March 2025 Supernatural Viewing Diary Season 13, 12, working backwards

This is for my Supernatural family. Would be tough going for anyone else, and might be tough going for those of you who grooved to these seasons. I am not here to tell you you’re wrong. People have different feelings. I’m just saying – strongly – my experience of it, in this first full re-watch (albeit done backwards). Binging seasons bring some clarity to what some of the problems – as I deem them to be – were. This is a litany of negativity, but (if you can believe it) – I am enjoying this experience. And after re-watching Seasons 12-15, I am SO excited to start Season 11.

I’m not posting this at the end of the month because clearly the binge is out of control and I’ll need to break this up.

 
 

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 6, “Tombstone” (2017; d. Nina Lopez-Corrado)
Rockabilly undertaker! I loved her. Amanda Palmer reference. Yeah, that doesn’t age well. The presence of Jack actually helps in a way to bring to the forefront the ethical/moral questions that used to dog the brothers way back at the beginning. Are we better than the “monsters”? Is it okay to sacrifice an innocent person or use them as bait to kill a bad guy? Are we good? Or are we lying to ourselves? And I just want to say one thing: There’s a certain faction of the fandom who get so angry at suggestions of gay or queer subtext. To them I say:

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 7, “War of the Worlds” (2017; d. Richard Speight Jr.)
I am so out of touch with what happened in Season 12 that I have no idea what’s going on. Lucifer and Michael. Only it’s not Sam and Dean like it was in Season 4/5. It’s Pellegrino and whoever, in black and white, in the stupid alternate world, monologuing at each other. It’s not even DRAMATIC. That’s what I don’t understand. It’s not just that I don’t like the direction the show went in (although that’s true too) but what they chose to do almost deliberately drained any real tension OUT of the show. It’s just weird all around. Kevin Tran shows up: “We had one of you in our world.” Like, it’s Kevin Tran, so we’re supposed to go “Yay” but it’s NOT the Kevin Tran we actually knew. It’s like they don’t know how stories work.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 8, “The Scorpion and the Frog” (2017; d. Robert Singer)
A heist episode. I do like heists. Good schtick with Dean and the young girl, a little intergenerational humor. I do have a soft spot for our heroes Sam and Dean suddenly being treated like un-cool older guys. Which, they are. I’m Gen X so I relate to this. Then there’s the “nod” to Roman Holiday. And it’s ridiculous and stupid – like, why is Dean afraid of putting his hand in the hole? – but I love it because it’s stupid!

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 9, “The Bad Place” (2017; d. Philip Sgriccia)
I have lost my patience with Patience. And unfortunately Kaia makes her first appearance. We’re going to be stuck with her for seasons to come. AND, for the sake of the spinoff, we have the shameful spectacle of Dean pulling a gun on Kaia. Jensen made it work because he’s Jensen. Bad episode. The standoff in the ship, with the kneeling angels. Dumb. Freakin’ dinosaurs enter my show.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 10, “Wayward Sisters” (2018; d. Philip Sgriccia)
They had to get Sam and Dean out of the way to establish the “pilot” of the spinoff and so they sent them to Land of the Lost, populated by a whirligig wearing a dark fitted cloak. Listen, I don’t fault them for trying. Kim Rhodes always had such a light touch as Jody, a Doris Day touch, and it was a breath of fresh air. Once the Wayward stuff started, she got a little heavy, a little earnest, a little push-y. I think the stakes were very high for her – which I don’t fault her for at all. This was a very big deal for her. It’s just that if you DIDN’T know this was basically the genesis of a new potential series, if you had no idea that that is what this was, you might be forgiven for thinking, “Why is Jody emoting earnestly all over the place? That’s not like her!”

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 11, “Breakdown” (2018; d. Amyn Kaderali)
First shot: the good old Gross Things in Jars. Honestly, this scenario is so sick and twisted it turned my stomach a little bit. Then we see monsters signing on the dark web and … you’ve lost me.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 12, “Various & Sundry Villains” (2018; d. Amanda Tapping)
How did Castiel get imprisoned again? It probably happened yesterday but I can’t retain the information because the story has no resonance or stakes I can grasp. Dean is put under a love spell by one of the hot witch sisters. This is one of those things that someone like Sera Gamble could have MILKED for an entire episode. Here, the spell is removed almost immediately. Which, not coincidentally, drains a lot of the tension out of the setup. Picture the humor if Dean had been in love the whole episode? There are so many absurd possibilities!

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 13, “Devil’s Bargain” (2018; d. Eduardo Sanchez)
Here I am, watching a scene between Asmodeus and Ketch – freakin’ Ketch – or maybe it’s Ketch’s evil twin? I don’t know what’s going on and not only do I not “care” about these characters, I actively resent them. Sister Jo and Lucifer having a booty-call-style relationship. All the angels and heaven talk got old circa Season 7. It’s just not the most interesting part of the show. It never was. Castiel tilted the show towards the heavenly and it was intriguing at first, but then it got bureaucratic and Amway-esque and – worst of all – boring. Heaven has always been boring.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 14, “Good Intentions” (2018; d. P.J. Pesce)
We go from Heaven to Apocalypse World. I’m a relatively smart person but I have no idea what’s going on. There’s a funny and revealing outtake from maybe Season 15, where Jared is confused about the plot as they’re filming a scene – which means he doesn’t know what his reaction should be to a certain bit of information, and Misha and Jensen explain to him literally what is happening. There’s this whole discussion that has to happen MID-FILMING to explain the plot to the star of the show. Like, that is NOT a good script! Bobby’s back. But he’s aNOTHER Bobby? Bobby and Mary sit and talk about what the OTHER Mary did, and how it’s different from the OTHER world. Are these writers out of their minds?

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 15, “A Most Holy Man” (2018; d. Amanda Tapping)
This episode makes me miss Bela! She so would have been all OVER this episode in her heyday and it would have been better! I mean, it’s not the worst episode. A couple of fun movie nods. “Greenstreet” – i.e. Sidney Greenstreet. The “Godfather” petting a cat. Noir effects. etc. I take what I can get.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 16, “ScoobyNatural” (2018; d. Robert Singer)
Worth the wait.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 17, “The Thing” (2018; d. John F. Showalter)
I’m sure there is some website detailing every state they visit, and – off the top of my head only twice do they go to Rhode Island. I get a little excited. There’s also a reference to stuffies, which makes me irrationally happy. Imagine what Ben Edlund or Sera Gamble could have done with a tentacled monster who wants to breed with Dean. As though Dean is a fertile woman. The tentacle-porn-ness of it all? Remove the sick and twisted-ness and that’s “The Thing.”

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 18, “Bring ‘Em Back Alive” (2018; d. Amyn Kaderali)
Charlie’s back. Only it’s not Charlie. “Dean went to Apocalypse World alone?” Yes, he did, and we’re all bummed out by it. And then we have random scenes in heaven with Lucifer and Sister Jo, counterbalanced with Asmodeus scenes. This is going to be tough going.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 19, “Funeralla” (2018; d. Nina Lopez-Corrado)
“What’s going on in Heaven?” and “Who has the power in Heaven and/or Hell?” has always been the weakest part of the show and yet … they kept gravitating towards it. Once the angels arrived in Season 4, the show HAD to deal with Heaven and then they just … couldn’t stop dealing with it even though it was always boring. Again with the reaper named Jessica, and there’s not even a smidge of acknowledgement that that name has a little bit of an epic meaning in Supernatural-world.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 20, “Unfinished Business” (2018; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
Mary says about apocalypse world, in a flat tone because she can’t act, “I really hate this place.” You and me both, sister. Then we have Gabriel’s return – and Spieght over-taxes himself (and his voice) – by directing AND playing a double role. Gabriel’s on some revenge trip … like Nick was … and needs the boy’s help. It has nothing to do with anything. Dean, at one point, hears Gabriel’s plan and says, “This is so stupid.” Agreed. So many Gabriel monologues. No wonder why he lost his voice. At a certain point, Richard Speight was shouting at himself onscreen and I thought, “Wait … what is he talking about?” I feel like this might have been pitched by Speight, or given to him as a gesture because he directs so many episodes, one of their regulars. Not sure. It’s so random.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 21, “Beat the Devil” (2018; d. Phil Sgriccia)
The episode starts with a dream sequence: Sam, Dean, Jack and Castiel sitting in the bunker eating pizza. I fail to see how this is any different from how every episode starts. First Maggie sighting in the “other world”. She seems more competent here than she will be next season. I don’t understand the choices being made. It’s a Hunger Games cosplay. Not gonna lie. I am REALLY struggling. But I’ve committed myself to a full rewatch, no cheating.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 22, “Exodus” (2018; d. Thomas J. Wright)
Mary won’t leave Apocalypse World without her people. Her son Sam literally just got his throat ripped out by a vampire. She just has no connection to her sons, even though the show clearly admires her for her independence. Jensen does so much heavy lifting in his betrayed response but … again, the show BOTCHED the Mary return so severely, and those primal emotions are no longer central. So it all feels empty and unexplored. Another Castiel shows up. This time he has a … Russian accent? Or is it Nazi? Sometimes it sounds Spanish.

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 23, “Let the Good Times Roll” (2018; d. Robert Singer)
One minute in and I’m annoyed. Bobby and Mary are flirting. Maggie’s not in our world five minutes and she needs to be bailed out. It’s really bad. Half of the episode is all of these men standing around in the bunker yelling at each other. I can’t help but ask: How on earth did we get here from the pilot?

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 1, “Keep Calm and Carry On” (2016; d. Phil Sgriccia)
Watching the opening scene is so upsetting because of how they totally squandered the opportunity and possibilities in Mary’s return. Jensen is so good. Crowley shows up and my heart aches. He brought SO MUCH to this show. Getting rid of him left a void which was then filled with the likes of KETCH. And ASMODEUS. A lot of this is coming back to me in queasy sickening waves, because I know how bad it’s all going to be. British Men of Letters have arrived. I am not thrilled.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 2, “Mamma Mia” (2016; d. Thomas J. Wright)
I have a vague memory of a certain subset of the fandom getting outraged that the sex Sam is seen having in the opener was “nonconsensual” because … in reality it was a drug-induced fantasy. People, it’s 2016. There were far better places to put your outrage. I don’t know how these people operate in the real world. I totally forgot about Rick Springfield’s stint on the show. This whole BMOL thing sets up one of my least favorite – indeed DESPISED – new features of the show: shoot-outs with human beings. It’s so gross and so against what this show has always been about. The most intriguing scene in the whole season is Dean in the kitchen looking at childhood pictures, when his real-life mother is down the hall. It gave me so much hope back then, that this is what they were going to explore.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 3, “The Foundry” (2016; d. Robert Singer)
Family hunt. And here is where Samantha Smith’s serious limitations as an actress became immediately apparent. This is actually rich and somewhat upsetting: feeling distant from Mary, and like … they’re not getting what they need from her. There’s no acknowledgement from her, particularly with Sam. Which, again, is fine – and could even be good – if it was a CHOICE. You’d need a really good actress though to pull all of those layers off, AND to be able to hold the screen with Jensen and Jared. She can’t manage it at all. So Mary instead seems flat affect – and not in a “this is my choice as an actor” way. It’s just such a bummer. They could have gotten mileage out of this for an entire season. But let’s talk about the last episode first, “Mamma Mia”. There’s a gorgeous montage of first Sam, then Dean, then Mary – each is alone, each is deep in thought. The mood is extremely ambivalent, which is CATNIP to this show. And then … the episode cuts away from that to show Mr. Ketch getting his James Bond gear ready over in London. THAT’S how they choose to end. The focus and priorities are ALL wrong. I am thinking back to the final sequence of “Into the Mystic”, an episode I loved. It ended so powerfully, with shots of Sam and Dean – alone – getting ready for bed. Filled with thoughts we can guess at. A MOOD emanated from the episode. Here? They cut AWAY from it. It shows exactly what the mindset is, and what the priorities are.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 4, “American Nightmare” (2016; d. )
This is the episode. This is when my heart sank. This is when I realized they weren’t actually going to let the Mary thing percolate. I couldn’t believe it. It all came back to me. Dean summing things up, “Sometimes a family needs space.” Then the little chat at the car: “Did you mean what you said back there?” “Yeah!” They weren’t going to MILK this thing. Sam seemed eerily okay with it all. Now again this COULD have been interesting because … Sam never bonded with his mother because she died when he was a baby. Wouldn’t that have been cool to explore? But … no. It was just this new GENERALIZED Sam. (This is also a bad sign of how the show literally stopped knowing how to write Sam and it felt like it happened over night.) Think back on other conflicts in earlier seasons. Dean and Sam in a fight for half of season 8. And hell, they basically “broke up” in Season 9. Dean’s depression went on forever in Season 9. God I love season 9. Or Sam keeping major secrets in Season 2-4. Dean trying to be a boyfriend for half of season 6. Season 2 was basically about grieving their father. Here, Mary abandoning them – AGAIN – is discussed calmly in the last 10 seconds of the episode, and everyone “learns grows changes”. This is Supernatural, man. These boys don’t “learn grow change”!! They STEW, they SULK, they DEFLECT. So. Here it is. The episode when I realized the whole thing was over.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 5, “The One You’ve Been Waiting For” (2016; d. ina Lopez-Corrado)
And on the heels of “American Nightmare” comes “I killed Hitler”, which just feels … OFF all around. “I killed Hitler” is bad enough. But it’s the SUBTLE things that just aren’t right. The dynamic between Sam and Dean. The dialogue has this canned quality – you know what each one is going to say. Sam is going to be responsible, Dean is going to be tough and also goofy – Sam will try to talk Dean down, etc. The subtle nuances of the characters are somehow … not there. It’s an essence thing. It feels like the essence of the show is gone. And remember: this is before we had THREE sub-plots in every ep. There’s no crazy Lucifer Michael Heaven thing happened. Crowley is still with us. Ketch, yes, has entered the show, but … so far, we are still in the OLD format of the show. The monster hunt. So it’s not like the FORMAT of the show is the problem, the way it is in the seasons coming up. It’s that the characters just don’t feel right.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 6, “Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox” (2016; d. John Badham)
Oh, THIS piece of garbage. Going from American Nightmare to I killed Hitler to this … I remember feeling so disturbed back in 2016, like the bottom dropped out. I realized “oh shit. Episode 3 wasn’t an anomaly. something is WRONG.” – It’s similar to those moments in the show when someone LOOKS like themselves, but they are actually possessed by a demon. This LOOKS like the show but it ISN’T the show. This bullshit right here was SO revealing, it showed what the writers – and Dabb probably – (hard to say who to blame because it was most of the same people) – thought of hunters. Or how they fantasized about hunters. Think back to the other hunters we met throughout the show: Imagine GORDON in that keg party. Or RUFUS. Or even BOBBY. Suddenly we get this idealized Indiana Jones type, a hunter without trauma. Why would we be interested in that? Garth is the only hunter without trauma and that’s why we love him. 11 seasons of establishing the hunter ethos goes down the drain with this one freakin guy we never even meet. Hunters like Asa Fox is why Eric Kripke burned down the roadhouse. Asa Fox would have fit right in at the roadhouse and Kripke hated the overtly macho vibe and burned it down. So far I am describing my initial horrified response. I really REALLY hated this episode. Re-watching it, it’s not AS bad as I remembered, and there is some good-ish Mary stuff with the brothers at the end, and Jody seeing it all, some outside confirmation – but still – STILL – that relationship should be center STAGE, man. Think about Season 2, Season 4! To be clear: I am not saying I want the relationship to be rainbows. It’s the opposite. It’s just that the exploration factor isn’t present. It’s all too pat, they TALK too much about it, the show isn’t tormented enough about what’s going on with Sam and Dean personally. You can HAVE all your monster hunts and ALSO have your Winchester Belljar Torment, simultaneously. That was the whole appeal. Season 2, you had plenty of monster hunts, but the whole entire thing was about different ways of dealing with grief. I know there are people who disagree with me and probably hate this onslaught of negativity. I don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. I only speak this way because I love the show so much.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 7, “Rock Never Dies” (2016; d. )
The dreaded Words with Friends opener. Also: listen to Sam’s dialogue. It’s been a problem from the start of the season. Dean’s is not as big of a problem, although it’s a problem too. It’s like they’re doing a blunted-edged PARODY of Sam/Dean stereotypes. Listen to how Sam talks to Dean, always in this scolding parental tone. And Dean isn’t “serious”. etc. This goes on for SEASONS with Sam now. The real reason I hated this episode – and I hated it on sight – was how Dean goes off on how much he hates Hollywood, how shallow everyone is, how much Botox, etc. NO. Dean is shallow in the most beautiful way. He loves movies, he had a BLAST in Hollywood Babylon (“Copy that”). He’s NOT judgmental about beautiful people. He lOVES beautiful people. He’d be PSYCHED to go to Hollywood. It’s just such a huge thing to miss – and granted Hollywood Babylon was years ago – but WE remember, and so should they. Half the episode shows these losers sitting around in the hotel bummed because they can’t find out where the secret music show is. They were able to close the gates of hell. They stopped the apocalypse. And they can’t somehow tap into the underground music scene?

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 8, “LOTUS” (2016; d. Phil Sgriccia)
And now … the President. This is actually painful. In 2016, as an American, I did not want to think about the President of my country. It was legitimately traumatizing. And continues to be so. I wasn’t into the METAPHOR of the episode: the real world was far too dire, the threat too real. I don’t need a METAPHOR to understand my own life. But whatever. By the time Season 15 came around, it was 2020 and I was barely engaged (although I did write my “ode to Supernatural” for Ebert literally days before the world shut down). So I was basically checked out. Season 12, though, I wasn’t. I dug most of Season 11. I was still looking forward to every episode. The memory of this trudging display of awfulness was truly upsetting, especially since it was fall of 2016. A time when I needed, we all needed, more than ever, our comfort food avenues of escape. And each episode was worse than the last. The show flailed. It got big things wrong, yes, but worse – it got little things wrong. The British Men of Letters were also a mistake. It was interesting, in the past, when humans were the monsters (see: “The Benders”), but here it is pushed so far that it leads to all the militarized GEAR – which, at least in America, where police forces are now militarized to a disgusting (and unconstitutional) degree – to see that reflected here was really dismaying, not to mention Sam and Dean killing HUMANS without giving it a second thought. Gross.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 9, “First Blood” (2017; d. Robert Singer)
Sam and Dean’s “criminal” past rises from the deep. It makes me miss Agent Henriksen, whom I so love. Now THERE was a human adversary I could get behind. I understand the reference in the title. This is the Super Max prison episode, another appalling bit of storytelling, especially because Sam and Dean basically give up and have to be bailed out, because, yeah, that’s what we’ve come to expect over the last 11 seasons. What are we even DOING here. Humorous dialogue: “Multiple incidents of desecrating a corpse.” “The same corpse?” Pause. “No. Different corpses.”

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 10, “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets” (2017; d. Thomas J. Wright)
“I don’t think we have the kind of mom who’s going to stay home and make us chicken soup for dinner.” — Sam. Who has had zero feelings of ambivalence or loss or ANYthing about Mary. All he’s done is calmly play guidance counselor to Dean. Meanwhile: this is the kind of shit that passes for feminism and it has always driven me crazy. Mainly because it’s so damn middle-class. It’s privileged-people problems. Not every mother has the means to “stay home and make dinner”. The middle-class-ification of feminism was a problem back in the 60s and those who called it out were sidelined. It’s still going on. People still don’t want to talk about class. Be mad if you want. I’m used to it. Billionaires are ravaging our planet and you don’t want to talk about class. Got it. HOWEVER: there is an interesting idea here: of having Mom come back and totally not be what they thought or even want. In fact, it’s a better story than her coming back and being the same. But the way it’s handled is awkward and flat, and the show – and Mary – almost blame Sam and Dean for missing their mother and idealizing her. They idealized her because she died when they were babies, not because they’re patriarchal douchebags who want someone to cook for them. I hate this shit. It’s all very very 2017. This is the season where Castiel is sarcastic. When he’s sarcastic, it breaks the very very well-established character. And let me reiterate: The Sam and Dean dynamic is tedious, and it hurts me to say this but it hurts me more to watch. Dean is a hothead, and Sam is cool-headed, and Sam has this perpetually pissy tone like he’s talking to a child. Always. It’s like the writers over there truly think Sam is the “we don’t have time for your blah-blah-blah” of “Tall Tales”. That’s not Sam.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 11, “Regarding Dean” (2017; d. John Badham)
Obviously this is a good episode and a complete and total anomaly in the entire last four seasons. Great Dean Schtick, with Jensen in high burlesque gear. etc. It’s great. Then they have to ruin it by calling Rowena. Instead of having Sam have to figure it the fuck out on his own. But my other issue is: it’s not like this season has as its subtext “Dean sacrificing all for the greater good and missing his own life” or “Dean sad at how his life turned out”, etc. Like Season 5 was. Or Season 9. Dean up against how much his life has sucked, and that sadness Dean has, etc. Well Dean Hasn’t been SAD in Season 12. He’s been in KIND of a fight with Castiel but other than that he seems mostly put out. So the RESONANCE of Dean on the mechanical bull and having a good night out just … isn’t AS present as it should be, or would be, if it were connected to something else. In other words, there isn’t an EMOTIONAL theme to Season 12. Those old emotional themes kept seasons on course, they could go back to it, in different ways. Exploring the grieving process. Exploring the boundary-less nature of the brothers’ relationship. Exploring the pain of separation. Having an entire season be about the bubbled up unspoken anger between them. Whatever. Here, “Regarding Dean” comes out of nowhere. It’s unconnected. It relies on our love of Dean (and Jensen) – but … if the mechanical bull scene had happened in, say, season 9, I would have been in tears. Here? I just feel a vague sense of bittersweet-ness. I’m being super picky. Jensen is fantastic here.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 12, “Stuck in the Middle (With You)” (2017; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
Fucking Ketch. Reservoir Dogs homage, of course. With a nod to Pulp Fiction, golden glow. Good script, honestly. More of the deconstruction of Mary and I hate it. I might love it if Smith could actually play scenes, and provide a subtext and … you know: ACT. I also might have loved it if they really made a point – of the whole season – to focus on Mary returning and then not wanting anything to do with them. That could be REALLY good! But … They just don’t DEAL with it. They feel incapable. And this isn’t a whole new batch of writers. Some of these people have been writing on the show for years. What the hell happened?

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 13, “Family Feud” (2017; d. P.J. Pesce)
The problem with the Mary thing – and this is its apex – is I feel like the show wants us to admire her, or say, “wow, she is such a badass. She’s just like Dean, talking about magic fingers! Bringing burgers and beer!” They want us to like her. Now I can’t speak for anyone else and she does appear to have some kind of fan base. But she can’t emote anything, she can’t express: when she gets moved it’s coming from the other actors. She doesn’t generate on her own. Plus the “feminism” is of the pandering variety, which I’ve already mentioned. I recognize exactly what they’re doing, and so maybe it’s just me but this kind of thing is extremely 1000% not my thing. It’s too “yas queen ur a badass”. I’ve written about this before elsewhere. “Badass” is just as limiting as “damsel in distress”. Maybe even worse because “badass” is actually hostile to emotional complexity and/or vulnerability. There’s a fascistic streak in the adoration of badasses: fascism deems vulnerability as weakness. Maybe the emotional complexities of the situation would work if the actress could actually give a performance so that I could see what Mary was actually DOING. Because without a real performance, she just looks like a shallow semi-flat-affect person. Not to mention a liar and a traitor. Which OKAY if that’s what you’re going for, show, that sounds super gnarly and could be great. But I feel like that’s not what the show is doing. They want us to like her, they want us to see her point of view, they want us to cheer her on because patriarchy. Or this is Mary’s villain arc (even though we know it’s not, I’m just talking about the possible ways it could have been played) Remember how legitimately upsetting it was when Sam was sneaking out to meet Ruby, and going down a dark path. This all worked because Jared is a hell of an actor He created a character we all love, and then proceeded to break down that character, challenging our affection for him, making us nervous and invested because we want him to stop: come back to the Sam we love!! That’s good storytelling. It involves the audience emotionally. With very few exceptions, involvement from an audience doesn’t come from a gripping plot. It comes because the actors make you care. SS can’t do it. I feel like she doesn’t even know she’s supposed to do it. There is a tension in watching this but it’s not the right kind. The other issue is that Jared and Jensen wipe the screen with her. Without breaking a sweat. She doesn’t stand a chance in her scenes with them.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 14, “The Raid” (2017; d. John MacCarthy)
The BMOL HQ. Hi-tech. Bullshit. Opening scene of the episode picks up where “Family Feud” left off and I reiterate: Jared and Jensen eat her alive in that scene. When Dean calls her “Mary” … I normally don’t talk about actors like this. But, to be honest, her lack of … anything … onscreen is kind of fascinating. Once you get to a certain level – and you’re a certain age – people who can’t act have been weeded out. There are plenty of 18-something gorgeous people who can’t act and it doesn’t matter because we like looking at them. But a 40something actress who can’t act? Who has a HUGE complex role – which she is basically unable to play? I guess you could make a case that her flat affect not-even-trying “style” could be a character thing, but I think that’s giving her too much credit. Also the way the story is set up doesn’t support it. I think Dabb et al want us to be rooting for Mary which, for the 439th time, just shows they don’t understand the actual show they’re working on. We’re rooting for Sam and Dean. And then, yet again, the conflict at the strt of the episode is resolved at the end. They just don’t seem to realize that conflicts like that – Dean realizing he hates his mother, she’s hurt him too much, or whatever- should be made to LAST. How many seasons did they get mileage out of the unresolved trauma of her death? Unresolved trauma is the way to go, not traumatic-event-resolved-in-40-minutes over and over. Dean: “It’s not your job to make my lunch.” When did he ever demand or expect that she make him lunch? This is PANDERING.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 15, “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell” (2017; d. Nina Lopez-Corrado)
Sam scolding Dean for not showering enough and being gross and smelly. When did Sam become this hectoring housewife? It’s all he does. Meanwhile: Dean is NOT dirty or a slob. He is the OPPOSITE. He loves hot showers. Water pressure. He’s a voluptuary. He is NOT this gross Animal House slob. He wore an APRON when they moved into the bunker. He LOVED the kitchen. The writers can’t grasp these subtleties. The way Sam and Dean treat the surviving victim is appalling – it’s like they’ve never had to talk a victim through what happened to her before. Then all the “don’t hurt Baby” car schtick, which feels cheap and out of place. I feel like Dean is being reduced to schtick.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 16, “Ladies Drink Free” (2017; d. Amyn Kaderali)
I have no memory of this. None. I guess I’m always surprised that Claire keeps coming back. Personally I found Alex to be a much more interesting character (if we HAVE to add a teenage girl to the show). I do like that Sam and Dean finally FINALLY assert the way THEY do things to their Cockney overlord. “things aren’t black and white” says Dean. It’s sort of a monster hunt, and a Mick redemption arc, because that’s really what we want to see. MICK. Who we just met 10 seconds ago: I NEED to see him learn-grow-change! I like the detail of Dean tipping the valet drivers / doormen. Mick didn’t even notice.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 17, “The British Invasion” (2017; d. John Showalter)
Opening scene at Hogwarts. There aren’t enough eyerolls in the world. This is just what’s been missing in the show! Mick’s tragic backstory! There are four – or five – plots going on here. Mary and Ketch in a hotel room clinking glasses and being flirty and I want to vomit. Eileen returns. I miss Crowley. He barely has anything to do, except torture Mark Pellegrino, but he just has a way with line readings. To a crowd of boring demons: “My loyal-ish subjects …” Mary has a speech about how she wants to “have it all” – hunting and a family life. Really? You want both? Because all I see is you LEAVING to cavort with Ketch. Again, if a real actress played this part Mary might be a portrait of anguish.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 18, “The Memory Remains” (2017; d. Phil Sgriccia)
This is very well-directed. I love the real locations. And the camera is always on the move. Sgriccia knows what he’s doing. Good casting too. Small parts inhabited by actors who seem real. The sheriff. The two kids in the opener. The waitress. “Goat dude”. Ha. There’s the gorgeous quiet moment at the end where Sam and Dean talk about what their legacy might be and it there’s actually some space around their conversation, a sense of them really talking (even though there is one of those self-aggrandizing “we make the world a better place” lines), and then they carve their names in the table (with flashback footage of them as little boys doing the same thing in the Impala). It’s emotional. And of course three seasons later it’s ruined, with Castiel and Mary adding their names.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 19, “The Future” (2017; d. Amanda Tapping)
I’m gonna say one thing and don’t be mad. Binging season 12 is a different experience than watching each episode as it dragged out week after week. I actually am following the (dumb) plot, and it’s not that I care about what’s happening, and I still hate the BMOL and hate that Mary is with KETCH – who is trying to drive a wedge between her and her boys – etc. but – Watching these episodes back to back isn’t completely awful. It’s still not really Supernatural but it at least it is coherent and there are lots of monster-hunting episodes. Compare to the disgraceful Season 15. I binged Season 15 too and was appalled. So. At least this is something.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 20, “Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes” (2017; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
The fact that they kept Ketch on the show after the shit he pulled … and that we were supposed to find him kind of humorous in his British prickishness – is incredible, considering what he did. In other news: I really like the birch tree wallpaper in the old hotel. The witch twins are adorable but I am sick of the magic on this show, and the purple glowing eyes. I can’t get past thinking back to the first “witches” episode when they were just HUMANS who practiced magic. Same with psychics. Missouri wasn’t a supernatural being. She was a psychic. Anyway: this episode REALLY highlights just how bad the show is gonna get in Season 13-15. It’s like the people in charge literally forgot – or lost interest in – how to construct a monster-hunting episode, the thing on which the whole thing is based. They were all so drawn to the heaven – hell – magic – etc. – that having two guys just go to some random town and solve a case didn’t feel BIG enough, IMPORTANT enough to them. Final note: If it weren’t for Ketch and Mary (ugh), the episode would have ended on such a tragic melancholy note. It would have been powerful, this tragic feeling of how things will NOT turn out all right for the twins. Then they had to go and ruin it with freakin’ KETCH.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 20, “There’s Something About Mary” (2017; d. P.J. Pesce)
Cheap and horrible opening. See my above comments on Ketch. Sam and Dean should have murdered him. With delight. Crowley’s degradation: I hate it. One thing I noticed about Season 12: Rowena is not at ALL omnipresent. I had forgotten a time when she wasn’t in practically every episode. She’s still a novelty act at a sideshow here, which is appropriate for her overall vibe. Shootout in the bunker with human being. Sam basically using the blonde woman as a human shield. Appalling.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 21, “Who We Are” (2017; d. P.J. Pesce)
So apparently it’s a big deal that Sam takes the lead and makes a big “we few, we happy few” speech? I feel like, again, this would have really worked maybe in Season 2? lol Or maybe post-Amanda? I don’t know. I can only speak for myself. I don’t think Sam is not a leader. Anyway. We FINALLY confront the Mary thing: and even though she’s brainwashed, it’s still long overdue, because she wasn’t “right” from the moment she came back. I sort of remember this one. I hated it because of the massive gun fight with the BMOL. And I remembered Dean going into Mary’s brainwashed mind. I only watched it that one time and I had been so hurt (forgive me, it was 2017, a wretched year when I really needed “my” show) by the whole season that I couldn’t really be with it. Dean’s “monologue” to Mary just irritated me, even though he played it so gorgeously. But I just felt the overall COLDNESS and incompetence of the season had drained me of good will and identification. Similar to Regarding Dean. You would have had to mop me off the floor if it was in Season 9. However: rewatching it now, I dug it. I think binge-watching the season, as I mentioned, cohered it in a way it wasn’t before, when you got it episode by episode and it was GRIM. What a MESS. I still don’t like how Mary’s return was handled. I noticed that when Dean and Mary “came back”, they had a talk – and then Sam came in, and Mary hugged Sam tightly. No hug with Dean. Dean joined in a group hug. It was the same thing when John came back in Season whatever: John had this big “I am so sorry” monologue at Sam and then Dean … no apology, no nothing, still kind of assuming Dean was okay. I don’t think Dabb was smart enough for this to have been a deliberate mirroring, particularly because he didn’t seem to care about Sam and Dean and their subtleties. I could be wrong.

Supernatural, Season 12, episode 22, “All Along the Watchtower” (2017; d. Robert Singer)
Our first sighting of the glowing rift and the dreaded Apocalypse World. You know, Season 15 was bad but I think Season 13 equals it, maybe even surpasses it. Bringing Lucifer back, and then having Apocalypse World be about an angel-demon war – means we will never escape this particular story. It feels like a re-tread. “Yeah let’s do season 4 and 5 all over again.” They almost literally say that.

Supernatural, Season 11, episode 1, “Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire” (2017; d. Robert Singer)
It’s truly shocking going from Season 12 to the beginning of Season 11. The quality is SEVERELY and ACUTELY higher. In fact, within 5 seconds of the episode starting, I relaxed because this is the show. This is Supernatural. Watching backwards has been illuminating (and depressing). Seriously, they REALLY lost their way in 12-15. No wonder I was so upset during Season 12 (originally). It wasn’t just that it was 2017, a terrible year for my country, but that my show – which had been a constant – was suddenly not my show. With alternate universes, and suddenly Rowena being a major character, and all the rest. This episode is Croatoan-esque, and our alternative-dance-movements Darkness has aarrived, and Dean is almost immediately changed, but it’s an internal change. The depths, as they say, are stirred. Jensen is so good and what he does in Season 11 was so fascinating: 11 seasons in and whatever Dean was going through in Season 11 we had never seen before. It created genuine suspense. Of course they threw it all away in the final episode where two supernatural siblings walk hand in hand in a garden, and Dean had just been USED to make that happen. We only thought Dean was central all season long, silly us. Still: one episode cannot erase an entire season of a man being drawn irrevocably towards something, something he finds revolting and yet alluring. Seeing Dean helpless and soft and almost tormented by desire – and struggling against all of it – for an entire season was fascinating.