I just saw a promo on the CW’s Twitter feed showing Castiel front and center, with Sam and Dean behind him. Which pretty much encapsulates my issues with what’s been going on. Not just with Castiel, who has been an irrelevant three-bean-surprise annoyance in the show for years now, but with Sam and Dean presented as background support to other narratives, as opposed to their narratives driving the show – which, up until Season 12, they did. I saw some person on Twitter respond to a similar comment with “Go watch Season 1 through 3 then. The show has moved on without you.” This is such a mis-reading of … the whole entire show? of Season 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 … the main narrative was Sam in trouble/Dean trying to find solution, or Dean in trouble/Sam trying to find solution. That this is a controversial opinion is one of the reasons why my intersection with fandom has mainly been here, on this site, with you fine people. I haven’t seen the finale yet, though. If I were JA and JP, I’d look at that promo and think, “Man, it’s sad that this will be ending, but it’s probably best we’re getting out of this thing now if that’s how they’re presenting us.”
No spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet, but in my opinion, it wasn’t that bad. Not what I expected and there were a few surprises and a few giggles, but I think that the overall viewpoint of the story, particularly the last 15 minutes, illustrates Supernatural’s ongoing viewpoint of the capriciousness of gods and the power of free will.
Also, I’m not really a Castiel fan and I think that he was shoe-horned into the finale to give him something to do because he was clearly not necessary for the story. It would have been so much better without him, but what you gonna do?
// but in my opinion, it wasn’t that bad. //
Yes, I feel the same way.
In re: Castiel: if nothing else, at least he seemed to have some agency – a strong objective – even though he’s still there basically to give pep talks to Jack.
It feels like – the things that came out as the main conflicts in this ep – the fight about Jack – the disagreement about how to handle it – could have been portrayed – and should have been portrayed – throughout the season. Each episode needed to keep that on track – you know how they used to do that in former seasons? You never lost the thread, even when diversions happened, even in MOTWs which supposedly had nothing to do with the season-wide arc.
I think Dabb is extremely distract-able. I also think his attention was mainly on developing a spin-off – so we had all those wasted eps with Wayward Sisters – which now just feel like dead air.
But the conflict in the finale – do we or do we not kill Jack – has enough juice it’s just a shame it wasn’t really present all along. I’m sure other people could make the totally opposite case – that it WAS present all along – but for me, it wasn’t enough – if that makes sense?
The first half had some nice buildup – I liked the scenes of mayhem in the tech office… had a few laughs. I liked seeing Chuck come back cause I think Rob is adorable.
I was not a fan of the 2nd half. It was a collection of scenes we’ve seen many times before – Dean about to sacrifice himself and Sam sad face. It continued in the graveyard – evil thing flings the boys around (instead of killing them), one brother rolling up at the last second to save the other, evil entity making a speech, — it’s trite and eye-rolly now. I felt nothing when they killed Jack and get the sinking feeling that he’ll be back next season, thanks to Amara. I feel so negative thinking this but as the episode faded to back, I thought “no wonder the J’s were ready to stop this train”.
// evil thing flings the boys around (instead of killing them), one brother rolling up at the last second to save the other, evil entity making a speech //
Yes. They’re in a rut – although that final shot was a change-up.
I, too, felt nothing when they killed Jack – which is weird – because I actually enjoyed him for the most part through this season. I still have a hangover from S11, when I was so wrapped up in Amara’s hold on Dean – now THAT was something we hadn’t seen before – and I was so IN.TO. IT. that I felt a thrill when her name came up – although – blast it – Dabb and company didn’t choose to highlight Dean’s face – or at least make a mOMENT out of it – let’s honor the memory that an entire SEASON was devoted to Dean being pulled into her grips – that until she swooped off with her brother on a vacay – it was all Dean-Amara all the time. Like … no? You’re not gonna acknowledge it in any way? UGH. It’s so sloppy. It’s the little things. Missing the little things like this is … what this team does, sad to say, and it’s been a huge problem ever since “why are planets round”.
But there were moments I liked too. Dean crouched in the corner of his room – BEHIND the door – with his liquor? Fantastic. More, please.
You’re right: mention Amara — they should have shown some reaction from Dean.
I too liked Dean behind the door drinking. He’s not in the kitchen or at a library table. He’s in his room in a corner behind a door. In season 9 and 10, we saw him retreat to his room a lot, but this was something I don’t remember seeing.
I made a mistake in the sentence “I felt nothing when they killed Jack and get the sinking feeling that he’ll be back next season, thanks to Amara”. I meant it to say “thanks to BILLIE”.
Okay, so I watched it. I loved the “people stop lying” sequence but it just made me miss these guys going out and solving cases.
I’m okay with the finale – I liked the final shot – but not sure how I feel about Chuck suddenly becoming a puppet-master? Who … was manipulating things because they were the best Sam and Dean out of all the possible Sam and Deans? (Oh, alternate universe, you freakin SUCK.)
Like … what does this do to his gorgeous narration in Swan Song?
I have always had mixed feelings about them turning Chuck into actual God – because I liked Chuck as prophet/writer/meta-carrier – and it required too much retrospective juggling to make it all fit together.
Who … was manipulating things because they were the best Sam and Dean out of all the possible Sam and Deans? (Oh, alternate universe, you freakin SUCK.)
Yeah, this rubs me the wrong way. There are millions of Sams and Deans, so our two aren’t special, but they are also the mostest special. Glimpses of alternate worlds/unrealities used to be about our specific characters, their dreams, fears, etc. Goes back to my ongoing complaint about Dabb cheapening the show by forcing it into the wrong genre. A proliferation of alt-universes and all the zombies and the hero business and the topical political joke. It’s very comic book.
As for Elvis, ha! There’s one out of left-field for ya!
“It’s very comic book” — I’m not a big fan of comic books about superheroes, and that was one of my fears about where Supernatural was headed. (I have found graphic novels I enjoy; they’re not automatically equivalent to a comic book.)
// Goes back to my ongoing complaint about Dabb cheapening the show by forcing it into the wrong genre. //
This is a really good point.
On a very deep level, he doesn’t get it. He wants to be doing a show with teen superheroes. He SHOULD be doing a show with teen superheroes. Not trying to make this long-standing twisty-family-melodrama a teen superhero show. Bah.
Yeah, and the thing is — comics are in the bones of the show, via Kripke’s Sandman inspiration. But we also know that Kripke loves his Garth Ennis-style profane scummy violence and he was smart enough to separate the two. I’ve enjoyed my share of superhero comics so I don’t think it’s a dirty word (and I’m a Sandman and Ennis fan) but Dabb just can’t — comprehensively understand the difference here. Or, if he does, this is what he wants, for some reason. I’m dying to find out more about how all this has gone down, and why he’s had the privilege of being (co-) captain for so long. Maybe he’s just really good at making sure scripts come in early and under budget.
Yes – it’s not that there’s anything bad with the comics genre at all – but it’s not how the series was set up, and it’s not really … BUILT for it. It’s just not a good fit.
// I’m dying to find out more about how all this has gone down, and why he’s had the privilege of being (co-) captain for so long. Maybe he’s just really good at making sure scripts come in early and under budget. //
I’m so curious about this too. I am sure he is a team player and does everything right – which they need, of course.
But his decision-making process …
I wasn’t watching during Season 7 – when Sera Gamble took over – now, I love Season 7 (it took me a couple of watches) – but was there a similar resistance to the things she did to “mess” with the structure? (Getting rid of the Impala for half the season, etc.) I mean, I know they reference it in French Mistake – just wondering if there was a similar kind of “she’s ruining the show” vibe …
This, though … Sera understood and loved the show she was a part of. She loved Sam and Dean. Dabb doesn’t. He doesn’t get it. He pays lip service to it – but we all feel that it’s empty in some way. It’s such a strange feeling … the lyrics are right but the music is all off.
Sera committed the unpardonable sin….she killed off Castiel and from everything I’ve read it was supposed to have been permanent.
She did love Sam and Dean and that came shining through. She took plot risks for what she thought was best for the character growth of Sam and Dean (killing Bobby, sidelining Baby, killing Cas) I think Cas backfired on her with his fan base and that’s why he was brought back, but I guess by that time she was already done.
I’ve got a lot of deep thinky thoughts brewing in my brain over fan bases, social media, the whole “offending” mentality going on in our culture, and the control (or lack thereof in some cases) show runners actually have anymore in their own television shows. I think it’s all connected, and I think it’s part of some of the issues Supernatural has had over the years.
I also agree that Dabb wants an ensemble show, and I’m going to even go so far as to say that I think he has a problem with the Supernatural that Kripke created. I don’t think his heart is really in the show, especially since Wayward failed, and I agree that he doesn’t really love Sam and Dean like Kripke, Gamble, and Carver did.
With all this discussion and thinking back to my reactions to s6 and s7 in realtime, I think I’d describe one of my major issues with Dabb in terms of spectatorship. The viewer-text relationship now is all about empowerment, spectacle, identity-category representation, reassurance, familiarity, factoid/cute references to past canon, and a swarming facepunch of forward propulsion. Whereas spectatorship used to live in tensions involving complicity, yearning, withholding, eroticism, deferment, mystery, resonance, uncanniness, obsession. The peaks of this season, for me, were the ones that recaptured some of those spectator complexities and unease.
*as seen in episodes like WIAWSNB, Usual Suspects/Henricksen/Gordon eps, Terrible Life, DSoTM, Sam returning at the end of Swan Song, Twihard, the s8 dumping-our-girlfriends-to-get-miserably-back-together ep, the whole s9 estrangement, Red Meat, etc. Not to say that the show didn’t vary from this of course but that it was a consistent and involving mode of spectatorship.
Jessie – WOW. Your comment is fascinating in re: spectatorship. I have a lot to think about.
It’s been a complete category shift – those who love the recent seasons have welcomed the category shift. Those of us who hate the recent seasons feel like we’re suddenly being forced (well, that’s a dramatic term) to watch a different show, one we may not have chosen to watch otherwise – since our “needs” as spectators are different.
It’s the category-shift that interests me – and how DRASTIC it’s been – but I hadn’t put it into words like this.
This – along with Michelle’s comments on fan bases – are fascinating – it’s interesting to me in particular because I started watching SPN because of the very loud Destiel fan base, and their behavior fascinated me enough I decided to check it out for myself.
These things take on a life of their own.
I am SO CURIOUS about the behind-the-scenes conversations about all of this – I suppose there is much we will never know, unfortunately.
I really don’t like Chuck as god. I love Rob and he was amazing as bad writer/prophet. In the first 10 seasons God was mysterious & inscrutable. I feel like they have been cherry picking the best characters and themes from the early seasons and have tried to recreate the magic in new plots. It seems as if our last season is going to, at least partially, be about Chuck and Billie wrestling for power. (Season 5 ” in the end I will reap God”.)
Chuck and Billie wrestling for power; won’t that just be a re-do of Chuck and Amara wrestling for power?
I also don’t like Chuck as God. It was a cute little “ah-ha!”, but it didn’t fit really well. I liked him as prophet too, and I like God to be inscrutable and mysterious as you say. I also like Heaven to be vague, hinting of “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (as an old church song said); the way it’s been portrayed in the show now has stripped the potential and mystery away and replaced it with corporate utilitarianism which is unappealing.
// replaced it with corporate utilitarianism which is unappealing. //
This has been an issue for Hell too. and even the Men of Letters went that way, once we got some flashbacks.
Not a fan of Chuck as God. It messed with stuff that came before. He works as a prophet. I don’t know … I’m baffled at some of these decisions.
Yeah, also hate the Alt. Universe.
It sucks. I am basically pretending it doesn’t exist.
And why am I just finding out NOW that Sam has claimed for years his favorite singer is ELVIS???
so I’m thankful that it was a small, contained finale, with a small cast. I liked some of those bunker scenes. I liked Sam having stuff to do and frustrations to express and Dean wedging himself into the corner of his room to drink. Benedict is really good at playing this character. I liked the empty drawing that smile onto itself.
There was a lot in terms of craft that annoyed me (flashbacks, editing that cut the air out of scenes or dragged things on interminably, writing (the trump jokes make me want to punch someone; “Mary was my hero,” “writers lie,” god it’s so juvenile), art direction (hated that gun and the cheesy cemetery!)). I wish more had been done with the truth spell instead of wasting time at google’s offices. It was so bloodless! I was on board for homicidal Dean last episode, but this time around it felt forced. There wasn’t a whole lot of emotion, even in discussions/actions that were potentially Dean or Sam killing themselves. Maybe I was too tired or I’m too disconnected these days — was there feeling for anyone else?
Something’s not clicking for me with this Chuck as fiendish writer business. He was talking more like a reader than a writer (you guys are my favourite things to watch) and Sam and Dean’s responses (you like watching us suffer) felt aimed through the screen rather than across it. We should definitely be made fun of but this connected more to meta in the vein of Becky and French Mistake and “The best parts are when they cry” (back when Chuck was a writer-prophet instead of a writer-God). I don’t know. I love stories about about stories but this felt both on the nose and imprecise. Maybe I’m just think and/or projecting!
I don’t want s15 to be a literal rehash of s1 but with Cas, but it’s far too soon to start borrowing that trouble, so I’ll let it be for now. Just with the observation that their recreations of iconic monsters were a little too bright and cheap and generic to inspire confidence, and that Dabb has not shown a deft or skilled hand in his repeated trawling of the past during the last three seasons. I’m nervous, but maybe it’ll be great. Looking forward to going through it with you all!
Okay, finally returning to this thread.
Yeah, the Trump joke – honest to God, Supernatural, STOP it. We are bombarded with that monster of a man every minute of every day. Stop trying to be “relevant.” To be fair, I also didn’t like the Obama references either – (except for the one in Time After Time, which worked for me). Supernatural shouldn’t take place “right now”. It’s not that kind of show. grrrrrr
“Mom was my hero.” What the ever-living fuck was that.
I honestly believe that the team “over there” thinks they “nailed it” with Mary – thinks they created something good, that worked. I just watched “Baby” last night, and there’s that long slow shot of Sam and Dean’s initials scratched in the car – and it just made my heart hurt, to know what would be done to that image in S14. Ugh. They’re retconning the whole damn show.
// There wasn’t a whole lot of emotion, even in discussions/actions that were potentially Dean or Sam killing themselves. Maybe I was too tired or I’m too disconnected these days — was there feeling for anyone else? //
Re-watching earlier seasons has really clarified for me so much of what is missing. Having continued to watch it in real-time, I sometimes forget … and so I “take what I can get” in these last 3 seasons. But then you go back and watch earlier seasons – and not even the earliest seasons. I just re-watched Season 10, and there’s such an URGENCY and such a BUILDUP – the whole show is invested in the arc. They’re not trying to do anything other than portray the arc they’ve set for themselves. This is what I feel is totally missing now. They don’t really have an arc – or they do – but it’s just a loose outline – and then they get distracted with all the other stuff they’re trying to do – basically move the focus away from Sam and Dean to all these ancillary characters. Which … God, I don’t care. And so what happens is … you lose the thread. Without Sam and Dean as central, you lose the thread. That conflict between Sam and Dean about what to do with Jack – if that’s the arc they thought they were doing – the one they established early on – then they failed to keep it moving, keep it urgent and alive. I don’t know, it’s weird – but watching Season 10 was a revelation of how much has been lost.
// He was talking more like a reader than a writer (you guys are my favourite things to watch) and Sam and Dean’s responses (you like watching us suffer) felt aimed through the screen rather than across it. //
Interesting, Jessie! I hadn’t thought about this but I totally see what you are saying.
This connects to the idea floated out there that there are all these other Sam and Deans in other universes – which YUCK.
// I love stories about about stories but this felt both on the nose and imprecise. //
“on the nose” and “imprecise.” This is a really good way of putting it.
// their recreations of iconic monsters were a little too bright and cheap and generic to inspire confidence, //
I felt the same way.
He was talking more like a reader than a writer (you guys are my favourite things to watch) and Sam and Dean’s responses (you like watching us suffer) felt aimed through the screen rather than across it. We should definitely be made fun of but this connected more to meta in the vein of Becky and French Mistake and “The best parts are when they cry” (back when Chuck was a writer-prophet instead of a writer-God).
if you squint there could be a rageful cry about what happens when you let the reader dictate the story, but squinting that hard leads to migraines.
I finished the season last night and am still processing. I will be caught up in time for the last episodes!!! thanks for your comment re: spectatorship up above; it helped me take this confused and amorphous sense of wrongness i have and discern the shape of it. i love this show best when it makes me feel queasy and unsettled, and there were some nice moments of that this season – more than there have been in a while – but overall they were fleeting.
So, explain why Chuck can put the whole world back with a snap, but he can’t give Jack his soul back?!? Can’t or won’t? That’s as lame as not being able to free real Michael (and Adam) from the cage.
I liked some of it, but missed the heart. I wanted to see Dean struggle with killing Jack. I’m glad Sam confronted him, but it seems as if Dean was acting out of fear not love for Jack. The show used to be about the difference between Man & Monster and how our humanity was the most precious part of us to be defended even to the death if necessary. Sam’s been skating along in the grey area for so long he wouldn’t see it and Mr. Black & White Dean can apparently only think in terms of saving the world ’cause that’s what we do…
// The show used to be about the difference between Man & Monster and how our humanity was the most precious part of us to be defended even to the death if necessary. //
Interesting. Yeah. I have really missed the moral and ethical aspect of the show. Member when Sam said, “We’re SUPPOSED to struggle with this, Dean” (when was that? It was really early on.)
Dean sitting behind the door, pouring out his liquor like a little mad scientist, was a glimpse of what the show could be – if everybody over there understood that Sam and Dean – and their relationship – and their conflict with their own lives – who are we? look at the bad things we are willing to do to save each other? – was the most interesting thing onscreen.
The show used to present those “we’re heroes” moments as DEEPLY ironic.
No more.
Regarding Chuck’s manipulations and anger at the end–
I don’t think that this necessarily negates his earlier “ending” in season 5. If we look at him as a writer first, then that ending with its beautiful narration fit perfectly into the story. He was pleased with it. This ending, even though it involved Sam and Dean exercising free will, was counter to what he had set up with the gun and was expecting. His characters rebelled against him, and messed up his dramatic symmetry! How dare they!
I was reminded of the ending books of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Has anyone read that? I’ll try not to spoil it, but suffice to say that the characters meet their creator, too, and take an instant dislike to him. It’s very reminiscent of what happens here.
PS, I did see Dean struggling with killing Jack. He’s taken aback when Jack accepts his fate by kneeling in front of him, and he takes a very long time to not pull that trigger.
// was counter to what he had set up with the gun and was expecting. His characters rebelled against him, and messed up his dramatic symmetry! How dare they! //
Yes, I liked that part. His story got away from him.
Was my reading of this scene correct?
– Sam directly asks Chuck whether he’s tossing their story aside.
– Chuck replies no, that Sam and Dean are such interesting characters. Like in that really interesting scene back at the office. How interesting was that, amiright?!?!
– Sam looks pointedly away.
– They immediately cut to Castiel and Jack.
I mean, is Supernatural throwing shade at its main characters? Acknowledging that it’s bored writing for Sam and Dean? And that yes they have tossed them aside for other characters and are just including bland Sam Dean scenes (complete with them standing in front of bowls of fruit and veggies) because they have to?
Serna – I have to go back and watch that scene.
I definitely get the sense – and have since Season 12 – that they take Sam and Dean (and JA and JP) for granted. They haven’t given them anything to DO. or PLAY. at least not with each other. The characters have flattened out. The bunker does not help. They’re all too comfortable there.
The fact that they thought that Maggie the hunter was interesting enough to get multiple episodes is eloquent. They realized the error of their ways and killed her off – to the sadness of literally nobody – but it’s the CONCEPT that shows where their minds are at.
She was a cliche – she was a Mary Sue – only a 12 year old girl might find her “relatable” – and Sam and Dean are so experienced that the thought of them making that hyperventilating nobody “in charge” of anything was completely unrealistic.
They’re flailing around “over there.” And all of the episodes setting up the Wayward pilot also shows where their heads are at. It’s like they YEARN to be making a show about teenagers. They’re writing for the wrong show and Sam and Dean have suffered. It’s ridiculous because Supernatural had been running for 11 freakin years when suddenly they decided to change it all up. It makes no sense to me.
OMG! I couldn’t agree more with what you fine folks have written.
Gotta admit, other than the “stop lying” fallout, I was disappointed by this episode. They turned Chuck into a Metatron level douche! As for Mary being Dean’s hero – really, since when?!! The boys’ entire relationship with Mary felt forced and pointless to me most of the time.
I’m so going to miss the boys but at this point it feels like pulling the plug on a terminal patient.
// The boys’ entire relationship with Mary felt forced and pointless to me most of the time. //
It’s been so painful to watch what they’ve done to that iconic backstory-myth. Ugh.
Yes. Hero? His idol, maybe, as in the one he idolized, but John was his hero. Is this just the show’s way of saying that Dean loved his mom being a badass? (As if to tell us who didn’t like her reincarnation that we’re wrong, in the same way that they showed several flashbacks of her being motherly than they had in a couple years’ worth of potential opportunities?)
// (As if to tell us who didn’t like her reincarnation that we’re wrong, in the same way that they showed several flashbacks of her being motherly than they had in a couple years’ worth of potential opportunities?) //
Yup.
This is the vibe. I resent it.
The same way I resent how Wayward Sisters was positioned – like: “At LAST we get some strong women on this sexist show.” or “What SPN would look like if it were more woke” – or whatever, which ended up alienating me – and many more like me – who looked back at fantastic characters like Ellen, Jo, Bela, Charlie – and Jody – before she got sucked into the Wayward maw – and thought: “Since when does SPN NOT create great female characters? Give me Ellen and Jo over those overly made-up non-entity teenagers any day of the week.”
It’s weird – there’s something in all of this about how the world has changed since the show has aired – and the rise of social media – it just wasn’t a factor in 2005 – and so SPN is kind of a “relic” in a way – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is what it is – it’s a show with a strong albeit small fan base. Trying to mess with a formula that worked for 12 years is just ridiculous.
I honestly thought that Chuck was going to be revealed as Metatron in disguise.
Oooh. That would have been much better. He sounded exactly like Metatron, the way he was framing himself as creator of the story.
Sheila —
and then they get distracted with all the other stuff they’re trying to do – basically move the focus away from Sam and Dean to all these ancillary characters. Which … God, I don’t care. And so what happens is … you lose the thread. Without Sam and Dean as central, you lose the thread.
I think it was….Melanie or Paula who made a list a couple of years back of all the s12/13 antagonists and plotlines that had sprouted and bloomed and withered for lack of attention and closure. I just tried tracking it down to no avail! But it feels like there are constantly like twenty plots that are just waving around unattended — some that have real potential meat on their bones, like the alt-hunters in the bunker and Sam and Dean’s specific reactions to that, then they drop it for the next thing they’ll ignore, and now in the finale we’ve switched tracks once again.
When I think about the season in retrospect, I’m struggling with throughlines and character arcs, in the same way that you can more easily sum up earlier years.
Sam — I suppose you could say it was a season of depression and disillusionment for him, culminating in shooting God.
Dean — A battle to control his own fate, via Michael and the Drama Coffin? Or perhaps — Making The Hard Choices.
I would love to hear other people’s impressions of the season as a whole, especially as a lot of it slips away from easy recall. My main (positive) take-aways of the season are some of the shot compositions of Nightmare Logic; the one-two punch of the Drama Coffin episodes, which tense and emotional and full of gorgeously woozy and rich shots; Sam and John talking about IMToD; a couple of Sam’s frustrated and distant reactions to Mary; and That Thing Jensen Did With His Face while he was trying to talk Jack into the Box.
Wow, Jessie, I remember participating in that conversation, but I dont think it started with me.
I’ll think about when that was…
I have such a hard time keeping the season in my head intact. This was an issue starting with Season 12 – and I generally have a good memory. Like … what is this ABOUT. The most BASIC questions.
Again, going back and re-watching Season 2 was a real eye-opener. I mean, I remember it of course – but watching the latest seasons have a way of somehow diminishing the memory of what used to seem easy. The ARC – so strong, so clear. The slow accumulation of psychic kids – for reasons unknown – and the slow march towards Dean’s deal – all suffused with the various forms their grieving takes. It’s simple, it’s clean – and they get mileage out of it from all angles. GORDON. Right? How better to interrogate John Winchester than GORDON coming into their lives?
And now? I just … don’t even know. I don’t even know what’s at stake anymore.
The universe? all the alt-universes? Heaven? It all blends together.
Here are a couple of things that had some meat on the bones that didn’t really mesh as an arc –
— Sam’s over-identification with Jack as a “freak.” Sam remembering his own “freak” days. How this triggered Dean in reaction. In the olden days, they could have gotten a whole season out of this. Instead, the show drifted towards fanfic – the boys fishing and playing board games and cooking – Sam and Dean being dads. It’s just … not as strong a choice as the other.
— Dean and Michael. I mean, where did that arc even go? Yes, it feels like a re-tread – Demon Dean, etc. – but if you’re going to go that way, then dig into it, really dig into it, like days of yore. and you don’t even have to go back to earlier seasons to find examples. Season 10, Season 11 – all had these elements and strongly. Dean’s submission to Amara – it was so disturbingly played – Dean was at RISK. Sam didn’t know what that would mean for him, for them …
The few episodes that really dealt with these things had a nervy uneasiness to it (Dean hugging Sam from behind before leaving the bunker …) that was grounded in emotional reality. Grounded in the characters.
Other than that? It’s just plot. With half a dozen eps devoted to building up the wayward sisters. I mean … that freakin SPEAR? What was that? They dropped all that once Wayward failed?
It’s a mess, really.
So much of what I’ve written in my own reviews all season on fangasmthebook.com are mentioned in the comments here – which by the way is very validating! At the same time, it’s very depressing, because these are long-standing problems that I desperately want to believe can be remediated for the last season but I’m not entirely convinced that’s possible. I’ve written about Sam and Dean being relegated to the sidelines for most of the season – there were entire episodes when they had almost zero interaction or weren’t even on screen together much at all, and many of the “interactions” they did have lacked the emotional depth and richness that Jared and Jensen are SO very capable of. I missed their relationship and how it used to drive the show and pull me in by my emotional heartstrings again and again. The moments that I will remember from Season 14 are those that echoed the earlier seasons in that focus – Sam’s breakdown over Dean’s insistence on sacrificing himself in the Ma’lak box for example. But those were few and far between.
I also wrote about the strangely awkward meta-ness of the season finale. I’m a big fan of the earlier seasons’ meta episodes and of Kripke’s poking fun at the fandom, but it always seemed affectionate instead of mean spirited. We knew he loved these characters and we knew that he loved “us” — same with Sera. She may have struggled when taking the mantle of the show from Kripke, but she adored Sam and Dean and she understood fandom. I tried hard to find that undercurrent of affection (for the characters and for the fandom) in the finale, but am not sure I succeeded.
And I too was ripped right out of the story by the “My mom was my hero” and had to force my jaw to close again. That level of *not* getting the character is just striking. And terrifying. I also railed repeatedly about Megan-Marylou-Melanie-Maggie and how tone deaf their apparent character arc for her was.
So thanks for the validation, but now I’m even more terrified…
I love your reviews Lynn and look forward to reading them every week!!
I agree 100% about the meta vibe in the finale and the lack of affection that vibe contained.
Sam and Dean were what drew me to the show and they are the reason I have stayed and will stay to the end. I’m doing the summer rewatch, and the other night one of my tweets was “ THIS is the show I fell in love with”. I sadly don’t feel like I’ve seen it very much the past 3 seasons.
Lynn – hello!
// because these are long-standing problems that I desperately want to believe can be remediated for the last season but I’m not entirely convinced that’s possible. //
I know. It’s pretty systemic, the issues. Too much ground has been lost. Too much has been squandered. By bungling the return of Mary – thinking that what we all yearned to see was Mary as a “badass” who wasn’t “just a mom” (grrrrrr) – everything else followed in suit. They didn’t nail the landing of it – their entire approach was so OFF – that nothing else was possible. Back last year, a commenter left a fantastic analysis of what could ahve been done to stop the disintegration – I’ll see if I can find it, because it was extremely well thought-out and showed that the problem was definitely fixable at a certain point – now though? Not so much.
// I tried hard to find that undercurrent of affection (for the characters and for the fandom) in the finale, but am not sure I succeeded. //
The main feeling I get is that Dabb et al do not understand Sam and Dean, do not want to WRITE Sam and Dean, and are drawn to writing an ensemble piece – featuring a diverse cast of teenagers. That’s what they want to be doing, and that’s what they kept trying to do. But the show isn’t built for it – SPN can TAKE a lot – I’ve written a lot about the genius of Kripke’s initial structure – and just how far it could be stretched, just how much mileage they got out of the freakin’ PILOT – but the show is not built to have 5 storylines per episode, with 10 fluctuating characters. It’s not a show like that. It just isn’t.
and if you aren’t interested in Sam and Dean – well, if you’re a fan, that’s your own issue – why you would watch a show if you dislike the main characters is a mystery – but for the writer/show-runner to not care about Sam and Dean … to take them (and JA and JP) for granted …
that’s what we’ve seen happen.
They honestly thought we would get on board with Maggie-Mollie-Megan (lol). They thought we would love her. They didn’t create her to annoy us. They truly thought we would love her. This shows how misguided the mindset is over there – how disconnected they are from the strengths of the actual show they’re working on. You ahve SAM AND DEAN to write – and you create Molly Malone instead? In a way, that horrible character has enormous symbolic significance. She – and Mary – and Wayward – is everything that’s wrong right now – and the focus on them – as opposed to Sam and Dean – has been catastrophic.
YES. Also I need to find your email if it’s listed somewhere to chat about the new book I’m writing on this show and its legacy. Or we just need to have coffee…
gibsongirl-at-sheilaomalley-dot-com
Commenter “Meredith” goes to town in on everything that went wrong in the comments to this post here from last year – and also provides super simple suggestions on how to fix it. It’s too late now to fix what’s gone wrong (imo) – but I really really liked and appreciated where her head was at.
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=137082