not holding back one bit, he’s not ‘pulling’ it, he’s letting out his frustration and probably some grief and Sam’s lucky he didn’t go flat down on his ass. Sam does the same thing in ‘Good God, Y’all!’ (which I was watching tonight); he shoves Dean back in a moment of pure rage, no control, and he *slams* him.
I love that the characters can go there and it’s not weird or ‘abusive’ or out of context – it’s two men stressed to the max *snapping*, and just as quickly crushing all that emotion back down again, because you can’t be that out of control and survive in their world.
It’s nearly 1 a.m. and I am in the throes of cold medicine, so pardon my brevity. Just wanted to let you know that your reviews are love, and really make me happy to be a fan of Show. Thanks for the hard work it’s obvious you put into them.
(And, lastly – The Boston Mountains are in Arkansas. They’re pretty mountainy. Shocking, I know. )
// Even when criticizing, it’s all about *love*. //
Thank you! I really try! This kind of attitude comes from the best acting classes I’ve taken. The best teachers go at you, HARD, to crack down resistance – but it’s all in the guise of making you better. Acting classes – the best ones – are not woo-woo “we’re all great” love-fests. But the best criticism (in my opinion – except with things that really are offensively bad) – starts off with the good, and then moves into the bad from there. The worst thing to do is DISMISS.
It’s not that I’ve outgrown fan-girly stuff. I haven’t been able to write about Channing Tatum at all, because I have to wait until I can put my feelings into words other than OMG. I think what he’s up to is quite profound – modern and yet old-fashioned at the same time – but again, it’s hidden behind fan-gushing at the moment (which is fine – just not the best place to write from.)
// Dean shoves Sam back/away from him, and it is so very *abrupt* and violent. He’s not holding back one bit, he’s not ‘pulling’ it, //
I agree. Great moment. They’re not just doing it to “trick us” in the audience – Dean is truly letting off steam and letting his real feelings out. He is PISSED at Sam. Sam seems surprised – ready to pounce right back. They are at each other’s throats – verbally and physically – for the entire episode – and now that I think about it, it’s a really good set-up for What Is and What Should Never Be, isn’t it? “Hollywood Babylon” too. “Heart” showed how intimate they are, how supportive Dean is, how close they are … “Hollywood Babylon” showed them together, but separate – Sam looking on as Dean transformed with confusion – and then “Folsom Prison Blues” takes the same situation and shows its toxicity. So then – to see them totally break apart in the next episode – in an alternate universe where they barely know each other and they PREFER it that way – it’s unbearably tense – like: come on, get back to closeness please, stop being stupid, you guys!!
and in re: Arkansas. HAHAHA Thank you for the correction – who knew?? and I’ve BEEN to Arkansas, but all I saw was flat. My bad. Go, mountains in Arkansas.
//Go, mountains in Arkansas.//
Also, thank God the Rockies are still functioning.
HA.
Nice, with looping us back to the opening.
I’m totally telling my sister you just quoted her. She’s only watched one episode of Supernatural – and it was Fan Fiction of all things – she has three children under 5 years old. She’s got no time for this leisure-activity shit. But she was channel-hopping, came across it – and texted me her reactions throughout. She totally got it, and why it was funny, even though she had no idea who anyone was.
“Okay, so the really hot one is REALLY pissed that they’re doing a musical about his life.”
“The songs are so funny I’m literally in tears.”
and she didn’t even know any of the plot – like why is that girl burning up behind the flat, etc.
It was so funny.
Ha, Fan Fiction! So glad your sister’s one brush with SPN was this one – so great the humour got across even for someone watching for the first time.
Also tell her I wish I’d had her as a teacher because she sounds just great :-)
Ah, yes. So much of what makes Sam and Dean work – and makes them them – really *does* have very toxic underpinnings, ones that seem to come straight out of their roots, and take them right back to who they were in season one (or right before season one, maybe).
I find I am still very fangirly (fangrrly?) over the boys and Show and while I do my best to be objective, sometimes all I can get out is ‘eeeeee!!’ and hand-flaps.
Which is fun as hell, even if it’s not remotely academic. :)
And hey! Arkansas is just not a place where you imagine mountains. But then again, Show imagines acres of piney forest in Kansas sometimes, ah ha ha, so…they do their best.
I definitely have my “eeeeee” “hand-flap” moments.
Sheila – That reveal of the brothers’ relationship from the intimacy they share in Heart through the end of S2 is so interesting. I never thought of it as a destabilizing progression from the previous intimacy that rolls right into HB and FPB (what is my brother thinking?) into WIAWWNB (I don’t know my brother at all) to ABHL 1&2 (my brother is no longer there at all). They build these layers up in the first half of S2 and then strip them out one by one so we feel how raw and desperate they are in the end. Azazel (who is one of my favorite big bads) is almost ancillary to the story because of this. I remember when he shows back up again, thinking oh yeah YED, that’s right, they’re fighting him. There is also that let down when Dean shoots him. Because it was never about the demon, it was about family.
// I remember when he shows back up again, thinking oh yeah YED, that’s right, they’re fighting him. //
So interesting.
Another show would just keep banging home the Big Bad – maybe because SPN has a longer season than most they can afford not to do that.
Ultimately, who cares about Yellow Eyes (although I agree: he’s great). It’s in fighting him that all this OTHER stuff comes up.
Thinking back on the post-Croatoan conversation by the river – with Dean telling Sam about the death-bed whisper … I mean, that was so long ago, right, at this point? But it’s still working its way through the brother’s interactions – without them ever saying a word about it.
Sam as a thundercloud and Dean as a freckled little girl orphan. Hahahaha. That was my first clue in the opener. Sam being cuffed and pissed and ALL of his anger is firmly directed at Dean, not the situation. Can’t you see that conversation between them in advance. “No, Sam, we need to gain their trust and we can do that as a janitor.” “No, Dean.” “Cmon, Sam, it’ll be fun and you look good in orange.” “No, Dean.” What was the argument Dean posed to convince Sam this was a good idea?
//Did they put a call out for ex cons?// exactly what I was thinking during this ep. And big, gigantic ex cons because as you point out, that one guy dwarfs Sam and Dean in that shot.
Henriksen. I love him so much. Smart and focused and so self righteous. Like you said, you know he has lost relationships to his mission. Such a mirror for the Winchesters. The files the FBI had on them. I need to see them (in an appendix, haha).
//you look good in orange.” //
Paula, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. Orange is key.
In fact, the only thing Sheila left out of this awesome recap is ‘Digression on How Deliciously Flattering Orange Looks on Sam.’
Later in Season 7, of course, both of them turn orange, and that’s not such a good look.
Really who looks good in that color? No one except JP and JA. Ridiculous.
Anyone else remember QT tanning lotion? S7 was like the QT season. I’m probably the only one.
// Later in Season 7, of course, both of them turn orange, and that’s not such a good look. //
hahahaha
Well, and then there’s Lisa’s orange face in Season 6 – although I think that’s more to do with her tanning too much than makeup. There are a couple of scenes where she’s not wearing makeup – morning scenes – and she looks much better. Not as “glam” but like a regular woman trying to just start her day. Pretty, but not overly so.
But then, oh, the orange.
Whoa. This is a whole lot of pure gold. (And seriously, you guys get so damn deep on the comment threads.) I don’t think I can absorb all this at once. Initial thoughts: your digression on ‘grain’ is a) so funny and b) really accurate. I feel like 1-3 are the seasons we all look back on with nostalgia- like, before shit really /really hit the fan. And, ugh, s7 and the bright lights. It HURTS. Though I do think s11 is rather beautiful- no expert here, but I’m pretty sure it’s the best the show’s looked in a while. (Also: Baby.) Though s10 certainly had its moments.
This episode is so GRIMY. And so satisfying. As is your recap, actually. (Not grimy. Satisfying.) Though I do think the show has a certain seediness to it even through the dreaded technicolour days.
Ugh, I just said ‘though’ three times. My inner pedant wails.
// Though I do think s11 is rather beautiful- no expert here, but I’m pretty sure it’s the best the show’s looked in a while. (Also: Baby.) //
I agree! They’re getting some of the mystery back. It’s filmed with such mystery in those early seasons – Baby was the most mysterious it has gotten in a long LONG time. (Those random close-ups of the Legos in the wall!! Haunting!)
I agree in re: the “seediness” of the show, one of its huge appeals. It’s not a corporate world – which is why Season 7 felt so strange to me, with all its joys – that was Big Bad as Corporate America. I get what they were going for, but ultimately – that Arc didn’t work for me. Although it did bring them Charlie (sob) – so that’s good.
Sheila, thank you thank you thank you! This recap has added a spot of warmth to a gray week–inside and out. It took me a while but I have read it. Twice. I especially appreciate your explanation of the Red camera, which with regards to SPN, helped me understand how the show maintained and even improved its visual look during s. 4 & 5. Doing the rewatches with you (and my kid) points up the differences between the early seasons and the later, esp. season 7. Season 11, I think, finally has them back on the right track with the darker and dustier look of things (though I do like some of the more glamorous colors and visual effects of the last couple of seasons–and how the show alters its visual style to suit the story being told.)
I love what you said about the way Sam reacts to Dean in this ep. and in the previous one, and I’ll add that I think it may be at least somewhat related to the parentification that you, Natalie and Troopic have identified; it’s what Dean’s parentification has wreaked on his relationship with Sam, and how that affects Sam’s view of his brother. For Sam, Dean has to behave in a certain way, or he finds himself coming unmoored–like a kid whose parent suddenly alters his/her behavior and upends the child’s expectations. Dean proving himself supremely adaptable to prison life, for example, or revealing that he’s read Vonnegut or Aesop. (Or a mom who seemingly overnight develops a passion for a TV show and starts devoting a fair amount of free time to it, even dragging dad off to a convention for a week–but I digress :-) ) So the straight man stuff is great, and the thundercloud is profound–it’s Sam’s reaction to Dean forcing him (however unconsciously) to face the idea that his brother/father is more than the role he’s played for so many years. The same destabilization shows up comically over the years, like when Sam has to assume the caretaker role in “Yellow Fever.” The darker side of this is shown in Sam’s anger at Dean for “giving up,” in season 3 and again in 10–concern only goes so far, and underlying that is Sam’s disappointment in his brother when he once more steps out of his “parent” role and threatens to leave him completely.
// it’s what Dean’s parentification has wreaked on his relationship with Sam, and how that affects Sam’s view of his brother. //
So interesting!!
Again, I’m re-watching Season 5 – and all of that “play your role that Destiny chose for you” thing is so fascinating – because in the Heavenly context, it means becoming vessels. But in the Winchester family psychodrama – it becomes … I mean, what’s the word. A trap? Infantilization? These guys need to take a break from one another. It’s too much. And while they’re in it, they can’t see it. And how could they? It’s how their whole relationship was set up!
// (Or a mom who seemingly overnight develops a passion for a TV show and starts devoting a fair amount of free time to it, even dragging dad off to a convention for a week–but I digress :-) ) //
hahahaha
Your examples in the second paragraph are profound. And then there are the role reversals – or Dean’s betrayal when he realizes Sam’s main “trophy moments” have nothing to do with family life. Both of them are so trapped.
My perception is that Dean is MORE trapped – but that may not be true. It may just be because of the character and how JA plays him – with all of JP’s quivering vulnerability (one of his best assets) – JA seems transparent in a way that … well, it’s why everyone worries about him.
Maybe because Sam actually used his “Free Will” card early – when he secretly applied to college. Dean had to be pushed into “Free Will” because of Heaven/Hell battling … Sam did it on his own, when he was a teenager, with no push from anyone. So Sam actually has some experience with grey areas – he’s lived them all his life.
//quivering vulnerability// just made me laugh.
//My perception is that Dean is MORE trapped – but that may not be true.// Pondering this. More trapped–maybe. More sublimated to the role Dad placed him in, for sure. Less complete, somehow, certainly. It’s been said here before–I’m sorry, I forget by whom–that Sam seems more solid and whole, in part due to Dean’s protection (as upthread, he’s so lucky he had his big brother!), and also because his life, messed up as it was, followed a semblance of a typical trajectory. His rebellion against John, for example, happened during his teens, and probably helped him form his sense of self as separate from the family. Dean did not allow himself to “rebel” against his dad until after the man had been dead for more than a year (thinking of the Dean v. Dean sequence in “Dream a Little Dream”).
To go a step further, Dean may be the main spokesman for Team Free Will, but in spite of what Sam thinks in s. 8, he hasn’t really embraced the concept for himself. As late as last season, his life was still going to end “at the barrel of a gun.” Given that framework, what’s a healthy response? Taking comfort where you can? Throwing yourself into whatever context you find appealing? “Whistling past the graveyard”?
In terms of fan response to all this–you’ve mentioned th
the whole “vegan barista” idea. Have you looked at all at the Hurt/Comfort genre? I have mixed feelings about it–but I also think it’s a valid expression of the whole Sam/Dean (not slash!) dynamic, and how their roles are set up, subverted and reversed over the course of the series.
This all has been really interesting especially because I randomly binge-watched Season 5 in the last week – amazing considering this week’s episode which goes back specifically to that last scene in Season 5 and all of those unresolved issues.
And then I watched the mind-fuck of Season 6, Episode 1. Dean is on the verge of tears throughout – in a way he has never been more crushed/vulnerable. The look on his face when he says to Sam: “What you been doin’?”
(There’s a reason Soulless Sam is one of my favorite Arcs. God, these two actors …)
Having Sam be “back” and yet not Sam … hurts his brother so much that everything falls apart. Dean’s fragility. (But honestly, I get it. If my siblings suddenly didn’t care about me, or were indifferent to me, it would ruin my life, honestly.) So “fragility” isn’t exactly the word for it. Sam not being Sam highlights Dean’s humanity in a way he can normally control when the status quo is all set.
And some of that seems to be rising again in Season 11 (thrilling) – although everything has changed, because they’re older now.
// Taking comfort where you can? Throwing yourself into whatever context you find appealing? //
I think definitely Dean’s hedonism – which I think is healthy, unlike a lot of the other commentary out there – is a reaction, a survival instinct – a GIFT for pleasure. (which has also been … squashed somehow.)
Yeah, Hurt/Comfort – I’ve read a few. I get it. It’s a yearning for those types of expressions in the show – an expression the show usually denies us. So it’s gotta come out somewhere.
It’s ELECTRIC in the few moments the writers give us when the brothers go honest and tender with each other. Again, when Soulless Sam gets his soul back. Or when Dean comes at Sam and hugs him ferociously in … I can’t remember now. The “case” is over, something was revealed that made Dean love having his brother there, and he goes at him. I’m sure someone will remember.
Those moments only work when they are few and far between.
But I understand those who need to go Hurt/Comfort 100%. it doesn’t interest me, narratively, but I get it!!
//Having Sam be “back” and yet not Sam … hurts his brother so much that everything falls apart. // Yes! I think it hurt everyone–when we watched that season the first time, I kept jabbing my finger at the screen and growling at my husband–“I don’t know who that is, but that is NOT Sam!” I think that season is some of the actors’ best work, with JP somehow taking away everything that made him Sam, and JA visibly cracking up under the strain of trying to keep himself and Sam under control. (Plus some of the funniest episodes in the whole series, of course!) One of my favorite episodes, though, at least in terms of the brothers, is “Like a Virgin” (I may have sighed, “Sammy!” once or twice, I was as relieved as Dean). Best part? You’re right, it’s when Sam crosses Bobby’s living room looking all of about 5 years old, to hug Dean.
Which is where hurt/comfort comes in, I guess. There’s an “aca-fan”, Henry Jenkins, who wrote on his blog post about SPN, “Heck, this series is one long hurt/comfort story.” (Here’s that blog post: http://henryjenkins.org/2007/01/supernatural.html) Keep in mind, he was writing in 2007 after viewing season 1. I don’t agree entirely with him–over the years it has gotten so rich with metaphor and relationships, that it’s impossible to say that it’s only one thing or another. On the other hand, I get the impulse, too, to try to “fix” things or to have the brothers express things (through word or deed) that they don’t on the show. You know, during that roadside confession of Dean’s in season 4, I so wanted Sam to touch his shoulder or SOMETHING, even knowing that Dean in that moment probably wouldn’t allow it. It was better the way it was played–but still—
// I so wanted Sam to touch his shoulder or SOMETHING, even knowing that Dean in that moment probably wouldn’t allow it. //
Ha. I get it!
But I’m not sure the season would have lasted as long as it does without everything being BURIED – all their impulses buried, the way they DENY themselves “comfort” – which is why, obviously, it’s such a huge fanfic thing – Fans expressing what they want for the characters.
But I always think of that thing Kim Manners said to JA once – something along the lines of “Know what the audience wants and then give them what they don’t expect.”
It’s a great concept – and honestly, I think a lot of the comic book/superhero movies that come out now should listen to Kim Manners. The fans DON’T always know what is best. Sometimes the fans of those superhero movies just want the safety of their own fantasies – it’s like glorified fanfic – but those movies that know what we want and then give us the unexpected (I’d include The Force Awakens in that!!) – those are the movies that will have some staying power!
Honestly, Sam an Dean drive me insane. How many times will Sam or Dean ask the other, “How you doing?” and they’ll both say, “Okay” when they CLEARLY are not. It is the gift of both JA and JP that they make this repetition (and somewhat manipulative, actually – manipulative on the part of the creators – just to keep the tension going) seem like CHARACTER things. And it seems slightly different, every time it goes down.
That’s all on them.
So many great stuff! I had taken notes of things I wanted to add or reply to, but as often, when I re-read, I feel silly. The whole conversation about Sam’s self Vs. Dean so permeable to context is endlessly fascinating. As it is often the case with that show, I’ve come to relate in a very personal way to some things, that particular question among others. Lately I have read a lot about PTSD and some other disorders, and it has made me rethink why I responded so strongly to some things in Dean. Having binge-watched the show the first time with no one to talk to about it and not knowing what the fans were saying made it really interesting: when I finally came around to read how Sam, Dean and John’s behaviours were interpreted, I was so surprised by some reactions! There were things that had never crossed my mind at all. Some things I still don’t see, but some just really showed my own blind spots and why I reacted so strongly, particularly to Dean. So it’s so great to keep having new elements to think about, or to go more in depth.
Now, I won’t bore you with my own psychological interpretations, but know I read very carefully and enjoy a lot learning about parentification, and more generally keeping thinking about those guys’ lives (and talk about them as if they existed.)
(A study has shown that in a way our brains don’t make the difference between characters and people, and so that’s why characters from series feel like friends we know. Isn’t that fascinating? I should ask for the source.)
Now. I love, LOVE this episode. It is so beautiful. But also, I’m so glad Sheila was the first to talk about Henriksen’s sexiness. The guy is HOT and I wouldn’t mind being the 4th wife. I laughed out loud at the “those dimples, HELP!” thing, because I had written exactly that about a previous scene.:)
// You can see why Henriksen tells her to buzz off because the “grown-ups” are trying to get some work done. //
He’s not wrong, but he’s kind of an asshole. The Winchesters make him so cranky! And the way he looks at her go, I have a feeling he very well knows he’s behaving like an ass. But hey, it’s his character (showmanship!), and you gotta do what you gotta do to get the work done.
It’s so great that he got this bonding moments with the brothers – especially Dean – in Jus In Bello. He’s a deeply good, honest guy, just doing his best. And you can see that already. He’s a little annoying because he is a real danger to the brothers, but you can’t resent him for that.
I love him so much. [edited: some rambling about how hot he is.]
// Kober. There’s something malleable about his face that gives him the flexibility to play someone villainous, or to play someone pained. //
We talked about voices in the Alan Rickman post, and in my opinion, here’s another awesome voice.
// The prisoner Dean beats is scary-looking and tattooed and slams his fist down, and Dean laughs, “It’s a cruel game, my friend!” //
Yeah, but before that, the guy totally has bedroom eyes, he looks like he’s going to eat Dean up!
// when Dean is Strutting Awesomely Through His Own Awesome Credits Sequence he’s untouchable. I love that aspect of him (especially now from the perspective of Season 11, since that tendency in him has pretty much disappeared, an unspoken result of what life has done to this man.) //
Stop, my heart. I remember, the first time I watched the show, being so sad at some point. I mean, I was often sad, but I remember telling the girl who made me watch the show: “he never smiles anymore.”
// I think one of my favourite moments is wisecracking Henricksen sidekick’s “near went nuts” echo and Dean having a real smooth and perfect Cary Grant doubletake.//
I LOVE this. It’s so douchey, Dean cannot NOT acknowledge it, however fucked and in panic he is.
// Full shot of Impala, headlights turned on, engine revving, and they roar out of the frame. //
Oh, and this shot is one of my favourite image in the whole show. The cemetery, the car, the guys, the music… So perfect!
//I wouldn’t mind being the 4th wife.// hahahaha. Henriksen is probably charming as hell and all dimples when you first meet him, Lyrie.
// aving binge-watched the show the first time with no one to talk to about it and not knowing what the fans were saying made it really interesting: when I finally came around to read how Sam, Dean and John’s behaviours were interpreted, I was so surprised by some reactions! //
This was similar to my experience – although my interest in the show was sparked by the strange-ness (as I saw it) tone of some of the fandom’s commentary – I was like, “Okay, this is a unique fandom – I get that – maybe I should write something about it … but before I do that, let me watch a couple episodes …”
A month later I had watched the whole thing.
I still think some of the analysis of Sam and Dean is too literal – or trauma-based – which sometimes relates in … frustration maybe? … that the characters aren’t more open about their trauma. I don’t see that at all, but to each his own – one of the most obvious pieces of evidence that SPN is a deep show is that it generates such a diversity of responses. Mad Men was great, and people are obsessed with it – I am too – but its fandom doesn’t talk like THIS.
// (A study has shown that in a way our brains don’t make the difference between characters and people, and so that’s why characters from series feel like friends we know. Isn’t that fascinating? I should ask for the source.) //
I am not surprised that that is true. I almost feel sorry for people who DON’T react to fictional characters in this way. They’re missing out!
// He’s not wrong, but he’s kind of an asshole. //
I would totally have been an asshole too if I was in the middle of tracking down a killer and some woman came in babbling about what she “can’t put her finger on …” I’d be like, “Well, get your shit together, and come back when you have something more specific.” From his perspective, she’s wasting his time.
That’s why I think the scene is so great – and revealing of both of the characters. As I said above in the re-cap. It shows how bold she is to walk in there and say something like that to those guys. It shows why she’s their only hope. But it also shows Henriksen’s state of mind, and his sense that he is really really close to getting what he wants and he can’t believe this woman has come to him with something so vague. Who CARES what your “feelings” are, lady??
and God, yes, dimples. That last moment!! It’s SO much better than if you just saw him heaving with rage and frustration. Not nearly as interesting as what we get. It’s a real “star” moment – kind of like how Tommy Lee Jones practically stole “The Fugitive” from the star, Harrison Ford – through his own brand of charisma. Jones was not a villain at all. But his job was to track this man and bring him in.
Fugitive: “I’M INNOCENT.”
Jones: “I don’t care.”
I saw that in a huge theatre and the audience erupted into laughter. Not anger at Jones for his behavior – but delight in him. Henriksen is like that. There are a lot of similarities!!
And I definitely see that the other prisoners look at Dean like he’s yummy – as everyone does – but then he beats them back with his Dominance and that all gets subverted into card games, and submitting to his Awesomeness. It’s hilarious!
and yeah: Dean rarely struts anymore. I’m trying to think of a recent example and coming up dry.
Hellatus is over – new episode to talk about. (Sheila said that if she forgets to start a new episode thread, use the last one)
Wasn’t that opening hilarious! I cracked up so much during those precious minutes. Anyway, this newest episode packed a lot of stuff into 40-whatever minutes: Lucifer, Rowena, Crowley, Cas, young Sam, Amelia and Riot the dog, protective Dean, new angel, snarky Amara. It was nice to see Colin Ford and I think Mark P. always brings menace and creep factor to his portrayal.
I have to watch again because I had to sit after the ep to understand why Lucifer was showing Sam his past. I heard him tell Sam that he used to be a hero, and he wants to use Sam to fight Amara, but it was kind of muddled in a lot of flashbacks and I guess my mind wandered. Lucifer wants to use Sam as a vessel. He can still only use Sam as his puppet? I thought that was only for the apocalypse, not for ALL of his fights. Can’t Rowena get Lucifer out and then have him wreak havoc as his own entity?
The Cas scenes in the woods with the new angel were not engaging to me. Even when Amara showed up, I just didn’t focus too much. Amara as a character just doesn’t catch my interest. Maybe when she gets into it with Cas…. we’ll see. I’m interested in how Lucifer/Cas does with his newfound freedom and how he’ll dick with the Winchesters.
I hope that this is not the last we see of Rowena and Billie – both kickass females.
Sorry what I meant was: use the last Open Thread to discuss current episodes:
Here’s the link:
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=111198
I prefer to keep the conversations (past and present seasons) separate.
And thank you for respecting my nerdy compartmentalizations. Ha!
Sorry for the misunderstanding – moving my comments.
Replying to myself to say that Lucifer DID actually use someone else as a vessel; he’s using Cas. Which is interesting in itself – an angel using another angel.
Sheila,
When I first started reading your re-cap, I almost stopped to comment on how happy I was to be reading it right away. I knew it would take me forever to read through all of it and the many wonderful comments afterwards. And as per usual, after reading ALL of the interesting, surprising, prismatic insights, I am at a loss to know how to respond. One this I have to remark on is your amazing visual acuity. (Jessie, you too). You pick up on specific visual information that I just absorb. If someone asked me to describe why “Lazarus Rising” gave me joy, or so much of these early season, there is no way I would have been able to articulate the Beauty, without your recaps. And I love gaining that understanding of my experience.
Jeff Kober’s voice gets me every single time!
I’m going to have to parse out the other, hundred or so, things I would like to say around other nap times. I just wanted to add that I think they chose the irrepressible, cocky/sunny convict for Dean in this episode as an ode to “Cool Hand Luke”. Like, ‘just stay down’ for a minute Dean! Stop Burlesquing, Charming, Fighting, Strutting…for just a minute.
Heather – thank you! The visual stuff is endlessly fascinating to me – because especially in the first 5 seasons, it’s part of how they tell the story. Style/Form = Content. It’s so hard to do – and so many movies now are only about Content. The ones that come along that understand style, and how to do style (the most recent one being Inherent Vice) – are just Feasts for the Eye. And they aren’t just style for the sake of style; it’s style in service to the story.
That opening scene in “Lazarus Rising’ is a perfect example.
The outdoor light is similar to those great outdoor scenes in “Everybody Loves a Clown” – Dean’s skin looks so pale it’s almost translucent – and the dirt smudges look real (you can smell that dirt – it’s face-makeup but it looks like dirt) … the sunshine, the bleached-out quality, the beautiful shadows – it LOOKS realistic, right? Especially that gas station. But it’s not at all – it’s a very conscious and highly-stylized look. Glamorous to the nth degree!!
Love your observation about Cool Hand Luke – I think you’re right. Dean makes himself into the Hugest Target possible. Even Deacon, supposedly on his side, feels the need to take him down a peg – while the other prisoners somehow get caught in his dazzle.
It’s insane.
Would love to hear more of your thoughts during nap times. Always great when you comment.
Same goes for everyone!
just moving this down here cause I’m getting confused.
Sheila —
ha ha, glad you got a laugh out of that! I love those guys.
that stories (like Sophocles – or like Shakespeare) – helped create us, or at least helped contextualize how we think about “the human condition”
I was talking with a friend the other day about this, about how we can only actually see the world through the ways we are taught to describe it. A chair is the same as a table and a chair is different to a table. Each of those statements is true, it just depends on the story you want to tell about them. Stories filter or coalesce detail.
I got to the Ex Machina post way too late! lol. But I loved reading everyone’s thoughts and all the equally strong and opposing reactions. Good crowd, good crowd. I did comment but that was before I went reading elsewhere so I’ll have to have a think and a backtrack for specifics but my reaction was definitely aligned more with the guy on twitter.
We almost WANT Dean to go off the rails – how excited were we all about the prospect of Demon Dean!!…. So I, the audience member, is participating in putting Sammy in a box: Please. Be what I need you to be.
ha ha! I never thought about it like that! So true. DEFINTITELY different from reactions to Sam. I saw some reactions on tumblr to the latest episode about how terrible it was that Amelia was in an episode again because for those people that time was NOT SAM.
LOVE the cat analogy. It’s like the difference between rules and what I called environmental frameworks in my original comment and kinda what you and Barb call contexts below — specific situational frameworks are different from institutional rules or any form of Law — they are less absolute and are almost a space of play — without the absolute aligning him (for or against depending on whose law) he’s allowed to rise up and play.
Barb —
LOVE your connection between Gordon and what Mark!Dean says to the Stein kid (who was clearly, disturbingly, a Sam analogue).
Heather —
Thanks!! What you say about Amara and God and the echoes down the ages/seasons there is so cool and makes me appreciate even more that the Amara-God relationship is a sibling one instead of a romantic or whatever — it gives it such a different feeling and of course it’s meant to reverberate in such fun and messy ways with Sam and Dean, Cain and Abel, Michael and Lucifer (cue the CW breathing a sigh of relief that this is not the ancient Greek pantheon of sexed-up incestuous weirdos that Kripke decided to delve into).
// how we can only actually see the world through the ways we are taught to describe it. //
It’s such a fascinating concept. Joan Didion’s famous line: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” All of her work is about narrative, in a lot of ways – and how narrative is slippery, rather than concrete – and what are the details that reveal, and what actually “does it all mean …”
In re: Ex Machina – I’ll have to go back and re-visit that conversation. It was a good one.
// I saw some reactions on tumblr to the latest episode about how terrible it was that Amelia was in an episode again because for those people that time was NOT SAM. //
Sigh.
The Amelia Arc is one of the most “revealing” arcs that Sam has – if only because it shows what he would want IF he was allowed to want it. And I gotta say: I never saw it coming – at least not like that. So far outside the white picket-fence that it was amazing, character-wise – and felt totally right.
Come on, people. She was a great character. Yes, rude and messed-up. But … what did they want? A smiling Donna Reed in an apron?
// they are less absolute and are almost a space of play — without the absolute aligning him (for or against depending on whose law) he’s allowed to rise up and play. //
Fascinating – and this can work in so many different environments – good and bad. Yeah, like Barb was talking about upthread and everyone else.
So there’s the comedic element – where Dean gets to “play” inside that framework – and he’s a Method Actor – he’s in it 100% – but then the same is true for the more serious frameworks. When his Dad sets the framework, he is that 100%, Method Actor again. Or Lisa and Ben. The interesting thing about the Mark – and then about the Demon – is that it’s the first time, really, in any sustained way that something has been ACTUALLY imposed on him (as opposed to just emotional shifts leading to transformations.) Sam’s transformations have usually been imposed on him – the demon blood, and the no soul – and Dean’s are internal – he aligns himself with whatever circumstance he’s in.
I’ve been on a crazy binge-watch during our recent snowstorm and I’m re-visiting Season 6,7,8 … not my favorites initially but I’m seeing much more there now, for some reason. Sam’s Lucifer hallucinations is another great Arc – again, imposed from the outside by that Brain Wall, etc. – but the creepiest part of it is that it’s all taking place inside Sam’s head. Dean desperately tries to re-frame the whole thing, and so does Sam – but nobody, not even these Heroic Figures, can withstand insomnia.
There’s that whole Supernatural Sleep fascination again. I’ve always sensed it but it’s even more clear now. Sleep relaxes you, we need it as human beings for our health, and it lets our minds off the leash. These guys need that more than most.
And Sam cracks up – not just because of the hallucinations but because his insomnia decimates his self-protection.
It’s so rich. I’m loving re-visitng it!
// (cue the CW breathing a sigh of relief that this is not the ancient Greek pantheon of sexed-up incestuous weirdos that Kripke decided to delve into). //
hahahahahaha
Oh, THOSE weirdos again?? They can’t seem to stay away! And it never works!!
Agreed in re: Amara as Ultimate Sibling. How betrayed is she by her “brother”!! How HURT. How abandoned. No wonder she and Dean are kindred spirits.
It’s such a fascinating concept. Joan Didion’s famous line: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
Yes! It reminds me of that amazing moment in Remains of the Day when Miss Kenton interrupts Mr Stevens’s reading hour and presses him until he reveals his novel is a love story, and he says he’s reading it to better his command of the English language, ha ha — yes, this man has a soul, yes, he feels, yes, he needs to place his own love in context. I enjoyed your essays on Didion, she’s definitely on my reading list.
I LOVE the Lucifer Hallucination arc, it’s so messed up and terrifying and inventive. And like the one battle in the whole show that didn’t end in a fistfight. How fun to rewatch it! Six is a lot stronger than I remembered and seven and eight too have much to recommend them.
One of my favourite gags in the whole show is during the trials when Dean throws just-woken Sam a beer and Sam just watches it sail past him. GOLD. I feel like we have been treated to so many shots of Sam asleep in the bunker lately, a total unlooked-for bounty. But yes, these guys are definitely sleep-deprived. In the imaginary friend episode we can see Sam’s got his alarm set for 6am (and Dean gets up moments later) and he’s stumbling around in search of coffee. Take an extra half hour, buddy! No wonder people are always getting the drop on you and knocking you out and tying you up! Think how many apocalypses you could have stopped if you got your solid eight hours!
//Think how many apocalypses you could have stopped if you got your solid eight hours!//
Think of the pyjamas!
girl, I’m THINKING
Oh God when Dean throws the beer… Works every time!
In re: sleep: Of course Dean insists to Cas to let him have four hours of sleep. Sam probably wouldn’t.
JP plays great and epic Sleep Deprivation.
I also need to down-dial my negative comments on Season 7’s “look.” Some clunkers, too many primary colors and generic sets: but more Beauty than I remembered!
And “Death’s Door.” Brilliantly conceived/executed.
I have just rewatched Season 7 and actually, it’s pretty lovely for the most part and hangs together really well as a season. I think Season 8 is the chief culprit regarding Crimes against Freckles (aka The Orange Menace), and of course, there’s the dreaded Lemon Death Mist.
On the other hand there’s the lovely Benny.
Oh and by the way, I was reading an article on Bowie’s obsession with the occult (because I have fallen down the Bowie rabbit hole in a way I never would have predicted on January 10) and it mentions an interest in our friends the Thule Society, aka the Evil Nazi Necromancers. Who knew?
The main problem, as I see it, is in the lack of sensitivity towards their skin tones. Like a soap opera, they forgot that these two men have different coloring. So to make it easier for themselves, they did the makeup-on-faces look.
There are a couple of scenes where either JA or JP bring their hands to their faces – and their hands are flesh-toned, pink … contrasting totally with their slightly-orange faces – no makeup on their hands – and it’s such a shoddy look.
But other than that – and the primary colors and the less-than-stellar interiors in some cases (every location seems to have bright yellow walls) – it looks much better than I remembered.
And the Lucifer arc is one of my favorites. One of the best metaphors for what it actually feels like to have mental illness/insomnia that I have ever seen. And best part: it doesn’t feel like a metaphor. That’s my projection. It’s an actual experience in the series – but it works so so well as a metaphor.
// and it mentions an interest in our friends the Thule Society, aka the Evil Nazi Necromancers. Who knew? //
That is so so cool. I have loved your various Bowie Tweets. I didn’t know the half of all that.
What a vast and curious mind he had.
// And the Lucifer arc is one of my favorites. One of the best metaphors for what it actually feels like to have mental illness/insomnia that I have ever seen. //
I second that. I loved it, it felt so REAL.
And yes, death’s door, and more generally, from what I remember from season 7, how the character of Bobby gets more developed are pretty great.
And even though I wasn’t thrilled about the whole evil corporation thing, I just loved Dick Roman. Than actor just made my skin crawl.
Oh yeah, Dick was awesome! Who else could scare Crowley?
In general, I found the Leviathans too cutesy (believe it or not) – and thought Supernatural was moving into a scolding “here is what American culture is all about – over-consumption and obesity” which I thought was a didactic bore.
And when Castiel “remembers” who he is – one of Misha’s best acting moments.
The funny thing about Misha is that he is almost as transparently vulnerable an actor as JA is. But he can’t use ANY of that in his role as Castiel. He has to put a lid on everything – tears come easily to him – real tears – he’s able to mainline his sadness in a way that other actors only dream of – but Castiel is not the kind of “person” who does that. So when he is “allowed” to show his transparency, he’s so touching that tears come into my eyes automatically when they come into his. That’s rare!!
//What a vast and curious mind he had.//
Indeed. I mean, where that particular interest led him was really not his best moment, as is well documented. But yes, a real auto-didact, fantastically wide-ranging thinker and reader, and a really destabilising presence and imagination, coupled with a generous intellect. You can tell, by all the 70s interview footage doing the rounds, that the establishment found him threatening and would take any opportunity to try and knock him down a peg or two.
tl;dr – I love this recap but basically I have been on planet Bowie for the past couple of weeks.
// And when Castiel “remembers” who he is – one of Misha’s best acting moments.//
Is it the scene where he goes to the hospital attacking all the demons with his angel-hand? If I remember correctly, it is also what I thought was the most beautiful piece of original music in the show.
// he’s able to mainline his sadness in a way that other actors only dream of //
If you don’t mind, I would love if you could develop that. Maybe with examples?
I understand in re: Bowie!! A giant!
Lester Bangs (one of my favorite writers) was really annoyed by Bowie in the 70s. And when Bangs got annoyed, he was vicious and funny as hell. (I mean he wrote an article called “James Taylor Marked for Death”!!) Even when he goes after my sacred cows, I love to hear his perspective.
It would be interesting to see how Bangs would have altered his perspective on Bowie post-70s and what he would have thought of him (Bangs was always willing to say he was wrong or had mis-judged something) … but unfortunately Bangs was an asshole and overdosed in his early 30s. Jerk.
To boil it down: Bangs was a punk-rock guy. And he felt that glitter rock was ruining music and turning it intellectual. He was in his 20s, but he was an old-fogey. :)
If you’re interested, here’s an excerpt from Bangs’ Bowie piece, a review of Station to Station:
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=74354
And he ends the whole thing saying he can’t wait to see what Bowie will do next.
Thanks, will read this as I am listening to Station to Station right now. (Jesus, that rhythm section.)
I decided to do a sequential listen of Bowie albums from 1969 to the present day. But I’ve got stuck on pre-Let’s Dance albums so far and haven’t progressed beyond. Haven’t listened to Blackstar yet. I actually can’t bear the thought at the moment, I’m not ready. There are such ambushingly, unexpectedly, personal ways David Bowie’s death has touched me – and like I said, the day before I would never have known.
// There are such ambushingly, unexpectedly, personal ways David Bowie’s death has touched me – and like I said, the day before I would never have known. //
I find this extremely moving.
I own Blackstar but I haven’t listened to it yet – I also feel hesitation to really “go there” yet.
Not sure if you know the connection to Elvis? I am SURE that this is not a coincidence.
The two men were born on the same day. Bowie has said that he wondered if that gave him good luck, if it had helped him tap into Elvis’ mojo on some celestial astrological level. And then, of course, Bowie would go on to be the flag-ship artist on RCA – their biggest money-maker – just as Elvis had been the flag-ship artist on RCA in HIS era.
All of this was very meaningful to Bowie – connecting him to some lineage that he felt close to, or at least felt inspiring.
Okay, got that?
Now. When Elvis returned from the Army, he did a couple of movies that did not get good reviews – but are some of the best movies he ever made. One is called “Flaming Star” and it’s a Western – with no music except the title song. (Rare for Elvis movies which are usually packed with musical numbers.) “Flaming Star” is a straight-up Western where no one breaks into song. Elvis is wonderful in it.
The movie was originally called “Black Star.” Elvis recorded the title song – also called “Black Star” – and then the title of the movie got changed to “Flaming Star” and so Elvis had to re-record the song with the new title.
I imagine that “Black Star” – with its intimations of death – was seen as too depressing – by Elvis-managers who had no idea what they were doing and were afraid of losing their audience. So the word was changed to “Flaming” – which doesn’t go with the rest of the lyrics – that sound pretty doom-filled, you don’t want to look over your shoulder, you are afraid that Black Star is going to come and snuff out your life.
But whatever, the title was changed to “Flaming.”
Elvis’ original recording with the original title didn’t re-surface until two decades later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UHZ_62GCI
Because I know Bowie’s love of Elvis, because I know his love of history, I am SURE that he understood the history of the song – that it was a “lost Elvis track” and I am sure he knew full well the “Here comes Death” nature of those original lyrics. I sense, too, that Bowie – in that title – was, yet again, tipping his hat to Elvis in a way that only true insane fans (like myself) would pick up on. Invisible tribute to a man who also created a new kind of sexual persona, who changed the face of music. Bowie, as fresh and new and radical as he was, understood the “standing on the shoulders of giants” aspect of being an artist.
I have no evidence that this is true, but I am SURE that it is true.
//Not sure if you know the connection to Elvis? I am SURE that this is not a coincidence.//
Well, I have been reading the internets :-) so It was alive with the Blackstar/Elvis connection – in fact, I was going to send you a link, then I thought, nah, Sheila will already know all this.
I love that Bowie is still inspiring this kind of exegesis.
I recently rewatched season 6 and 7 and was impressed with how coherent and, the word that comes to mind, is how organic the flow of each episode into the next was. Actually, really beautiful seasons and powerful television. I’ve wondered, since JA and JP didn’t seem to care for Sera Gamble as show runner, how much was a sexist backlash to 1) Sera and 2) that Kripke had left, therefore the negativity was a self-fulfilling prophecy? Because on re-watch those seasons are quite powerful.
Bainer – yeah, it really hung together. The Leviathans are not my favorite (don’t find them scary) – but all the other stuff works great. Plus Kevin, Garth and Charlie. NEW BLOOD.
I agree that Kripke leaving left a kind of power vacuum – and you also can feel them “flailing” a little bit for an Arc, after that 5-season Arc that worked so well.
I don’t know if criticizing Sera Gamble is sexist. Show business is tough and it takes tough people. Maybe it wasn’t a good fit, who knows. Maybe JA and JP felt that disorganization on the backend. And they’re really the ones “in charge” of the show at this point. You can tell in those first two seasons the directors who aren’t “asked back.” Everyone who works there now is trusted by JA and JP. They both don’t like inefficient “panicky” sets – no actors do – and maybe that’s was what they sensed. I love her writing but writing – and even producing – is a very different job than show runner. I don’t know how anyone tolerates being a show runner. It has to be one of the most stressful jobs there is because you are in charge of everything.
My cousin Mike is show-runner on the show he created, “Survivor’s Remorse” and it is an INSANE job. (He’s loving every second of it though.)
I am grateful for Sera, mainly, for her devotion to all the ups/downs/nooks/crannies of the Sam Soulless Arc – which she really stuck her neck out for. She didn’t want to wrap it up too quickly. She was interested in what the “soul” actually meant – in SPN land and everywhere else – and let that Arc play out – comedically, and otherwise.
She’s a smart writer.
But there is a plunge in quality come Season 7, and the show-runner/exec-producer is going to take the fall for that. No passing the buck.
But yeah: Season 7 is enjoyable and deep (even though I’m not scared by the Leviathans. I think it might have worked better if the Leviathans had actually STARTED their take-over – as opposed to just PLANNING for it. If Americans were being herded off en masse into slaughter-farms, it would have felt real instead of hypothetical. And would have given some urgency to what I felt were monsters created only to lecture us the audience about our poor eating habits.)
And that lack of urgency – lack of a clear and effective arc – is on Sera, too. Everything is on her.
She had some hits, some misses.
I do not envy her that job, especially post-Kripke.
Sam in pajamas and bare feet? They could do an entire spin off just on sleepy Winchesters. Apocalyptic kryptonite indeed. Even Lucifer is not immune to his vessel in softies.
And Dean strolling around in a grey robe. Like a pasha. It’s brill.
Huh, I can’t put any more replies. Interesting, did I reach a limit XD
//Yeah. And to do so without glorifying your own problems … it’s difficult.//
This is the best way anybody had ever put into words theat feeling. Well said.
//Naturally, this has resulted in five NY public libraries filled with fanfic where all they do is cry and confess//
No way. Aha. More like the library of congress. It’s so hard to find a.. “realistic” read among all those (and so many of those fics are more then awesome)
I read a published book recently, and I came to the understanding that I felt like I was reading a castrated, chlorine-washed version of a good fic. I mean, It’s really hard to read anything that goes into print after you read fanfiction – the raw-ness of it, the grittiness of the feeling – it’s like eating food without salt after you tasted all the possible spices.
//the slowest-burn-romance-of-all-time in The X-Files.//
Well it is the “great love story of sam and dean” after all :)
It read a lot like a tragic romance sometimes. Yup. And we all know t owell abbout the connections between SPN and good old X Files.
Had to add this one:
A tribute to the great Kim Manners in the X-Files promo stills.
http://supernaturalwiki.tumblr.com/post/137867289127/so-moved-to-see-this-tribute-to-the-great-kim
Thought you might like it :)
Troopic – YES!!!! I saw that Kim Manners tribute – my pal Keith sent it to me – and it’s so thrilling and emotional.
WHAT a contribution Kim Manners made to American culture. And – outside of the fandoms and the industry – where his mastery is acknowledged – he’s virtually unknown. If you said “Kim Manners” to a regular civilian, you’d get a blank look.
An unsung hero of artistry (maybe the best kind).
I’m not a Destiel person in any way whatsoever – to me, the sexual banter between those two guys feels more like Dean as Big Brother than curious lover-to-be … but to each his own. However, I did make a small foray into fanfic and stumbled over a couple of Destiel fanfics that were fascinating in and of themselves – and VERY well-written.
There’s an obsession with PTSD that I totally get – although a lot of these writers seem to miss, entirely, how funny the show is – and how much these guys are survivors, not victims. The humor is a way to survive. So a lot of the fanfic is totally humorless – but whatever, these people are getting their rocks off and I respect it. When I was a kid I wrote a Star Wars fanfic involving Han Solo having a fierce little sister, a bandit mercenary just like him, only she was 12 years old. I was 12 years old when I wrote it. WHAT a coincidence! But I loved Han Solo – I was too young to understand sexual feelings yet – but there was some inchoate yearning there – and so I created a sibling relationship. I still have it somewhere. I loved creating that fantasy (which, I see now, was an inherent critique of the show’s female-less cast of characters, Leia being the only exception.)
WOW I respect so much thee fact you kept a fanfic from the time you were twelve! I’m an artist myself, but I have the tendency to oblitarate anything I’ve found unfriutfull or unfinished or “bad”.
As for fandom and shipping stuff – I’m more then well to aware of it all (being a fan of the oldest and most criticizez ship on the show *eyeroll*) I know what you mean saying “humorless”. But, sometimes, just sometimeess, I stumble upon a funny story, serious, too, but funny in terms of being” in the spirit” of the sj=how.
Also stories that eccentuate the “survivor” angle.
Love it that tyou clock it. Well said.
Many times the fans, fanfiction writers, notice and undertand the characters and the story so much better then the official writers themselves.
I have been enjoying reading this recap, rewatching, reading comments, rewatching, commenting in my head all the way through… Thanks, Sheila, for helping me see so much more than I ever did before! This is a truly beautiful episode…weird to say that about an episode set in a grungy old prison in backwoods Arkansas. Maybe it’s the unbeautiful that highlights the beautiful so gloriously. Before I go on to other things, I have to say I was surprised at everyone’s idea of what Arkansas is like geographically. The Ozark Mountains are in the north half of the state and bootheel of Missouri. Incidently they’re the only mountains between the Appalachians and those Rockies which are (thank God) still holding up their end in the west. If you’re from the Midsouth, as I am, guaranteed you went to scout camp or church camp or summer vacation in the Ozarks.
As beautiful I’m pretty sure that between Dean, Hendrickson, and Mara the lip gloss girls were working overtime! “Repellantly pretty…leaning back into his light” Frackles, you’re killing me! I want to talk about the interrogation scene just as Mara comes in. I am calling it “Dance of the Sugarplum Faces”. There are luscious lips, and errant eyebrows flying around like crazy up in that scene. I think Dean pretty much started it with his “blue steel” pose.
Melanie – thanks – yeah – this is a great discussion!
Not sure why you’re surprised that people who didn’t grow up in Arkansas don’t know the diversity of the landscape. I’m sure many people who did not grow up in Rhode Island and have never visited Rhode Island would be surprised to find that the tiny state is not all coast-lines and lighthouses. That you can actually ski and snowboard in Rhode Island.
// There are luscious lips, and errant eyebrows flying around like crazy up in that scene. //
YES. Great back and forth. AND – as Helena, Jessie and I were mentioning just upthread: a great sensitivity to the four very different skin tones onscreen. They all appear to be in the same locale – but Henriksen is not lit like JA and JA is not lit like the Babe-PD Mara and etc. The POV for each face is completely unique – so that Mara glows, and Henriksen smolders with clarity and JA looks blanched and vulnerable – and JP has shadowed eyeballs.
It’s HARD to light a scene like that – with four very different kinds of faces. Takes real artistry.
Of course you are right about Arkansas. ‘Surprised’ was far too strong of a word to use. ‘Mildly interested to learn that people’s perceptions were so different from my own’ is perhaps a better way to put it. It’s funny to be talking with someone, often for years, until a comment is made and you realize that the person you’ve been talking to has a completely different perception of something. It’s one of the cool things about participating in this discussion forum – so many wonderful, varied, and occasionally kooky perceptions are revealed. I for one enjoy savoring all of them even if I don’t necessarily share in them. What difference could it possibly make that Arkansas has mountains? Well someone might be tempted to think that the team invented the Mountainside and Green Valley cemeteries just to support the clever plot twist. I think it points to great research and attention to detail on the part of ‘our’ team. I, however, have nothing to say for //acres of piney forest in Kansas.//
Melanie – One of the best things I’ve ever done – and I’m so glad I did it when I was young and carefree and could take the time to do it right – was drive across this country back and forth a couple of times, in a camper van with my boyfriend that we lived out of for a couple of months – and then in just a regular old beat-up car by myself- and I took different routes – northern and southern – or sometimes straight through the middle. I still want to do the Gulf Coast route someday – and then I’ve driven to Memphis too and back – practically half-way across – and the sense of changing landscape that happens organically (almost like the state lines aren’t arbitrary – but you’re like, “Oh! This is clearly Ohio now, which is different landscape-wise than Indiana right next door” or whatever) – was so wonderful. You can see it happening outside your window, something you just can’t get a sense of if you fly over it.
One of the main things that strikes me about other areas in the country – and something I still can’t get used to because of where I was raised – is the sense of space. Montana blew my mind with its vistas. Except for the ocean, you get zero vistas in Rhode Island because of the trees and the hilly roads with corners, crammed in by Revolutionary-War-era-and-earlier stone walls. You really can’t see “for miles” anywhere in Rhode Island – and it was a total mind-blower when I visited states (like North Dakota, my favorite or Kansas and Oklahoma, or Texas, or Utah) where everywhere you looked there was the horizon. Gives you such a different feeling. Not better or worse, just different.
I mean, I KNEW it was like that, because I am not a moron – but to see it in person was a horse of a different color. Same with mountains. I’d seen mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire, of course, and have snow-boarded my way across the East Coast in my younger years. But when I first saw the Rockies, on the horizon, my first thought was, “Holy shit, there they are, oh. my. GOD.” and they are even more grandiose than pictures can even portray!
In SPN-cemetery land: Arkansas has both Mountains and Valleys – which is pretty funny if you think of the switch that Mara pulls – and I also like the John Ford nod which I should have mentioned in the post!
and of course the couple of times Rhode Island is featured on SPN it’s a coastal town (well, there’s Lovecraft’s study in Providence, too). If you showed people snow-boarding, everyone would be like … wait. What? Where are we?
The “road trip” aspect of SPN is one of the major appeals for me, since it’s my favorite way to see America. Especially once you get off the Interstate. The hand-made individualistic junk-yard America is still out there – it’s not all Biggerson’s. I avoided the Interstates on my own travels, and it was a great choice.
I want to road trip so bad! Several people have told me that there’s nothing interesting between Toronto and Vancouver. I’m sorry but those people are idiots. It shows such contempt for rural life, small communities, First Nations people living there for centuries… And nature!
But I’d never do it in a ’67 car. Must be super uncomfortable.
Lyrie – I so recommend a road trip if you can swing it!! I don’t know if you camp – but the first time I did it, we stayed at camp sites, which really cut down on the cost. And we lingered long in places – we had no time table. We were on the road for months. I’m not really a hippie, but I was on that road trip!
And yeah, a really good friend of mine hails from Winnipeg and still lives there (she’s a film-maker and she teaches acting at the University of Winnipeg) and I have always been meaning to visit. The prairies look absolutely stunning, such wide-open gorgeous spaces. And those same spaces in the winter??
Eventually I’ll get there.
Also Winnipeg (as I’m sure you know) has become this thriving hub of film-makers and production companies. Maybe because of Guy Maddin’s presence there – but also because of the university – and sometimes towns like that just get “hot” for whatever reason – like what is happening with Pittsburgh now. Who would have thought that Pittsburgh would eventually have to build three movie studios to shoot interiors??
Partly it’s because of the tax breaks given to film and television crews – but I think too because Pittsburgh still has an authentic atmosphere.
back to the matter at hand: I am SO glad I road-tripped when I did – in between jobs, when I was younger and didn’t have a lot of obligations. Because now I just don’t feel I could take the time (although I still yearn to do it again some day.)
Lyrie – I highly recommend middle of the country road trips. My husband and I did seven in the last ten years from California to Minnesota, taking a different route each time, each way. It’s so relaxing to drive through these rural areas when you have the time to engage in small talk and deep conversations that you would never take time for (amazing what you find out about friends and family when there’s no wifi). Plus the diversity of landscape and population are things you can’t appreciate through pictures and stories as much. (That being said, if I never drive through Nevada again, it will be too soon. It’s like Tatoonie in Star Wars.) Go for it!
Confession: I fell asleep last night just as I wanted to dive into the beautiful face-off scene in the interrogation room. I was drawn to it by Sheila’s comment,
//Mara shuts down Henriksen, and Dean throws Henriksen a weak smile (it’s that “shrugging with his face” thing he does).//
I really wanted to slow it down and savor the face shrugging thing. That’s when I noticed that everyone in the room was gyrating faces and the camera was focused in on each luscious set of lips often even cutting off the top of the head which I think must be designed to force the viewer to “read my lips” so to speak. This would be much better if I knew how to screen grab, but I know y’all are familiar enough with the show to “see” what I’m talking about.
Mara enters, introductions, and Hendrickson says “Not quite done here.”
MARA: *quirks her lips up and left at an impossible angle. She has perfectly shaped lips, glossy and luscious with a demure natural shade of lipstick, bright or dark red would not have fit the color scheme (also not orange, thank goodness). Mara also has a double parenthesis of small smile lines at the corners of her mouth which accentuate every move in this dance like a frame. She *tips her head in the opposite direction.
M: “Uh…yeah…” *eyebrows bounce up then down emphatically *head nodding “And…if you don’t mind…” *maintaining quirked, confident smile
H: *right eyebrow jumps up in alarm while the left drops down creating cavernous wrinkles on his forehead – It makes an even more dramatic angle than her lips. His face clearly cannot believe (!?!) what his ears are hearing from this ‘gal’ with the quirky lips. He is smouldering with his brows and ever so slightly pouting with his luscious, glossed lips. He has a frame on his lips, too, the mustache that joins his small chin beard.
The camera switches to Special Agent Sidekick. Now SK cannot compete in the luscious lips lambada, but he makes up for it with eyebrows that go halfway up his forehead – if they were caterpillar’s I’d be digging in for a really, long cold winter.
SK: *massive brows raised, open, expectant. *looks adoringly to Mara who has just OWNED his boss (or worse, overbearing partner) *shifts his weight and looks at H. SK may not have the voluptuous lips, but just here he throws into the ring strong with a perfect *Mona Lisa smile! One side of his mouth is all business while the other just can’t stay down with an almost dimple quivering to be set free. He LOVES this!
M: “Privately” *eyebrows up *lips slightly parted – so cocky, self assured, sexy, inviting a comeback. No wonder Hendrickson treated her dismissively later on, she totally dominated him in this scene in front of SK and Dean and I don’t think VH responds well to being dominated.
H: *eyes down in defeat *brows up sharply in the middle in obvious pain *lips push out in a slight ducklips move of surrender (for now) and there it comes, a mere foreshadow of what we’ll get in the final scene *hint of a dimple…
Now it is Dean’s turn on the dance floor – the DW face shrug.
D: *head tips up and to the side *eyebrows up Bless you, camera man, for for being slightly below JA’s face so we get a lovely silhouette of his long lashes fanned out against his brow. (There was a gorgeous down shadow of those spiky lashes earlier in the scene.) *lips closed, but not enough to flatten out the plump, glossy, juiciness *the corners turn down, way down, but the smile lines are dragging his cheeks upward – it’s really hard to describe *eyes twinkling up at H. *brows and lips relax into a satisfied smile as if to say to himself, “whew, it was touchy for a minute there, but I’m feeling good about the nice, hot lady who just put him in his place. I can definitely work with that.”
And *fini*
I just love this scene and this episode so much. Thanks again, for pointing it out and for indulging my looking ramblings.
*long
//Is it the scene where he goes to the hospital attacking all the demons with his angel-hand? If I remember correctly, it is also what I thought was the most beautiful piece of original music in the show.//
I did not remember correctly. And now I can’t find what is that scene that focuses on Castiel and has an amazing piano piece. Did I dream it? If any of you has any idea, let me know. I might not sleep until I’ve found the answer.
Yes: it’s that scene outside the hospital when he takes on the demons and remembers who he was, as well as his memories of breaking Sam. (The music, as I recall, was great – although I don’t know what it was off-hand.)
In regards to Misha’s startlingly open emotionality:
I clocked it in the episode where we get Jimmy Novak’s backstory. His reunion with his family. Those tears. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it. Even more than JA crying or welling up – Misha kills me (maybe because he has less chance to show it in the show – and so when it comes, it’s that much more piercing.)
It’s also there in The Man Who Would Be King, when he’s on the park bench talking to God, and filled with sadness and abandonment.
This is not Misha “showing off” or “showing off” his emotions – like some actors do (“Look at me cry!”) – it seems to come from a deep deep place inside him – and he has FULL access to it in a way that is rare for men – even actors whose “currency of the realm” is emotion. Men are shamed for their vulnerability from their youngest age – and a lot of acting classes are about un-doing that damage so that male actors can be freer. It’s not that women are more talented – it’s that women have less barriers and less shame about their vulnerability.
Misha, for whatever reason (and I don’t care – not into biography at all), is not ashamed about his vulnerability – and it’s THERE when he needs it. It comes unbidden. He does not strain. It wells up in his face, and when I watch I suddenly well up and feel my face get hot, too.
He’s crazy gifted that way.
I really admire how he is able to keep a lid on all that in playing the emotionally-clueless deadpan Castiel. And the gag reels show so clearly what a clown he is off-screen. And yet he can turn it off instantly and go into Castiel-Mode. (Not without some major guffawing. I have no idea how anyone keeps a straight face sometimes.)
Castiel is a great CHARACTER part – and Misha Collins, without Castiel, would be just a milquetoast whatever-who-cares Leading Man. I don’t find him to be a particularly distinct personality – as handsome as he is – and if he were walking around playing sincere/earnest in Lifetime Movies he wouldn’t make an impression at all. But Castiel allows him to show his talent – and his awareness of how funny Castiel is (all with the character never realizing how funny he is) – him showing up thinking Sam found the Ark of the Covenant, the look on his face when Sam mentions a “guinea pig” – “I don’t understand that reference” – he’s brilliant comedically.
But in the very very few times where he has to get truly upset – I get the sense that Misha could start weeping for real and not stop for half an hour. He’s in touch with something deeply personal and there are zero barriers to it.
My 2 (or 10) cents.
Even JA isn’t as touching when he cries as Misha is.
Not a judgment or a dis on JA, of course. I think he’s brilliant.
But with Misha, something different starts to happen – and I think the difference really is is that he’s playing a character where he is not allowed to show emotion – and so when he DOES, it feels like the whole world is cracking up.
Thanks Sheila!!
Since I’ll probably spend next week re-watching every episode starring Misha Collins to find that damn piece of music, I’ll pay special attention to those scenes.
It’s extremely real – his emotions – and they seem to come to him so naturally. It’s one of those things where he starts crying and I automatically start weeping – don’t know how he does it!
Would love to hear your thoughts –
and yes, dammit, now I need to know that piece of music!!
The song they play over Castiel’s hospital entrance/first meeting flashback (I loved that whole sequence!) is “Turn Into Earth” by the Yardbirds. Great song, and fits his character beautifully!
I can reel this off because the song is on my ipod SPN playlist, which has grown absolutely unwieldy–75 songs–and takes close to 5 hours to play all the way through. And I haven’t even included songs I don’t personally care for, or ones I couldn’t make “fit” like “Walking on Sunshine” or “The Gambler” (of course, at this point, I think I could find a place for those two–esp. as they are connected to Charlie and to Bobby.)
Thanks, Sheila, btw, for the background on “Rooster”, another great song choice. It’s on the playlist, but I never knew what it was about, other than the idea of violence invading someone’s life/home. It’s not that I missed the grunge period, so much as at that point I was more looking backward musically than paying close attention to the current. Knowing its context makes it much richer!
Yardbirds!! Of course! It fit so beautifully!!
and you’re welcome in re: “Rooster”! I remember when it was all over the air-waves but it wasn’t until I saw him interviewed on MTV or whatever that I realized how personal the song was, and that that was his real Dad in the video. Very touching!
Barb,
Is your playlist public? I would love to listen to that. I’m just getting back to the gym and I’m hopeless with my own music selection. I hear music that I like, but I never know the artists or titles. I’m sure there are SPN playlists out there, but you sound as if you have very carefully curated your list. In any case – inspiration. Thanks.
Season 7, Episode 17, around the 32 mins 58 second mark, since you ask.
You’re welcome :-)
Thanks Helena, but I went back to that scene, and it’s not what I was thinking about. I remember a beautiful piano piece. I was so sure it was that moment, but it’s not. Ugh!!
I’ll find it, eventually. Or maybe I DID dream it.
Please let us know when you find it.
Never mind. Maybe you did dream it … what else do you remember about it? #onamissionnow
I was soooo sure it was during a scene focused on Castiel. Around a hospital, (or a prison, maybe)? I thought he was wearing white hospital pajamas, and was walking. That’s what I can recollect in my mind’s eyes. But my memory is obviously terrible, so I don’t know. Maybe it has NOTHING to do with that.
I’ve searching for a while. I have to stop, now, because of (ugh) real life. But I’ll keep looking, even if I have to re-watch every episode starring Misha Collins, dammit!
Let me know if you find something.
I don’t remember the episode where Castiel gets out of the loony bin (I get to call it that because … well. It’s an insider’s take and I prefer the more colorful terms to take the edge off) – could it be that episode? (And please, no one remind me of what happens!! I’m re-watching Season 7 now – in a row – and it’s amazing what I’ve forgotten! Some of it is seeming quite new – almost as though I hadn’t seen it – although I have re-watched individual favorite episodes all the time.)
So maybe it’s Castiel getting out of hospital?
I am sure your memory is spot-on.
Or is it the beautiful “Ode to Joy” moment at the end of the Cartoon episode?
(The only thing I dislike about that final moment is that Castiel, apparently, has no knowledge of human culture, right? High or low. And yet somehow he knows about “Ode to Joy.” But that’s a nitpick: it’s a beautiful and sad scene.)
I love Castiel in general as “Emmanuel.” I know Destiel fans were devastated when it was revealed that Castiel probably had sex with the wife and wasn’t a virgin anymore (oh dear, fans, please calm down!! It’s okay! Stop being sexist, too, okay?) – but he had this calm un-creepy transparency – a kindness too. Very calm and clear. And totally different from the calm-ness that he showed when he thought he was God. He was great there too. But he could then “spin” that calm-ness into something beautiful and healing in that car-ride with Dean, and the conversation on the hill outside the hospital.
I dis Castiel a lot – mainly because I’ve been bored by him for 2 seasons. Must give credit where credit is due.
// mainly because I’ve been bored by him for 2 seasons. //
which, yeah, methinks the SPN writing team realized how boring Castiel had become considering the last episode.
Let’s see Misha show his stuff again, please. It’s exciting.
Echo the #fedupwithcurrentCas feelings, but it is always a joy to see the Castiel Variations – ‘Stoner Cas’ in the Endverse (my favourite, actually), ‘Jimmy Novak’ Cas, ‘French Mistake Actor Misha Collins’ Cas (‘night, little fella; Emanuel, and human Cas too. Really shows what Misha Collins can do.
Love Stoner Cas too – my favorite! – pouring pills down his throat on the drive? HA.
but I was just responding to Lyrie’s query about Misha’s raw emotionalism and where it shows up the most. Jimmy Novak and Emmanuel – you would never know how deeply Misha can feel, and how easily he taps into raw emotionality from anywhere else on the show – or in anything else he’s ever done frankly.
his “death” scene in The French Mistake is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen and it is completely because of how he plays it.
When he weeps “WHAT?” into the angel’s face, as he tries to understand the droning words coming at him for what reason he can’t understand … can’t stand it …
Misha, to cranky 2014 Dean: “What? I like Past You.”
hahahahaha
Hannah brought Castiel DOWN, man. Horrible.
I am sure that most of it was a piece of mis-casting: the actress wasn’t up to it at all.
It could have been kind of a weirdo Buddy Road Movie otherwise – I think that’s what it was supposed to be.
anyway: Initial thoughts: From what I saw at the end of last week’s episode, Misha has been studying Mark Pellegrino’s line readings like a hawk. Should be fun to see more of this.
One of my greatest moment of hilarity watching this show: Misha pushing the make up lady like a complete asshole in French Mistake.
In my top 3 of funny moments, my favourite Cas: “HE’s a prophet?” “You should have seen Luke.” I love the fierce, scary, and later full-of-doubts Castiel. He was so alien. So impressive. So moving, so funny. I miss him.
(The 3rd moment is the suicidal teddy bear crying “Is that all there is?” This is soooo stupid. )
//So maybe it’s Castiel getting out of hospital?//
Maybe, I don’t remember either.
// Or is it the beautiful “Ode to Joy” moment at the end of the Cartoon episode? //
No, I’m pretty sure it was an original piece, and mostly piano (only piano, I thought). Now I’m not sure of anything anymore. :)
But thanks for trying!!
// Now I’m not sure of anything anymore. :) //
hahahaha
You’ll find it. I have faith in you!
FOUND IT!
It’s in the first 10 minutes of S07E21. It’s very simple, and only a few bars! But I love it so much, my memory had made much bigger than it is. Funny.
OK. Back to “real life”, now. (ugh)
You are amazing! That was fast!
I don’t know episode titles or numbers because I’m a loser. Could you give me a plot-breakdown in a sentence?? I know I just said “please don’t tell me what happens” but obviously I didn’t mean it. I’m almost there in my re-watch and my curiosity about the piano moment is killing me.
The title is “Reading is Fundamental”: the episode introduces Kevin. And the piano moment is with Castiel, wearing his white hospital thingy. Is that vague enough and precise enough at the same time? I hope so!
But really, it’s a very short piece of music, not that incredible. I just love it, and I remember being very frustrated not to have a piano the first time I heard it, because I NEEDED to play it.
Right after, there’s a moment where JA does one of those things he does so well, telling so many things in just a few seconds with just his face. And then Cas does… Haha, just thinking about it! I love Ben Edlund.
Let me know when you’re at that point in the season, so I can know how much you were disappointed by the piano thingy!:)
Lyrie – I’m almost there. Only 2 more episodes. Thank you!
and I remember very well Kevin’s entrance – but don’t remember Castiel/hospital/piano.
Will report back.
I love how I’m talking about this as seriously as if it were Breaking News.
Lyrie – I watched Reading is Fundamental last night. That piano is eerie and melancholy and so beautiful, I can totally see why you were drawn to it.
And then it comes back a little bit at the end of the episode, if I’m not mistaken.
//the metal-worker in the foreground, showering sparks around him like a Nordic God//
On my 2nd or 3rd rewatch I laughed to myself about the bright red and white polka dotted, very feminine, ball cap that the dude with the blow torch is wearing in the teaser. All you can see with the mask besides that hat are his very hirsute sideburns. It just seemed so weird and out of place especially given the grey and orange color scheme. I just flipped it on for a final rewatch while folding laundry and was thinking about Sheila’s comment about the John Ford homage when it smacked me in the face… http://sites.psu.edu/amberwaresticker/wp-content/uploads/sites/29995/2015/09/Rosie-the-Rivater-.jpg
ROSIE THE RIVETER!!!
I love this show!!!
Wow – excellent catch!!
//This post is aggressively insane.//It took me 3 days to write this. It will probably take you 3 days to read it.// Gone for three days and now it’ll take me three days to read all the comments. I’m overwhelmed with love and respect for y’all, and a certain amount of thread confusion.
Paula – hahaha
I have been having “thread confusion” all along – I think other people have too – when they’re like, “Oh screw it, let’s take this down to the bottom.”
Come on back – would love to hear thoughts on the episode.
This really is an epic thread.
I mean, we have filled in Mara’s entire backstory so much that she’s ready for a spinoff.
Well done, team!
Melanie- About the playlist: I don’t know if it’s curated so much as it is something I started a few years ago, as a way to share something of the show and all this music (one of my favorite things about SPN!) with my kids, who were at that time too young to watch it, or at least too young for me to watch it with them. I’m afraid I can’t make it public, since it’s just in my iTunes. I have actually for some time been toying with the idea of listing it out on my LJ, maybe even with the lines and circles and paragraphs explaining what each one was–or what was to me–
If anyone is interested, and I’m able to do this in the near future, and it’s ok with Sheila, I can leave the link here when it’s up.
Sheila– On the messy subject of Amelia: As far as fan reaction goes, I don’t think it really mattered who she was as a character, or how valuable she might have been to the plot. She had the nerve to stop Sam in his tracks, which has never been forgiven!
Also, is it just me, or does Amelia remind anyone else a bit of Dean? Damaged by grief, messy emotions, capable (as a vet), a drifter, strongly identified with her father–
Just me, then? OK.
In all honesty, it’s not a rabbit hole I really want to fall into–
So much of what you both say about Amelia is true. I’m not one of those fans who can’t stand to see Sam with any woman. Hell, I want him to hook up and have a relationship (bring back Cara Roberts, resurrect Sarah Blake or Jess, or let him start something with Eileen). However, Amelia is my least favorite of all of them (and that’s saying something given Ruby was a demon). In her first scene, she pulled a guilt trip about Riot the dog with Sam. He felt bad enough and cared about getting the dog help and then his good deed was not good enough for her. Not a great start towards likability for me. Also, messy is one thing but I felt like Amelia was a drowning disastrous mess. Sometimes two messy people make sense together, and sometimes they only pull each other down. Plus hot dogs + spaghetti. I can forgive a lot but not that dish.
Barb – I can see the Amelia parallels with Dean but Jess was the one that reminded me of him. Confident in an endearing way with a strong physical presence that they know how to work. Probably underestimated intellectually because they’re too pretty (she got into Stanford but all we remember is the golden ringlets and her Smurfs shirt). Caves to Sam’s wishes with nothing more than an indulgent eye roll. I’m probably reaching here.
I don’t find Amelia “likable” either – but I did find her interesting – especially when it comes to her narrative function. I don’t think she’s meant to be likable.
Her guilt trip about the dog. The rude-ness about Sam as handy-man. The sharp bursts of honesty that come out of nowhere. The back-and-forth flip-flopping.
What I liked about her unlikability is what it revealed about SAM. And any semi-regular character who shows up in this hermetically sealed world HAS to reveal something about the main characters. I thought Amelia was one of the most revealing semi-regular characters in this regard – because her mere prickly presence tells us: Sam LIKES this.
Instead of judging it (not that you are – I mean the other fans who reject her totally) – wouldn’t it be interesting to ask yourself the question: WHY does he like this? What does it provide him?
And assume there is an answer. It’s kind of interesting.
So coming from Sam’s point of view – he’s refusing to look for his brother, and he has guilt about it. (So bizarre that I re-watched this Arc in the last week – just when it popped up again so clearly in the last two episodes!) He’s lost in grief. He has lost the rest of his herd.
And so there’s something about this awkward woman – who gives him a hard time – who has her own shit going on – that feels really really honest to Sam. He doesn’t have to pretend. And, like Lisa with Dean, she doesn’t mess things up by being gaga-eyed about how awesome he is. Because Sam doesn’t think he’s awesome. Having a woman be into him like that would not “fit” for Sam – not at that point.
So I get why people don’t LIKE her – I don’t think she’s written to be likable at all – one of the boldest things about it. But I think she really really serves the story in complex and bizarre ways. She doesn’t “fit in” to the SPN universe – nor should she. She never knows what Sam does. She falls in love with him having zero idea about who he is. And that suits him. He can relax – or, if not relax, then just BE. For once in his life, just BE.
This is a good question which I couldn’t see past my dislike of her. Why does Sam like that, what Amelia represents? You’re right about guilt. He is suffering under a lot of guilt (and always has, no matter the situation) and is unmoored. Dean was always his anchor. Dean who at times could be prickly and unlikely and known to be a pro at guilt trips and just as big an emotional mess as Sam. A personal relationship where no one is coddled and no one is immune to a harsh light cast on their faults, but ultimately wrapped up in love and loyalty, must feel like home to Sam. His comfort zone.
Shit, I just talked myself into the Amelia/Dean parallel. FINE. ITS FINE. I SEE IT NOW.
// A personal relationship where no one is coddled and no one is immune to a harsh light cast on their faults, but ultimately wrapped up in love and loyalty, must feel like home to Sam. //
Absolutely.
No guilt-trips. No passive-aggressiveness. No “quid pro quo.” Not even “OMG I love you so much” – way too much pressure.
It is a relationship with ZERO pretense.
And I actually don’t dislike Amelia. I kind of groove on her limes-down-the-sink OPEN wreckage.
Sam and Dean don’t corner the market on messy lives. It makes sense that as they get older, they’d be attracted to people with more miles on them.
(To be fair, Dean always seemed attracted to people with mileage on them. Speaking of which: I honestly think he was open to banging Dee Wallace. Innocence, in general, would freak him out – and it’s certainly not sexy, in any way.)
That’s why I like Amelia. There are so few long-lasting romantic relationships on this show (and I think that’s overall a good thing) – that when one is allowed to operate, it’s really interesting.
When he’s with her, he doesn’t have to be heroic, he doesn’t have to keep it together, he doesn’t even have to take care of her.
SHE’S the one who asks if she can have a couple of days to “clear her head.” And he doesn’t want her to go, but he says sure. (Dean would have flipped OUT.)
Anyway, obviously I like the texture and rough-ness of the whole thing – especially since it adds so much to the conception of Sam – not who he was with Jess, which was practically 15 years ago at this point – but as a grown-up man with miles of rough road on his face.
// She had the nerve to stop Sam in his tracks, which has never been forgiven! //
I guess I don’t understand this type of analysis. Characters are most interesting when they are provided with obstacles. Good obstacles (love) or bad obstacles (monsters, demons).
I’m not trying to be dim to make a point – I literally don’t understand people who approach material like this. Could someone explain it to me?
Is it that these people are teenagers and over-relate to the characters? or they are so invested with “their boys” that they feel – literally – protective of them as though they are real people?
I get HATING someone like Meg the Demon because she helped Ellen and Jo get killed. But to not wish her to be part of the story BECAUSE she created that tragedy … I don’t understand that. Stories run on conflict. This story is supposed to be epic.
I just re-watched the Sam/Amelia arc – and it works even better than it did the first time I saw it. The flashback structure still doesn’t work for me – making it look like Sam goes into fugue states every other minute (best to just have a whole episode showing that relationship – similar to the first episode of Season 6, which handled it really well. No flashbacks for Lisa and Dean. Quick montage, then current-day.)
But it’s so so clear what they were going for: These are two troubled people, holding onto one another so they won’t drown. The father clocks it. But grown-ups are sometimes in a mess – and most people know what kinds of relationships you get into when you’re in a mess. It looks a lot like that. It may be a brief relationship but it takes on PROFOUND importance. When he says to her, “You saved me” – he means it. And I GET it.
and yes: I see a lot of Dean in Amelia. If my Dad treated my new boyfriend the way her dad treated Sam, I would be so angry I’d see red. But she tolerates it, almost smiles at it, lets Sam deal with it man to man. It’s been Amelia and her dad against the world – and she’s not gonna barge in there and “correct” him. It’s very revealing how she handles all that awkwardness in the first meeting. She kind of just lets it all play out.
//I guess I don’t understand this type of analysis.// That’s just it, right? It’s not analysis–it’s a gut reaction. Specifically, there are fans who felt that the powers-that-be (read: the writers) betrayed Sam and wrote him way out of character at the beginning of s. 8. So it’s the writers’ faults, and Amelia, story and character, has become the focus of this feeling of “they did it wrong!” The confrontation at the end of The Purge (Sam’s “I wouldn’t save you”) in the next season gets equal scorn, along the same lines.
Personally, while I do think the show has been more uneven since season 7–excluding season 11, which so far has been a lot of fun and really twisty and interesting–I’m more in agreement with your thoughts on how the characters have deepened over the years through these unexpected pieces that once revealed click right into place. Would I have expected Sam to find comfort with someone like Amelia? No–but as we’re discussing it, it does fit where he was at this point in the story. I never had as much trouble understanding why he ran away from the hunting life. Like you said, everyone was dead or gone at that point. Crowley tells him, “you are well and truly alone,” and he believes it. He ran, which again, has been a strange coping mechanism of his from the beginning. He ran until she stopped him. Or the dog stopped him first? (He used that word at the end of last week’s episode, right? “I stopped.” Different from “I didn’t” which is what he maintained before.)
Some of that same fandom angst that generates hurt/comfort fanfiction is at play here, too. The show delayed or denied any kind of real apology on Sam’s part for so long, even though the show and JP have been playing that guilt, that need to make amends, ever since he took on the Trials in his brother’s stead. For some fans, the lack of verbal acknowledgement felt like a personal affront. It seemed like they wanted the writers (who are routinely vilified on some sites) to “fix” the situation. Well, we finally got that, after 3 years, in a nicely played and written scene, that to me almost (almost) felt besides the point. I guess that’s a mark of the show allowing these characters to grow up in front of us, to strive for a more mature and healthy relationship? Maybe.
On the other hand–while I enjoyed that scene, and agree that the words themselves were overdue–having that kind of accord starts to feel like another string has been tied off for the show. Another plot thread wrapped up–and only a few more to go until “The End.”
Barb –
I just felt a Gong of Doom when you mentioned tying up plot loose ends!!
In re: the delayed Purgatory apology: the “necklace” is the same way. I “let go” of the necklace after Fan Fiction. It had been this huge loose end and then – elegantly – years later – they handled it. I am in awe of how they can do that.
Thank you for the explanation – I try to avoid that kind of fan stuff because … I can’t relate to it. Sometimes, too, all this “it’s out of character” chatter seems like … well. Very very naive. That’s why I asked if these people were mostly teenagers. Because can you honestly say what you would do and how you would react in every single situation? Who can? I can’t. To cling to character as something rigid – AND to think that they – the fans – know best – is just … well, it’s silly … AND in a show that lasts so long … I mean, can you imagine if Sam and Dean had stayed who they were in the pilot? And never changed? It would be Dukes of Hazard.
And Love – which Sam feels for Amelia – is often unexpected, and it wrecks your life and turns you upside-down and makes you act crazy. (My essay on “Gilda” for Criterion was all about that. People reacted to that movie like, “It’s confusing! It doesn’t make sense!” Of course it doesn’t. It’s a movie about love and lust. Who keeps their sanity during those situations?)
// He ran until she stopped him. //
I like how you say that. Like, he was the dog hit by the car.
Season 8 is fascinating in terms of challenging us and how we understand the characters.
First, Sam didn’t look for Dean. That’s bad. Real bad.
To me, though, Dean sending a fake SOS text from Amelia was even worse. Unforgivable, really.
And – hilariously – and perfectly – Dean doesn’t see it that way, his apology to Sam is hollow, and then when Charlie scolds him about it, he’s like, “I know, I know, dick move …” But there isn’t a real sense that what he did was really beyond the pale.
Imagine if Sam had used Lisa or Ben in that way to get Dean out of the way. Maybe he would have when he didn’t have a soul, but once he got his soul back? Would Sam have EVER done that? NEVER.
(People feel too protective of Dean and it inhibits critical conversation. It’s like I’m criticizing their grade-school-age child. I had a couple of comments from one of those types of fans over the last 4 or 5 days. He’s a fictional character. Do these people honestly believe he never ever ever does anything wrong? What show are they watching? Dean messes up constantly.)
So I totally believe that Dean, in a panic, would send that horrible text. I get why he did it too, because, Benny. I get it. I also believe that when confronted, he would say “I had to do it, I had to get you to back off.”
But they never really … handled it … it’s yet another one of those moments of betrayal that the brothers kind of suck up, and then move on from – adding to the scar tissue in that relationship. This is the guts of the show, this is how things accumulate.
And when Dean says to Sam, “I know what you had to give up, I know it wasn’t easy …”
To me, it rings hollow. and it seems to ring hollow to Sam, too. It’s not the big “catharsis” the fans want, it’s unfinished … you can FEEL it’s unfinished, and SPN is so good at continuing on all of this unfinished business. Resolving it but … not really.
Season 8 is all messed up relationship-wise – with the two of them dating other people and sneaking around – and lying to one another – and acting out – and sending fake texts and all the rest.
// The confrontation at the end of The Purge (Sam’s “I wouldn’t save you”) in the next season gets equal scorn, along the same lines. //
And that’s one of my favorite scenes in the whole series – so it’s good to know I am so far outside the consensus as to be a True Outlaw.
But seriously: thanks for the primer on that type of fan vibe.
It’s very unfamiliar to me.
I find myself thinking, “But … but … don’t you know Story needs Conflict?” “But … but … haven’t you ever done anything ‘out of character’? No? But … HOW??”
I get very confused. And yeah, I guess it’s not analysis. It’s gut reactions as though they’re talking about family members. (Which is a credit to the show, in and of itself.)
I really like the Amelia arc because I feel like it’s a very realistic scenario. Sam, the baby brother who had always been protected, guarded, and cared for even secretly at Stanford, would have been completely adrift with the loss of Bobby then Dean and Cass. I’m happy that he found another castaway to cling to in his sea of “what do I do now”. As much as some people hate the lemon yellow hazy flashbacks I think they convey pretty well that Sam was in a funk almost like a drug induced stupor of confusion and loss. I jokingly commented once that I’m pretty sure the only reason Sam even knows how to make coffee is because when he and Amelia were together one of them had to learn how because Dean and Don had always been the ones makin’ the coffee.(Sam lost the rock paper scissors.) I also want Sam to behave true to his character. You can’t say well Dean would’ve… Of course Dean would have looked for Sam because he’s Dean! Sam is NOT Dean and I don’t want him to start acting like Dean. Having said that, not going back to Amelia after the 3 days was the right call for Sam. As for now, go back to that diner and find Piper or honestly during that Chronos episode I was hoping for a little Jodie/Sam Jam…
// I think they convey pretty well that Sam was in a funk almost like a drug induced stupor of confusion and loss. //
You know, I agree with you – having just watched them again. They do feel like a stupor, the edges fuzzing out, no clarity.
// I jokingly commented once that I’m pretty sure the only reason Sam even knows how to make coffee is because when he and Amelia were together one of them had to learn how //
hahahahahahaha
Oh, and here’s a question for you all who have better memories:
I am re-watching Season 8. Here is my question and I feel so silly that I can’t put it together:
Episode 1: We see Sam gathering up his stuff in the dark bedroom, Amelia sleeping, and he sneaks out and drives off. The dark figure in the foreground.
Can someone tell me: who is that dark figure supposed to be, first of all.
I assumed – or did I miss something – that Sam got up and left in the middle of the night because he received a phone call from Dean saying he got out of Purgatory. Is that … incorrect?
But then, we get into the flashbacks where we find out about Don being alive, and how the whole relationship ended. There’s a scene where Amelia comes home and Sam is packing up – saying “You and Don need to have a shot” and she says, “What about what you said yesterday about this being right” and blah blah – but the scene ends without him walking out the door. It ends with the two of them still talking.
That opening scene of the season makes it look like he got up and walked out of the relationship, in the dead of night.
But the flashbacks make it look like the relationship had already ended at that point because her husband came back and she “chose Don.”
Am I missing a stepping-stone in the relationship? And who was that dark watchful figure in the first episode supposed to be?
Can someone please put together the timeline for me. I have tried, and I am just about to start working on a flow-chart and I’d really rather not.
Thank you for your time.
I don’t think that within the show’s boundaries, we ever were told who the dark figure was. I understand that one of the producers tweeted at once point that it was in fact Don, but that doesn’t necessarily count for anything at all. It could have been, I guess–if I remember right, the Sam/Amelia timeline was something like:
1) They talk on the porch. Neither wants to let go, but Sam agrees to give Amelia time.
2) Sam goes to a bar, where Don tracks him down.
3) Sam guiltily begins to pack, but Amelia finds him. They have break up sex. (OK, that’s only in my head! But it fits why he would then sneak off at night, and she would watch him go from the bed.)
4) The dark figure looms in the foreground as Sam drives off.
So, it could be Don. It could be someone else entirely, a plot thread that the show did not pursue, or hasn’t pursued as yet. In my own fanfic loving soul, I have a theory about that–which is probably way off base.
But I don’t want it to be Don. :-)
Barb – Now I must know your theory that is not Don. “Well if you must pry…” “I must! I must!”
Ah, but I might take the plunge and actually write it-
But here’s where I’m starting. There are two little facts that aren’t really important to the overall plot, but are still open for interpretation. First, Don seems to come back from the dead, since he was reported KIA in Afghanistan. I could be wrong, but I don’t think anyone says where he was during that time that Amelia was mourning him. So he could literally have been dead. What if someone brought him back with the express purpose of getting Sam moving again? Second, when Benny takes Dean to the Purgatory portal, he says “they said it would be here.” Who said this? What if someone put a bug in his ear about the existence of this thing that I can’t imagine many monsters would know about or even suspect.
What if this was the same someone in both situations? Some sort of divine, though not Godly, intervention?
Anyway–maybe that doesn’t hang together at all. Just me thinking too hard–think, think, think–
Barb – I like it!
It did occur to me – “wait … where the hell WAS Don all that time? Lost in a cave in Afghanistan and PRESUMED dead? But wouldn’t that give him an MIA status rather than a KIA status? Doesn’t the military do its best to be accurate about how people died – unless there’s something sketchy there?”
I wondered, too, if the dark figure had been Dean – I think Michelle mentions this below. A call-back to Sam outside looking in on Dean and Lisa. But that doesn’t really hold together since Dean appeared to know nothing about Amelia (and certainly didn’t care. Or – if he had known about it, would have been pissed and tried to wreck it.)
Maybe you’re right – the dark figure is a loose end, or something they ended up not pursuing. Clearly when they were trying to tie up the Amelia relationship in a neat bow they dropped a couple of things.
But I like your theory.
//getting Sam moving again// I like it. We don’t know enough about what happened to Don. It could tie back to Don tracking him down in the bar as well. Don seems reasonable and upset (in an acceptable way) in that conversation, but what if it was a front? What better way to leverage Sam out of that relationship than appealing to him away from Amelia?
I’m so glad you brought this up Sheila!! I just watched season 8 again not that long ago and I was going nuts trying to figure out where in the heck that opening scene fit in the timeline. I’m glad I’m not the only one!
I assumed the same thing at first…..he got the “Hey Sammy I’m back” call from Dean and he dropped Amelia and headed to his brother, but then after the rest of it was revealed I got confused. Sam and Amelia spending one last night together and then him leaving her makes sense, but where did finding out Dean was alive come into play? I always felt from that opening scene that Sam walked into that cabin expecting to find his brother there and that he knew he was alive.
Michelle –
// I’m glad I’m not the only one! //
Me too!!
// where did finding out Dean was alive come into play? //
Yeah, it would have been interesting to see that scene. Sam getting that text on a defunct phone buried in a box somewhere or whatever. It feels like that is the step that was missed in establishing that timeline.
I don’t think he leaves because he got a call from Dean. Both of them seem genuinely surprised when they see each other in Rufus’s cabin. As the season went on, I thought back to that as the night they talkes about Don’s return and slept together one last time with Sam packing up to avoid any big goodbye between them. Isn’t she pretending to be asleep and fully aware that he is leaving? (Again two messy people who can’t deal in the moment with a bigger mess). I thought the dark figure was Don, doing recon on his wife and her lover, before physically seeing Amelia again. I could be wrong though.
I wondered if the dark figure was Don doing recon but I couldn’t make it come out right.
Okay, so my issue then is:
1. During the flashback episodes, they didn’t loop us back to that first scene (him getting up and leaving at night) – reminding us of it – so I was unable to “place” that one in the timeline. (And I clearly needed that – since I assumed Sam was leaving because he got an “I’m back” call from Dean).
2. The meeting between Sam and Dean in the cabin felt like a “reunion” that had been set up beforehand – not entirely unexpected, in other words. It didn’t feel like pure shock, as in: “OH MY GOD – YOU? YOU’RE ALIVE????” thing. (I realize Dean attacks Sam from behind the door … I got the feeling Sam had been gearing up for seeing Dean during the long drive from Amelia’s to Rufus’ cabin. Okay, so Dean’s back … what is THIS gonna be like … etc. )
I think what happened was that I assumed that that first scene showed Sam leaving his new life because his brother called … and so I analyzed everything following from that assumption.
I wonder whether that figure wasn’t a call back to the ending of season 5 with Sam standing outside watching Dean with Lisa and Ben? and Sam, even soulless (or because of it) decides to leave Dean alone. Maybe the writers were thinking of it being Dean choosing to leave Sam alone, with Amelia, then they decided that didn’t work, either for Dean’s character or plot purposes. Maybe they’ll go back to it and show Dean tried to leave Sam alone but couldn’t. Maybe in season 16?:)
Now I have to watch it. That would make more sense. I assumed they both end up at Rufus’s cabin because they have no other home base. Sam looks so ragged when he shows up that I assumed it was Amelia/Don but maybe it was the weight of what to say to Dean.
I guess I can see both ways, but it’s a pretty big deal that Sam isn’t answering ANY of his phones so how would Dean have reached him when Kevin couldn’t. Possibly a further part of his abandoning Dean in that he couldn’t even contact Sam when he got back.
Good point about the phones.
Yeah, I thought of that in re: the phones – but the “reunion” in the cabin does not feel totally unexpected – or like, “Wait … YOU’RE BACK???”
Just doesn’t feel that way to me. Maybe Sam always knew Dean would claw his way out somehow. But still …
When put together with those flashbacks, there’s a missing piece in the story-telling apparatus as far as I’m concerned.
Just watched it again. They aren’t surprised to see each other. Dean says “I can’t believe you’re here. Half your phones were out of service.” So he did reach out and leave messages, but Sam says he didn’t receive them because he ditched the phones. It’s a gap that’s never explained. Maybe Dean sent an email with location and dates?
I still think the timing is around the time Don comes back. Amelia watches Sam leave in the middle of the night and doesn’t say a word. Given her personality, wouldn’t she have spoken up? “Hey, buddy, where do you think you’re sneaking off to?” Instead she lets him walk.
Paula – thank goodness you saw the same thing in that “reunion” scene (some reunion. Sheesh!!) – I thought I was losing my mind.
They aren’t surprised to see each other – it feels like Sam walks in like, “Okay, so now I’m about to meet Dean again …” He’s somewhat prepared.
So yeah: it’s unexplained. Just a tiny gap in the structure.
So:Don is watching/waiting in the night … sees Sam leave … and then knocks on the door. “Okay, so the Giant left. I’m home.”
That “final” conversation between Sam and Amelia is left unresolved – where he’s packing his bags – so yes, I guess we’re meant to assume that soon after that – Sam, having decided to stay, can’t do it anymore and gets up and sneaks out.
All of this makes sense – I buy that Sam would do that, and also that Amelia wouldn’t wake up to stop him. They’re both in a kind of holding pattern with the whole situation … so she’d know exactly what was going on.
Happy to know I’m not losing my marbles. I really thought I was last night when I was trying to iron out that timeline.
Also: you are totally awesome for going and watching it again.
This SPN group is the BEST.
Obsessive fan + airport downtime + Netflix makes me the Rain Man of SPN. Although a lot in this group have much better memories!
I rely on the collective memory of this group!
//Hotdogs+spaghetti, I can forgive a lot but not that//
You’re not wrong. Nope.
So so disgusting.
Everyone knows hotdogs go in your mac and cheese…
Or pork and beans
Want a slice of Americana? In Columbus GA there’s a place called Dinglewood Pharmacy with an old timey lunch counter. Their specialty is a scrambledog. The dog is that super red kind cut up with the bun topped with chili, pickles, oyster crackers, cheese, onions, ketchup, mustard… I never could make myself eat that, but people come from miles around. Gotta love it.
Here in Memphis people have decided barbecue spaghetti is a specialty – whatever…
First of all, the name “Dinglewood Pharmacy” is the best thing I’ve ever heard.
Second of all: barbecued spaghetti, huh? I’ll have to try it in my next trip to Memphis. We should have lunch.
Would love to do lunch with any and all roadtrippers! Just don’t expect me to be eating the bbq spaghetti! Barbecue nachos at any local sporting event, on the other hand, are not half bad. Ha ha ha. We actually have some great eateries here. Memphis is much more than the world’s best barbecue.
And Dinglewood historic district in Columbus GA named for Dinglewood house. It wasn’t even a family name. I guess in 1849 he just thought it sounded classy.
I love eating in Memphis!
I’ve been wanting to come, because there’s something going on at Graceland for this whole year that I want to experience because of this other project I’ve been working on. It loops into that.
So I have a whole year (almost) to figure it out.
Plus I miss Memphis.
I’ll keep you posted!
You are wrong shelia and jensen ackles is a better actor than misha collions and misha is a bad actor. Jensen can make ppl cry when he cries! Amalia was a bitch and she was a cheating slut. Sam was dumb for messing with her. And jensen was right about lisa and ben that he didn’t like them! U should watch jensens con interviews! Misha seems like a jerk and he’s a crappy actor. And you are so wrong and I’m done reading your re caps it was getting anyway. love spn and love jensen and dean but you are lame shelia. Ps not only is jensen is better actor he is also the hottest actor. Dean is the best hero! Bye bitches
I think your comment would definitely be much funnier in Enochian.
Mic. Drop.
:-)
<3 <3 <3 <3
:-)
Sheila 1, Troll 0
I just … what?
We don’t give Dean and Jensen enough love here. Got it.
Bye Felicia
OK.
HAHAHAHA A perfect gif.
I want to re-read some of the comments on the topic of trauma to understand them better and quote them, but strangely, I got lost in the 220+ comments…:) So I’m going to use my memory and it might be a little off. Please bear with me.
Sheila, you said (something like): “too many analysis are trauma-based.” Yet, it seems to me that it is also in part what we’re doing here. So I was wondering: were you referring to fanfic only? It seemed to me that what bothered you more was how the trauma thing was exploited by some fans, making them want big emotional confessions.
Or maybe we don’t talk about exactly the same thing, hence my confusion.
I must say, I usually don’t know what the trends and consensus are in the fandom – hating Amelia, for instance. I don’t really know fanfic either. When I finally tried, I read a lot of gay porn for a week, some very poorly written and some pretty great, had a lot of fu, and then never could bring myself to read more fanfic anymore. So maybe I’m just missing obvious references.
Also: YES to road trips! As soon as I have both some (just a little) time and money. I might drive to Memphis just to try that thing that seems absolutely disgusting in the best way.
And I have to re-watch seasons 7 and 8, now… Damn you, shelia’s gang! (I’m so sorry, I just LOVE ‘shelia’).
Lyrie:
// So I was wondering: were you referring to fanfic only? It seemed to me that what bothered you more was how the trauma thing was exploited by some fans, making them want big emotional confessions. //
I think, yes, that was one of my main issues and I really should be clear-er about that. Because it’s unfair otherwise – and sorry.
One of my main responses to the power of the show was how much it understood trauma – how that seemed to be one of its main topics. I think in my first post on JA’s comedic skills talked about the brothers as living in a permanent state of PTSD – and I’ve got some of that in my makeup because of my own life – and it seemed the show got it creepily eerily right. AND I thought: wow, how interesting that a show about monsters is also so interested in the family dynamic and PTSD – that it doesn’t just use those things as “issues of the week” – wrapped up in one episode – but one of the driving forces of the whole thing. (I am experiencing Jessica Jones in the same way – not sure if you’ve seen it. Superhero shmuperhero – that show is about sexual assault and its aftermath. I know it, I’ve lived it, there it is. And it’s so accurate about it!!)
Because of the backwards way I got into the show – reading Destiel fanfic (much of which I really enjoyed actually) before I had watched an episode, basically because I was curious about the intensity of the fandom – I got the feeling (from the fanfic) that the show would be all about emoting, and hot guys crying and gay angel love affairs. So when I saw it finally, and saw how funny JA and JP were, and how elegantly the show dealt with trauma (it’s an invisible theme: they’re in the Belljar – it’s normal to them – and only occasionally do they get their heads up above water to actually perceive it) … I didn’t recognize the show from the fanfic. This is probably very common – that’s the whole point of fanfic – so I don’t want to be unfair about it. Fanfic serves a deep purpose to express things, let off steam, get your rocks off, and I am all for that.
I think what I really took personally was the view of the fans in question that the guys were victims – as opposed to survivors. This is not to diminish what they experienced – it’s just an attitude shift. And seeing them as victims created what I feel is a love-affair with psychological-damage that I, personally, reject – because if I accepted it then I couldn’t get through the day. This was why I initially ranted about the fan view that Dean was overcompensating, or that his love of beer/sex was somehow a lie – as opposed to an honest and quite healthy response to the sucky-ness of his life. I took that attitude personally – and the sort of prissy (as I saw it) response to his promiscuity. Sex can be as healing as anything else – even promiscuous sex. It’s not ALL borderline and sketchy and “unhealthy.”
So that’s what I didn’t like.
But I’m sorry: I will be clearer in the future about that. I totally understand where you are coming from and I agree. Or, that was the case for me when I started watching it.
// I usually don’t know what the trends and consensus are in the fandom – hating Amelia, for instance. //
Yes, me neither although I am up to speed now on some of it. I had no idea that Amelia was a “slut,” for example – thanks, driveby commenter! And I had no idea that the final scene of The Purge was hated. I do try to stay away from those conversations now that I watch the show – just because I want to see each episode purely – without a lot of chatter in my head.
Shelia. I know. It grates just looking at it. Even worse than “shiela” although that grates too. I always tell people that I am the “exception” to the “i before e except after c” rule.
Natalie/Mutecypher/Paula:
These threads are getting too crazy so I’m moving everything down here because I’m getting lost.
Way up there we’re talking about evolution – parentification – sibling dynamics – and … big-eyed babies.
Because of course we are, because that’s what SPN makes us do.
Mutecypher: // So we get Ariel, with each eye roughly a third of the width of her head. We’ve evolved to respond to such things, they signal “innocence” to us //
Fascinating especially the Disney part! This makes me think of Tim Burton’s movie “Big Eyes,” not sure if you’ve seen it. I wonder what it is about big eyes. Then, too, there’s anime/hentai, with the big-eyed porn cartoons. Innocence sullied by … tentacles, etc.
That article you linked to was so interesting!! I didn’t know that detail about “floppy ears”! and Lysenko! Familiar with him because of all my Stalin reading. Imagine being a scientist in that environment, one who deviated from doctrine. I mean, you COULDN’T deviate from doctrine without being imprisoned or killed. This Russian scientist was so smart – to “hide” his research into genetics by studying animals.
Paula:
Thanks for elaborating on the younger sibling’s experience of all of this.
// Is it any surprise that I relate to Sam? That moment in Something Wicked where he offers Dean the prize in the cereal box? GPOY //
Wow. Yes.
There’s that interesting moment at the end of the The Mentalists, when Sam and Dean get back together, and Sam says, “Now that you don’t need to worry about me anymore … that’s good. Now you can focus on yourself and that’s good, right?” And poor Dean stands by the car looking totally lost. He doesn’t know who he is, where he is … without that role. And JP says that line beautifully – he seems so grown-up when he says it – but there’s also that guilt. Sort of a “you put your entire life on hold to look out for me. Please … please … stop doing that … stop putting yourself last … I can’t take it anymore.”
Aaarrgh!!
Last week there were only 90 or so comments! Now there are 235! And they’re too interesting to skip! You all are too much! (Argh!!)
I’ll just start by saying thanks, Sheila, for the hugely detailed and loving recap. (Yay! to nerdery!) I particularly appreciated the part where you pointed out how JA’s posture and attitude showed how deeply Dean had internalized his institutionalization. That went “CLICK!” for me. I never consciously noticed it before. I knew he was a little too eager to stay, and that Sam had good reason for being anxious about him, but this is much scarier. (I guess I had been blinded by the pretty, pretty wounds.)
As for the comments: epic. (I started listing things for my own memory, but they started to doggerel themselves together. Sorry about the not-quite-rhymes and the “occasionally a little bit bizarre” meter.)
There’s parentification, Quiverfull skeeves,
Arkansas mountains (plus Rockies reprised),
Sheila’s re-bingeing of S5 through 8,
Defending against the Amelia hate,
Plus honorable mentions of 9 through 11,
Lacanian theory & aggressive submission,
Shakespeare, Sophocles, Freud, prison orange,
(oh and Jessie’s earlier link: Power Bottom!),
Henriksen’s dimples and future ex-wives,
Bowie, Rickman and Manners now out of our lives,
Pajamas & pashas & sleep deprivation
Trauma in fanfic with clarification
Elusive Cas music (his madness elided),
Misha tears, fan vibes (example provided),
Wackadoo glitter glue, Mara Daniels PD,
Lastly, all kudos to JA & JP.
I’m sure I’ve missed stuff, too, because 235 comments people! Makes Helena’s 70 printed pages seem … quaint.
I got distracted by the above. So, to be brief:
1. Count me in for any Season 4 coverage you’d like to do, Sheila! I loooove that season to pieces.
2. The post-job Dean-hugs-Sam episode was season 8’s “Pac Man Fever”. Dean started the episode wanting to sideline Sam indefinitely. (Failed beer catch.) But after talking to Charlie post-hunt, he went in for the hug and un-sidelined him. (If someone’s already answered that, apologies!)
3. I like the way season 5 treated the whole pre-ordained “Destiny!” matter. I’m usually a “Screw Destiny” kind of person, but I was okay with it here because I think they subverted it. To me, the bloodlines thing was angel manipulation. Michael and Zachariah were doing their best to bring about the apocalypse on their own timeline. However, God/Chuck/Kripke manipulated and rearranged matters so that all the players, Sam, Dean, Lucifer & Michael, would be able to change the outcome of the confrontation through the exercise of their own free will. (I think even Adam could have said “NO!”, although Zach plays dirty, so maybe not.) All of them chose to be there. All of them had the chance to stop it (Adam probably excepted). All of them fought their damnedest for the outcome of their choice. It all boiled down to the purest expression of free will imaginable, IMO.
Whew. 236th comment.
omg lindah!
Lindah – I cannot stop laughing at your poem. Oh my God!!!
// Misha tears, fan vibes (example provided), //
hahahaha
That is so so great! Thank you for reading this whole thread – and then creating THAT from it!!
and too funny: I just re-watched Season 8, and came upon Pac Man Fever and was like, “THAT’S IT.”
Such a moving moment – so unexpected and little-kid-ish. Powerful.
“What do you say we go find our prophet.”
But back to the most important thing:
Henriksen’s dimples and future ex-wives,
Bowie, Rickman and Manners now out of our lives,
I just CAN’T with how hilarious/awesome this is!!!
Epic #236. I’m crying right now that poem is so good, lindah!
Bravo, Linda!
I feel this will get re-quoted a lot too.
Yay for spontaneous eruption of poetry!
Fantastic and brilliant poetry, Lindah.
Lindah!!
This post and the whole thread is EPIC.
Awww, you guys. Thanks for your kind words!!!
I admit, my inner Rhyme Patrol Officer is a little ashamed.
Last night:
Inner Rhyme Patrol Officer: Those lines don’t rhyme. Skeeves/reprised, 11/submission.
Inner Glitter Glue Poet: Ehhh, close enough when you say it out loud.
IRPO: Gah! Well, then at least get rid of orange. Nothing rhymes with orange. And the Meter and Form Patrol Officers hated that line anyway, before you threw them out.
IGGP: But then I’d have to rearrange everything. Don’t wanna.
IRPO: NOTHING rhymes with orange. *crosses arms*
IGGP: What if I throw in a dirty joke then? Prison orange/Power Bottom?
IRPO: *derisive snort*
IGGP: And an exclamation point! (With parentheses!) I can do that now that I’ve tossed the Punctuation Officer out. And here, have a twinkie.+++ It’s Innuendo Officer Approved.
IRPO: *mmmpf* Well, ok, then.
And that’s how we got this wackadoo dumped all over us. (Oh Ben Edlund, how I miss you and your lines!)
+++ It was actually a cookie, not a twinkie, but my Inner Glitter Glue Poet’s license is current.
PS: Help! What is happening to my brain?
PPS: Also, my one current regret (since this hasn’t passed the 24hr Is-This-Still-OK? test yet) is that I didn’t italicize “Mara Daniels PD” because it was intended to refer to the spinoff that Helena, Paula and Heather were creating. For the record, I would watch the hell out of that spinoff.
hahahaha Okay, your internal notes are just as funny!
Thank you so much for the poem – I was laughing about it all day yesterday.
Eminem, in his great interview with Anderson Cooper, said that he took the “nothing rhymes with orange” challenge extremely seriously – and he thinks about it probably once a day, trying to work “orange” into a rhyme scheme. NERD.
“example provided” is so so so funny to me. The parenthetical!!
OMG, as usual am late to the party. So glad I checked in, I have been waiting for this recap/review. You didn’t disappoint. One of my favorite episodes regardless of the season. You make everything clearer as to why it works so well. The shear physical beauty of the early years is nearly breathtaking.
Have no profound or new insights to share but want to repeat once again how wonderful it is to have found à group who loves the show and enjoys discussing every aspect of it. It took me several days to sort through all of the awesome replies.
I tried to look at my reaction to Amelia , I had à strong immediate aversion to her character. I too thought okay maybe she is Sam’s Dean raft and maybe at a quick glance. However she only owns Deans more negative traits, none of the charm or warmth, none of the nurturing tendancies. I am à Dean girl so I know my reaction was not motivated by jealous fangirling or my not wanting Sam to have someone besides Dean in his life. Realistically I doubt there is enough room between Sam and Dean for anyone else regardless of how wonderful they might be. Maybe she makes sense as a tool in the story but the execution didn’t work for me.
Back to the epic Folsom Prison, favorite line-‘Poor giant Tiny’. Favorite scene- there are so many great ones but going with à tie between the solitaire scène and the meeting with H. The orange jumpsuits look absolutely hideous on everyone but Sam and Dean. I too thought Deacon enjoyed bashing, manhandling Dean far too much.
I will wait faithfully for the next, an ep unlike any other.
Thank you bunches.
I’m not adding anything substantive to the Quiverfull / dad-beard shaving daughter discussion upthread, but I just had to share this here because its creators are obviously aware of that disturbing sh*t, too.
(FYI, the other videos from this show – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend – are even funnier, sharper and darker. And more NSFW.)
One more smallish thought:
Jessie, upthread: //So the person who creates Dean as a person and a social being is his Father//
I think it’s also worth considering how John’s military mindset (which was like a subterranean growl throughout the episode) would be a huge factor in Dean’s squishy malleability. I’m a total outsider when it comes to military matters, but it’s my understanding that one of the goals of basic training is to make sure the soldier learns to put his company or unit above and before himself. The methods necessary to get through to self-centered 18yo recruits would be devastating if they were similarly applied to a child who has already had his sense of self and safety destroyed by tragedy.
// And the cult environment is so comforting because personal choice is removed, you submit, you don’t have to worry anymore, everything is taken care of.//
OK, Sheila, I’m moving this here because I don’t want to derail a conversation about cults into a SPN thing. But this resonates so strongly with that discussion, right? It’s probably been said by someone else, I don’t remember everything we said in the 20,000 comments. I have a very personal take about Dean being so susceptible to group things, and I don’t know how to explain it well – without going into details about personal stuff. Sam is very much his own thing, to a degree that is almost supernatural. The dude is so strong and resilient! Dean has trouble taking care of himself, thinking of himself as his own entity. And it has its advantages, especially in what they do: he can be whatever he needs to be. Sometimes he’s not good at it *coughs*Fontierland*coughs*, but he slips into a “role” in a way that Sam can’t, because Sam is always Sam. It means you can potentially become so many things, it’s kind of great! Suburban dad, P.A. on a set, whatever. But it’s also probably exhausting, those perpetual shifts inside. And yes, I can see how a place where the law is strong and you just have to submit completely to belong is comforting, in a way.
Maybe you’ve talked about that in WIAWSNB. I want to take my time for that episode, and I’m gonna be so so late to the party!:)
Lyrie – what fascinating insights!! You know I sense these things too – and there doesn’t seem to be just one explanation for it – although certainly having to turn himself inside out to be whatever his Dad wanted him to be – helped make him the amorphous thing that he is.
It’s like what they say in Al Anon, or what they say about kids who were raised by Narcissists. It’s exhausting – like you say – to try to navigate around whatever this really strong domineering figure wants you to be. And so you have trouble “attaching.”
And agreed, in re: Sam.
What’s so interesting is that this dynamic still persists – Dean’s susceptibility to Amara can obviously be explained by the Mark, and blah blah, but – at least the way JA plays it – it has something to do with everything we’ve been talking about.
Sam is susceptible too – but these seem to have to do more with external things. Or demon blood, which can also be seen as an external thing. He over-compensates, wants to prove himself to be as good/devoted as Dean, all the rest. But yes: he just comes off as more solid. Okay. Himself.
Think about the difference between Sam and Amelia and Dean and Lisa. Dean sort of squirmed his way into a ready-made environment and took on the very clear roles that were there for him. And he was GOOD at it. I get the sense he could have done that forever, actually, if he had had the chance. He NEEDS that structure. Sam, though, was able to just make up his own thing with Messy Amelia, and he was okay with the Mess and living for the moment, and not knowing what was to come, but hooking up anyway. No WAY could Dean have tolerated that. Way too free-falling!!!
This is a really interesting discussion.
and it’s never too late to join the What Is and What Should Never Be party!!
So here I am posting a comment on my own old post, but I wanted to add it here, just for the record – and I’m slightly … obsessive? … about keeping everything in what I perceive to be the “right” place.
Anyway, I’m diving deep into Elvis-Land again (although it may seem as though I never left) – for various reasons I won’t share – and a couple of days ago I re-watched JAILHOUSE ROCK. It’s SUCH a bizarre and entertaining movie but that’s neither here nor there. I did mention JAILHOUSE ROCK above – of course – but what I said about it was: Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a single reference to the greatest prison movie of them all …
BZZZT!! WRONG, Sheila, WRONG.
In my re-watch, I found almost a direct quote, and seriously, I am so pleased it felt like Christmas for a hot second.
Okay, so Elvis is a hot-head who gets thrown in jail for manslaughter. He’s never been in jail before and his cell-mate is an old-timer who is basically the “fix it” guy, like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank. Elvis’ cell mate offers him help – show him the ropes, get him the easiest work detail, etc.
There’s a huge box in the cell filled with cartons of cigarettes. Elvis is curious about it, picks up a pack and looks at his cell-mate. The cell-mate says laconically, “Cigarettes are the currency of the realm in here.”
BOOM.
Hi Sheila,
Apparently I’m catching up by moving backwards. Another great review – season 2 just has most of my favorite SPN episodes. I know this review is months old and you guys apparently had a very lively conversation (which I’ve not had a chance to read) so I just wondered – not only have I noticed that the show now looks like every other show on the CW – but the sound quality seems to have changed and the show also sounds like Arrow, Flash, etc. I’m assuming it has something to do with digital recording. I think with digital you lose so much depth of sound. I certainly notice it with music, you can crank the bass until the building shakes but there’s so much lost with the compression. (IMHO) Thank you for a great read – hopefully when you have time to put up All Hell Breaks Loose Part II, I’ll have caught up!
PS -I loved your review of What is and What Should Never Be – that episoded breaks my heart every time I watch it
Kim – thanks so much for coming back and commenting! I do so want to continue with re-caps but my freelance writing career has kind of exploded (in a small way – but still – ) this year. It’s been one offer after another. I’m not complaining, I’m very happy – but something had to give and my work here on the blog has had to take a back seat. BOO. I even got all my screen-grabs lined up and a Preface for the next re-cap – but have just not had a breather.
and bah, here we are with Season 12 about to start!! (Very excited though.)
I agree with your points in re: sound. Very insightful.
Hello. I just found your blog and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD YOU ARE BRILLIANT. It is incredible to see your mind applied to “Supernatural.” I feel like I am back in film school with the coolest professor ever.
A few comments on “Folsom Prison Blues” (as I am slowly making my way through your recaps out of order) – I love the way you’ve explored Dean’s malleability, the way he sinks into his role as a prisoner. I’ve always loved this episode more than is warranted for what seems like a generic “monster of the week” and you’ve broken out exactly why – it’s all about the insight it gives us into Dean’s character, and the plethora of both comedic and disturbing Dean moments.
One thing you didn’t emphasize that I think is key to this episode (and the one before it, which you correctly note explores the same theme) is its context within the arc of season two. Dean has just lost his father. He doesn’t know who he is – he’s struggling to function without his Dad telling him what to do. Your comparisons of the Winchester childhood to a cult are spot on – and what happens when the cult leader is gone? Dean very quickly tries to replace John by attaching himself to Gordon, and when that doesn’t work out, he revels in these experiences of losing himself in a world that is all about boundaries. It’s all replacement father figure, tell me what to do, I don’t know how to be a person on my own. Because John never raised him to be.
And of course it’s all leading up – so beautifully – to the end of season two. Because as horrible as Dean’s deal is, it’s also a comfort for him, in that he finally feels he has a purpose, the purpose that he’s been flailing for all season. His life can mean something by laying it down to save Sam.
I haven’t read your recap of “What Is and What Should Never Be” yet, but I can’t wait, because that episode also dives into the topic of Dean’s purpose, from a very different angle. I love what you write about Supernatural being “prismatic” in its exploration of themes. You’re totally right – at its best, it’s not didactic, it doesn’t have easy answers, it just dives into this stuff and breaks it apart in ways that are beautiful and primal and fascinating.
Ok one more comment on this recap – the voices that open Alice in Chains’ “Rooster” are actually male. It’s a harmony between Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell. But it is beautiful and feminine and a lot like “Supernatural” in its way – Alice in Chains is my favorite band precisely because much of their best work is about the beauty and vulnerability that underlies a tough exterior of masculinity.
Laura – Thank you for reading and for your comment – especially the Alice in Chains correction. I appreciate it! You’re right: tough and vulnerable, masculine and feminine – part of the appeal of their music (and other bands of that era too – ie: Chris Cornell, RIP).
// it’s all about the insight it gives us into Dean’s character, and the plethora of both comedic and disturbing Dean moments. //
absolutely! Going from Hollywood PA to hard-core institutionalized prisoner is the strongest evidence I can think of! Great!
I miss malleable boundary-less Dean. Maybe his character has “grown” but we’ve lost a lot in the process.
again, thanks for commenting – glad you are enjoying what I do here.
I was watching this episode with a friend a while back, a gay guy. His response to this: ‘These guys are jailbait.’
I was like, ‘Friend. They’re huge. Come on.’
Him: ‘Jailbait.’
All else aside, I’ve been re-watching the show and looking through your re-caps again, and I want to just thank you very, very hard. As far as I’m concerned, these single-handedly make up for the lack of critical attention the show receives. They’re as weird and digressive and hilarious as the show itself. Bell-jars! Erotic Muses! I mean, what? Am I in heaven? I feel like so much of the commentary on it- both dismissive and fannish- just flat-out misses a lot of what makes the show itself, the subtle (or non-subtle) ironies and layers of subversion and ambiguity. And you actually /focus/ on those things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show broken down on the page quite so comprehensively or so well. And in the wake of the horrible-ness of season twelve these have been a wonderful reminder that everything I love about SPN is still out there. That means a whole lot to me.
So- thank you, and I hope writing these gives you as much pleasure as reading them does for me and everyone else on here.