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.
If you’re following along:
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11
Season 12-15
Plus: my season recaps from back in the day:
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 1 (2019; d. John F. Showalter)
I decided to watch Supernatural in reverse order. I am not watching the episodes in reverse order, just the seasons. The late seasons – 12-15 – are a scar in my memory. The finale was good but I remember little else. I wondered what it would look like if I reversed the order. It’s been an interesting experience. Some of it is coming back to me – others it’s as though I never watched it at all, that’s how little of an impression it made.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 2 “Raising Hell” (2019; d.
Robert Singer)
The ghosts in daylight are EMBARRASSING. Why not put a little work in and have a night shoot? The makeup job is terrible. The ghosts standing around in daylight – with the costumes and the makeup – look like a wandering community theatre production of Sweeney Todd.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 3 “The Rupture” (2019; d. )
It is just shockingly terrible. I don’t even know what to say. Start to finish: an embarrassment and an abomination to those of us who were in this thing from the start.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 4 “Atomic Monsters” (2019; d. Jensen Ackles)
Benny sighting! I hate what was done to Chuck and I basically reject it from my Supernatural worldview. It doesn’t exist. Which makes these later seasons a real problem for me. Besides all the other problems. And even worse than God-Chuck is self-PITYING God-Chuck. Insufferable. Good Impala scene at the end, even if it’s overwritten, with no subtext.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 5 “Proverbs 17:3” (2019; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
I forgot how repetitive this show got in the late seasons. Every episode starts with the brothers in the bunker. Funny business with the beef jerky. Funny ongoing bit with everyone asking Dean if his fake ID – from 15 years ago – is really him. And Dean being surprised that he looks any older. But still. Why am I putting myself through this. Speight is a good director: he looks for humor too. So far this episode has been the only episode in the season, thus far, with any humor. This is a CRIME. by the way, I actually watched Season 15 and I remember almost none of it. It’s kind of wild.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 6 “Golden Time” (2019; d. John Showalter)
Oh God it’s spa-day in the bunker for Eileen and Sam. I’m so embarrassed!
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 7 “Last Call” (2019; d. Amyn Kaderali)
Good horror-genre opener. Drunk girls, lonely bar in the middle of nowhere, sudden abduction by a monster. It’s a relief after the endless YA-fantasy bullshit of the first three episodes. Of the series in general. This episode features what became a truly distressing regular feature: The Winchesters shooting at another human. God, it hurts my heart every time it happens.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 8, “Our Father, Who Aren’t in Heaven” (2019; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
Good to see Jake Abel. He gives a good performance in what is a ridiculous double-role. He’s commanding. Castiel has been sulking for three straight episodes and it’s slightly grotesque. I’m at the point where I roll my eyes every time Chuck appears onscreen. Hate every second of the Chuck-God thing.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 9, “The Trap” (2019; d. Robert Singer)
More Chuck. It’s interminable. We haven’t had one straight monster-hunting ep. The show is broken. However: Jensen CRUSHES it in his purgatory monologue/prayer to Castiel. Who I have been annoyed with for years now but regardless. Jensen acts the SHIT out of that monologue. He makes it look so easy. Chuck: “Other Sams and other Deans in other worlds.” I just cannot with this bullshit. The people writing the show post-season 11 basically hated it for what it was and deconstructed it with contempt.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 10, “The Heroes Journey” (2020; d. John F. Showalter)
I hate this. Dean has a toothache and suddenly they realize they’re “normal”, that Chuck made them normal. But that was always the thing: they were regular humans with human bodies – they weren’t superheroes. They had to fill the gas tank. They had to fix the car. They certainly got things like headaches, they vomited, I mean Jesus Christ. They weren’t magical beings. There is some funny stuff here but the concept annoys me. It makes it so obvious that this new-ish team literally did not understand the show. It wasn’t some CW fantasy-superhero show. It was a show about two brothers who hunt monsters, with all the fallibility of humans. Their strength wasn’t superhuman. Their strength was because they were trained since they were kids to fight like tigers. Ugh. I hate it. (A bonus: we do get the spectacle of Jensen Ackles doing a tap dance in the bunker wearing a boater hat.)
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 11, “The Gamblers” (2020; d. Charles Beeson)
Okay I actually enjoyed this one. Even though it wasn’t a monster-killing ep – we still haven’t had one of those, what the HELL – but I liked the scenario in the pool hall. The whole “get our luck back” thing is a repeat of the far superior “Bad Day at Black Rock”. Like, why would you set yourself against one of the best episodes in the entire history of the series? Besides, I’m still annoyed at the entire concept. Baby broke down before. Baby is a car that sometimes breaks down. Sam and Dean were normal guys who had to do normal things like fix their cars. That’s the whole point, that’s the whole APPEAL. Superhero lore has poisoned your brains.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 12, “Galaxy Brain” (2020; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
In the teaser opener, an announcer on the radio refers to “President Hillary Clinton” and my heart broke. Followed by Chuck launching into a monologue with “It’s monologue time.” This is hell. At one point he says, “I don’t care.” Which is WILD. Because he’s the Big Bad of the season and he literally does not care. How is this tense? None of it is believable. The way we buy in to this thing is through THEM. Sam and Dean. There aren’t millions of Sams and Deans to us. There’s only one Sam and Dean. This whole thing is just a writer bored and jerking off. Out of ideas. And then we have fucking KAIA. One of the most embarrassing side-plots in the entire show. Again, everyone is in love with fantasy over there. Did nobody notice the genre shift? This did not start as a fantasy show. I am trying to think of another well-established television series that just quietly – and seemingly inevitably (like, they couldn’t stop themselves) – switched genres. This one aired on March 16, 2020.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 13, “Destiny’s Child” (2020; d. Amyn Kaldari)
This season is so in the weeds. Everything is about casting spells to open the gate to hell, give access to The Empty, going to purgatory – and blah blah all finding ways to combat Chuck. The show doesn’t give a shit anymore.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 14, “Last Holiday” (2020; d. Eduardo Sanchez)
Another episode that starts in the bunker. Again with the Nazis. I had successfully blocked out the whole “I killed Hitler” thing. Some amusing stuff here but again … what is this show now? lol We are literally almost to the end and we have had no evidence of monster-hunting brother road trips. The whole concept of the show is not in evidence. So the last two episodes aired in March, this one aired in October, 2020.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 15, “Gimme Shelter” (2020; d. Matt Cohen)
Finally a monster-hunting episode! But the hunters are Jack and Castiel. This show hates its original fans. Also, seven deadly sins … we already did that. Season 3. Great scene between Dean and good old Amara, but we still are treated to a little lecture about how the “real” Mary is better than the “myth” Mary because she was “just a person”. Nope. Sorry. “Real” Mary sucked, not just in terms of the character (and the performance, which was terrible), but the overall story itself. I know what I’m sounding like but I don’t care: the downfall of this show is fascinating.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 16, “Drag Me Away (From You)” (2020; d. Amyn Kaderali)
Our first motel room of the entire season. Flashback to childhood. I have zero memory of this. I had a lot going on in October 2020 when it aired. A family tragedy. An unexpected change of life plans. A pandemic. I do remember one thing and it is still the best part of the episode. Dean to waitress: “I hate to ask but my brother will want to know if you have any arugula salad or any kale?” Deadpan waitress: “We’ve got iceberg lettuce with ranch.” Dean: “Good for you.”
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 17, “Unity” (2020; d. Catriona McKenzie)
Chuck is insufferable. He’s basically being villainous because he’s “bored”. Again, he is not a compelling villain. It is not a compelling motive. The ep is again all Chuck and Amara and Jack and etc. Chuck shows up and monologues about how much he “doesn’t care”.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 18, “Despair” (2020; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
Misha Collins’ big goodbye scene was way more effective than I remembered. I was “over” Castiel by season, oh, 8. I understand he had a huge fan base so I know why he was kept around. I didn’t feel the same way but I am not the boss. My favorite Castiel was season 4 and season 5, when he was uncanny and strange. And seemed legit dangerous and unpredictable. Even though the monologue was the ultimate in pandering – and therefore felt like it came out of nowhere if you’re not a part of the base, the monologue was well written, I think, and he played it beautifully. The problem with making subtext text is that the end result can feel quite empty. Considering that Misha Collins knew this would be his final scene, he seemed overcome and it was genuine. And poor Dean/Jensen looked basically blindsided and confused, lol.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 19, “Inherit the Earth” (2020; d. John F. Showalter)
Unnerving acknowledgement of the pandemic, which shut the show down earlier in the year, delaying the end of the season. The emptiness, the silent streets, the empty playgrounds … 2020 was a year, man.
Supernatural, Season 15, episode 20, “Carry On” (2020; d. Robert Singer)
Really glad that Robert Singer – one of the creators of the show, really, who was so instrumental as a producer and a director for setting the tone – directed the finale. After all my bitching and moaning, the scene in the barn makes me cry like a baby.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 1, “Stranger in a Strange Land” (2018; d. Thomas J. Wright)
I’d blocked out the era where the bunker was full of random hunters, just wandering around being macho. You couldn’t distinguish them. And the dreaded Maggie: why is she there? She doesn’t DO anything. I feel like “they” (as in the writers’ room) thought she would be adorable and relatable to us “normies”. “Oh we would be Maggie too! Give her a chance!” Sam and Dean would NEVER have given Maggie ANY responsibility in their former lives. Samantha Smith can’t act. Plain and simple. It was a problem.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 2, “Gods and Monsters” (2018; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
I’m working my way backwards and I have no idea what’s going on. I totally forgot that Nick (Lucifer) returned and … tries to investigate his wife and child’s murder? Like … who cares? They were desperate to drum up another plot-line to take the pressure off of Sam and Dean. The whole goal was to move the show away from being centered on the brothers. That being said, Mark Pellegrino is an excellent actor and his explosion of grief when he “comes to” as Nick was moving.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 3, “The Scar” (2018; d. Robert Singer)
I hate the hunters in the bunker. I hate how they call Sam “chief”. Along with teenagers, the new show was obsessed with militarization of hunting, and this is part and parcel with the lack of imagination. Everything had to be The Hunger Games or Harry Potter. Dark Kaia sucks. It’s embarrassing. Jody’s long monologue about her girls reminds me of the Wayward Sisters situation – which mattered a lot to some people, but annoyed me. I realize what I am doing now must be annoying. Why re-watch and bitch about it like this? Because I need to unwind. Again, I barely remember any of this. There are gems in most every episode – because I love the actors – but it’s painful to see the show so lose its way.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 4, “Mint Condition” (2018; d. Amyn Kaderali)
Dean schtick! Good to see! Sam: “That was Riley.” Dean: “I don’t know who Riley is.” Neither do I. This episode contains the abomination: “Panthro’s b—” “Rhymes with itch?” I yearn for the earlier seasons when they threw around the words “bitch”, “dick”, “douchebag” (my personal favorite). Making Sam stop himself from saying “bitch” is extremely irritating. Production designer/cinematographer clearly had a lot of fun creating the cheesy 1980s horror flick. It’s a good old monster-hunting brother episode, with no Castie, Jack, or Rowena in sight. Also no Riley in sight, whoever he/she is. Dean geeking out on horror – details like that, character-driven, specific – is the kind of thing that really MADE the show. Because even though there is a plot, the episode is about the characters.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 5, “Nightmare Logic” (2018; d. Darren Grant)
Opens with Maggie, who comes on hunts despite not knowing how to do anything and then needing to be saved by Sam and/or Dean. It’s so dumb. Why would Sam and Dean tolerate this? She is incompetent. She is always on the verge of hysteria, not exactly a hunter mindset. I feel bad for the actress. It’s not her fault. She played it one-note but, to be fair, it’s written that way. Fans, as a whole, rejected her, and it can’t have felt good. Hunters uploading videos to livestream. So stupid. again: militarizing hunting. I don’t like it. I’m annoyed by a lot of this but it’s still good to have a regular monster hunt episode. Yes, we have Bobby and Mary having some kind of love relationship problems (Oh God. stop it.) but … we at least get the brothers working a case, which has become sadly rare. Also: I love the connection made between Dean and Sarah (Leah Cairns). This quiet understanding between two adults: an unexpected connection. Maybe even chemistry. The show used to do this so well.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 6, “Optimism” (2018; d. Richard Speight, Jr.)
I forgot how much I loathed – and I mean loathed – bringing back all these familiar characters – Bobby, Charlie – from the wretched alternate world, and yet stripping them of their relationship to the brothers. Alternate Charlie. etc. The show was counting on us just being happy to see these people again (also, cynically, I think they were looking at conventions: they wanted to be able to drop more actors into the convention circuit.) So no, I’m not happy to see Charlie again because the relationship is no longer there. Having all these traumatized battle-scarred veterans was also a way to show up Sam and Dean, who were “soft” compared to them. Can’t stand it. One small shot that made me laugh out loud: In the diner, Dean gently pushing the rooster sculpture away from him. It was pointing at his crotch. Fun schtick between Dean and Jack.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 7, “Unhuman Nature” (2018; d. John F. Showalter)
Nick on his revenge tour. I can’t even struggle to care. This episode has THREE plots. The Dean-Jack-fishing scene is corny but Jensen plays the hell out of it, especially when dealing with Jack’s transparency. It’s like Jack’s openness hits him in the face. Jensen is never “general”. It’s always specific. The show is repetitive but he doesn’t repeat himself. To add insult to injury: Not only is Rowena called in to save the day, but a new character – a shaman named Sergei – is ALSO introduced, because Sam and Dean can’t figure things out by themselves anymore. People have shown up on this site before and told me that sidelining Jared and Jensen was deliberate because they wanted more time with their families blah blah. I mean, okay? The reason doesn’t change the criticism! Maybe the show should have ended at Season 10. These issues would not be as glaring if Supernatural’s seasons were 10 episodes long, or 8, as opposed to 20 episodes. That’s a lot of time to fill.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 8, “Byzantium” (2018; d. Eduardo Sánchez)
The scene of Dean, Sam and Castiel getting drunk is clearly supposed to be incredibly moving for me to watch but … Castiel laughing uproariously? Really? When have we ever seen that before, ever, in the entire history of the show? What we’re looking at is Jared, Jensen and Misha. It makes no sense. I also can’t stand how Dean is suddenly a slob in these late seasons and Sam is a neatnik, when anyone who’s watched from the beginning knows it’s the other way around. The writers lose the subtleties of the characters and go with the cliches: macho Dean cluttering up his room with pizza boxes, and not making his bed, Sam being meticulous. No, no, no. Does anyone not remember homebody Dean rhapsodizing about memory foam and Sam throwing a crumpled piece of paper on the floor? Do I have to do everything around here? Suddenly the bunker is empty of hunter squads calling Sam “chief”. So … sometimes they’re there and sometimes they’re not? Veronica Cartwright is amazing. She should have been nominated for an Oscar for Witches of Eastwick.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 9, “The Spear” (2018; d. Amyn Kaderali)
Dark Kaia’s hooded gorgeously-fitted robe is so embarrassing.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 10, “Nihilism” (2019; d. Amanda Tapping)
Now this episode I remember, and for good reason. We get another Maggie sighting. Naturally, she is on the verge of hysteria. She is a liability. If Sam or Dean were like themselves, they would send Maggie packing. But here, she’s been given a leadership role! Sam makes her a leader! It makes no sense. ALSO: a reaper shows up whose name is Jessica. Why would you give give that name to a character and NOT acknowledge the “Jess” who is such an iconic part of the Winchester myth from Season 1, episode 1? Seriously. There are so many other names you could choose. “Jessica” is taken. This is also the era where everyone talks about “monsters”. “The monsters are at the door.” “The monsters are leaving.” Back in the day, monsters were specific.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 11, “Damaged Goods” (2019; d. Phil Sgriccia)
Dean to his mother: “Two terrible cooks …” But he’s not a terrible cook. This has been well established. It’s stuff like this that drives me crazy, even more than spending all this time following Nick around on his revenge world tour. I will say though: Jensen does SO MUCH with just a look, a glance, a pause: and through this episode he’s basically pretending he’s all right but he is really REALLY not all right. Jensen is so so good at this kind of thing.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 12, “Prophet and Loss” (2019; d. Thomas J. Wright)
I like how dark this episode is: shadows, low lights, and almost no bunker scenes. There’s even a motel room! As bored as I am by Nick’s journey, Mark Pellegrino’s acting in the scene with his dead wife was superb. Quite amazing, really. And good satisfying final scene between Sam and Dean.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 13, “Lebanon” (2019; d. Robert Singer)
Here’s a regular brother-monster-hunt, with the teens in Lebanon being rebellious, even though they don’t feel like teenagers to me, but that’s okay. I enjoy Sam and Dean as cranky Gen X guys, old enough to be these kids’ fathers, and ordering them around irritably. John and Mary return. Sam is doing a Ted talk. (Dean: “I mean, I’m good, but you …”) Suddenly John is all softboi? I am not in charge but I would have preferred more conflict, at least initially. The old John. Showing up and being officious or bossy with them. Sam and Dean having to correct him, stand up to him, “No, Dad. Things are different now. You can’t do that to us anymore.” John having to realize what has happened and THEN apologizing for everything he did to them. Not immediately burst into tears and say “I treated you badly, I am so sorry.” But that’s just me. I don’t understand making choices where there isn’t conflict. Choice without a conflict isn’t a choice. There were interesting parts of this family reunion – but I feel like they were accidental rather than deliberate. The way John focused solely on Sam, big teary talk with Sam. With Dean it was more practical. He didn’t say “I did a lot of wrong things to you, son …” He said all that to SAM. But I feel like this was just sloppy scriptwriting as opposed to a deliberate POINT being made that … John really hasn’t changed all that much. Once again, Dean is being ignored. Or, if not ignored, then “Dean’s fine, Dean’s strong, he gets it, he doesn’t need an apology.” Can’t we MAKE something of that? No? (Me bitching about John here is not to dismiss what Jeffrey Dean Morgan does with what he has. He is overwhelming, his emotion is overwhelming. I just would have liked more conflict before he got to that point. To actually have John realize – in the moment – that his sons are grown, and he has some explaining to do.)
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 14, “Ouroboros” (2019; d. Amyn Kaderali)
May be a stretch – and of course it is a stretch – based entirely on my own sometimes-theory about what Dean did as a teenager to make money … (see “Alex Annie Alexis Ann”) … but I think the good-looking gorgon propositioning truckers at a truck stop late at night, all fetching in his snakeskin jacket and bedroom eyes … could be a nod to my own personal Dean Headcanon. The interaction between gorgon and trucker is explicit and the gorgon looks like a young hustler out of My Own Private Idaho. Note: the mirror shot of the dog and then Jack, on all fours on the veterinarian’s table, made me laugh out loud. “I wish I could have got it before she took my temperature.” Clever and absurd. Referencing the #MeToo movement carbon-dates this episode to 2019. Maggie sighting. Hunters playing cards and being all manly commandos and I can’t stand it. I’m not sorry about what happened. The writers made the right call. Get rid of those clowns.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 15, “Peace of Mind” (2019; d. Phil Sgriccia)
“Pink Shoelaces” by Dodie Stevens is an exciting musical cameo. Production designer/set decorator clearly had fun designing this little Pleasantville town, where the movie theatre is showing Scooby Doo for $2. Cas says to brainwashed Sam: “I know what it’s like to lose your army.” I thought, “What army? What is he talking about?” Then I remembered literally the last episode, which I watched 5 minutes ago, when all the hunters were killed. That’s how big an impression they made on me.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 16, “Don’t Go Into the Woods” (2019; d. John Fitzpatrick)
“I’m two.” [long pause] “Enty.” Lebanon teens again. Ghost Facers sighting. I can’t help but feel that after the failure of Wayward Sisters … and Bloodlines … Dabb was still searching around for potential spin-offs so he’d have a job after Supernatural ended and the Lebanon teens checked off the boxes the Wayward Sisters checked off and so maybe … I’m cynical.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 17, “Game Night” (2019; d. John F. Showalter)
No memory of this.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 18, “Absence” (2019; d. Nina Lopez-Corrado)
Lopez-Corrado directed “Red Meat” and she has my trust forevermore. This is the big episode, multiple locations, a lot a lot of special effects, a ton of shit going on – (whereas “Red Meat” was more of a chamber piece, a quartet, if you will) – I think she did a wonderful job. My feelings on Mary once she was brought back are obvious. To me. I hate lines like “You know how mom is after a hunt” – with this kind of knowing chuckle, like, Mary wants to eat a burger, drink whiskey, she don’t need no angel healing, she’s a tough hunter broad! Girlboss! I just don’t like it. Maybe I would like it if Samantha Smith were a good actress, and could suggest an actual character onscreen. You know who WAS like this? Ellen. Samantha Ferris could make me believe all of those things just by standing there. Dean’s eulogy and all the hunters’ knowing chuckles … I just can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t. Maybe it was a smart move to make Mary so … blah … considering the actress playing her. As long as Mary was a mystical vision in dream sequences, we were on solid ground, performance-wise.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 19, “Jack in the Box” (2019; d. Robert Singer)
Singer gets it. The episode has a lot of plot and has to cover a lot of ground but the overall interest is in the characters and their conflicts (inner and outer). The focus and proportion isn’t skewed. Singer always kept the characters first in his mind.
Supernatural, Season 14, episode 20, “Moriah” (2019; d. Phil Sgriccia)
The scary box which took up 4, 5 episodes held Jack for, what, 20 minutes? lol Dean is always a little bit angry but here his fury is incandescent. Jensen is actually scary. I love it when he’s scary because you think he’s gone as deep as he can go, and then he finds another layer.
Supernatural, Season 13, episode 1, “Lost and Found” (2017; d. Phil Sgriccia)
It’s kind of interesting watching these seasons in reverse order. I have no idea what’s going on. The earlier seasons, I have each arc locked into my head. I can call up the entirety of, say, Season 4 in my head, and how Season 4 leads to Season 5. The Amara season is the last time I can do that. After Amara, I lost interest, and the show derailed, and now I have no idea what events lead up to what. In my memory, Season 12 was the absolute nadir. I may have to adjust that, though, and bump Season 15 to the top of the list. But Season 12 is when I gave up hope and realized the show didn’t understand itself anymore. We’ll see. Observation: one of the unforgivable sins of the last 4 seasons is how ugly the show got, just visually and aesthetically. Flat lighting, no blocking – people just standing around in wide shots – forever – it was such a betrayal, especially for someone like me who was drawn to the show initially for its cinematic beauty, the artistry of lighting, the fluidity of camera movements, everything. When there are exceptions I will point it out. This episode is an exception, no surprise when you consider the director. The camera movements are interesting: look for the cuts, they flow. The “payoff” of the “joke” of the kid re-naming all the items on the menu – and then having Sam see it, with no context. Sam’s quick glimpse of “wait … what?” That’s how you pay off a joke. These things don’t further the plot, but they keep things grounded in the human. There’s creativity in positioning Jack – naked with the freakin’ pirate statue in front of his privates – all of that: you get the vibe, you get the strangeness, the larger scenery is utilized (the river, the cruise ship) … Whatever happens here feels like it is happening in the real world, not on a shoddy soundstage. These things really matter! Especially here, where the plot involves a supernatural teenager wandering the earth without any clothes on. Final note: Alexander Calvert was a real find. He’s perfect. And it was all going so well until it ends in the alternate universe whatever. Hate every second of it.
Supernatural, Season 13, episode 2, “The Rising Son” (2017; d. Thomas J. Wright)
“He will make Hell great again.” Words can’t express how much I despised the looping in of current-day politics into this show. I get that 2017 was that kind of year, and anyone who walked around saying they didn’t care about politics or who were “apolitical” would have been approved of Neville Chamberlain in Munich in 1939. I still feel that way. But there’s a way to “comment” on the times without little snarky nods to us in the audience, which is blatant pandering. I had forgotten about Asmodeus and what a weird choice it was to make him a Tennessee Williams character. I like the motel room – at the “Black Hat Hotel” – nice touch – and also the schtick of Jack imitating Dean, etc. It is irritating to have to switch back to the alternate universe, which holds no interest for me.
Supernatural, Season 13, episode 3, “Patience” (2017; d. Robert Singer)
Why bring back the wonderful Missouri just to murder her? And oh God I forgot. This is the beginning of the Wayward Sisters collective. We had to suffer through it then and I’ll suffer through it now. Patience is supposedly a bookworm normie and yet when she is violently attacked she’s suddenly Jackie Chan. Pandering. Jared is particularly lovely in this episode. It’s subtle quiet work, very effective. And a final irritation: Missouri was a PSYCHIC, not a HUNTER. So they bring her back, her son calls her a “hunter” and it’s like … why even bother with you people if you can’t get the most basic thing right? GREAT fight scene between the wraith, Jody and Dean: mainly because it was such an interesting specific place, and there were details – ropes – and wooden beams – and hanging things – that gave visual interest and the choreography is great too, Dean having to improvise. It’s not just throwing punches back and forth endlessly which the show is definitely guilty of.
Supernatural, Season 13, episode 4, “The Big Empty” (2017; d. John Badham)
So here’s where my mind is at. They bring back the wonderful Rukiya Bernard to play the grief counselor – but of course I remember her from one of my favorite one-offs, the psychic town in Season 8, where Melanie – MELANIE – provided me with the loneliest ship in this shippiest of shows. Bernard played the best friend. Here, she’s back, I saw her and thought: MELANIE. WHY WON’T THEY BRING BACK MELANIE? Meanwhile, it’s not even the same character, just the same actress. Castiel’s double in the Empty was … what was that. A Clockwork Orange Castiel? I don’t understand the choice! It’s not good! Final note: John Badham. He comes with chops. And it shows.
Supernatural, Season 13, episode 5, “Advanced Thanatology” (2017; d. John F. Showalter)
It’s kind of sad how amazed I am that this is 100% brother-focused. No other cast, no off-shoots, nobody else, no “and here’s what’s happening back at the bunker”. It’s just them working a case. It’s not the most thrilling case in the world but it’s so nice to not have all that other STUFF around them.
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-Amelia? I don’t know. I can only speak for myself. I don’t think Sam is not a leader. It’s a character “problem” that feels wholly manufactured. 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.
that first cap from Tombstone – i had my laptop brightness right down low and swear to God my brain tricked me into seeing Tom of Finland beefcake in the background there.
What a great tour through 1.5 average->desultory->abysmal seasons. I remember some of the conversations about these episodes like they were yesterday, in particular the Asa Fox one. It was a crazy experience, all the more bewildering and distressing for coinciding with world events. I vividly remember, during/after the awful end of s11, knowing that something had fundamentally gone wrong but writing an “It’s gonna be fine, there’re still a bunch of smart guys involved, overall 11 was so good, they’ll pull it together for s12, panicking is silly” post. This is extremely embarrassing to admit (talk about the sacred and profane) but I reflect on it often as a timely mid-2016 lesson about the difference between belief, bias, and gullibility, being clear-eyed, knowing which instincts to listen to, and how ugly it is to be the one saying “calm down, calm down,” when there’s an alarm siren going off.
That gif you chose from The Devil’s Bargain – awful! So many episodes of so many people standing around in motel rooms failing to convincingly play pretend!
Half the episode shows these losers sitting around in the hotel bummed because they can’t find out where the secret music show is.
oh my god hahaha. I could probably have saved three million bucks on physio bills to treat my RSI and just posted after every episode “this, but not like this“. I’d love to see them as losers. Just not like this.
It doesn’t bother me that the end of s11 wasn’t “about” Dean. It seems right that God and Amara are above his pay grade, and that what happens is entirely destabilising to him and barely a blip on a longer road for Amara/Chuck. From a cosmic point of view, he is there to be used. He is a tool. Just……..not like this.
Jessie – I knew I had to loop back to catch up with comments.
Totally Tom of Finland – hahahaha!! it’s outrageous!
// I reflect on it often as a timely mid-2016 lesson about the difference between belief, bias, and gullibility, being clear-eyed, knowing which instincts to listen to, and how ugly it is to be the one saying “calm down, calm down,” when there’s an alarm siren going off. //
This is really interesting. I totally see what you mean – and rewatching this show – which means a lot to us but isn’t world-shaking or even “in the conversation” in terms of world events – brought back that horrible time – basically 2016-2018 – although the horrible-ness continues – but that first shock of what was going on is somehow so wrapped up in Season 12 it’s … kind of absurd. The world gone mad. The old formulas abandoned, even though they WORKED. Like why on earth did they feel the need to just wreck a totally successful formula and create this new boring awful thing – which wouldn’t pass muster in the fantasy genre, or the YA-fantasy genre (no one on screen is YA! even though they kept clinging to Claire – to Kaia – to whoever – because they so WANTED to be YA).
I’m rambling but it’s so true that … I associate these seasons with catastrophic world events – specifically what was going on in my truly scary country – and this weird sense of betrayal. You want at least SOME things to be evergreen but apparently SPN wasn’t.
This was counter-acted in 2017 by the incredible Twin Peaks Return – which I swear helped me get through that first terrible year of 45’s reign. It had been 25 years and the show returned and it was this soothing funny strange authentic piece of art – amazingly faithful to the original series – but then pushing far far beyond it. And watching it, even though I had no idea what would happen from moment to moment – I felt relaxed, soothed, because I knew I was in good hands.
It was such a striking contrast.
You’re so right – “this. but not like THIS.”
Like, we wanted the amulet to return. But not like THIS.
// From a cosmic point of view, he is there to be used. He is a tool. Just……..not like this. //
Yes, very good point. Having just re-watched Season 11 – it’s pretty obvious from the start that Amara is using Dean to get to God – it’s in her language, but I wasn’t picking up on that in my first watch. And … with the MESS they made of the last three episodes in that season … it was just a let down all around. and then Mary returns and we all know how THAT turned out.
// There’s a certain faction of the fandom who get so angry at suggestions of gay or queer subtext. To them I say: //
hahaha I posted pretty much the same thing on my IG stories when I got to that episode.
Finished season 13. It’s so bad, although watching backwards, I find more to like than coming from season 12, and my absolute disgust. There are moments. Despite the wayward girls, apocalypse world, and the Michael monsters – ugh, I can’t even fucking believe what I’m typing. I fast forwarded through the Asmodeus bullshit. Nothing to se there.
Speaking of someone I really dislike as a person, Pellegrino is a joy to watch. He’s never not doing something interesting, even when scenes are not really working. He seems to always find the fun – and I mean, even when he’s Nick. He made me cry! And I don’t care about Nick.
I’m starting the season 12 finale, and knowing the British Men of letters are coming… I’m dreading it so much. But Crowley! I was so happy to see him!
Watching the seasons backwards really highlights all the plot points that were dropped – the apocalypse world people (ugh) coming to “our” world with the promise they’re just regrouping before going back to fight for their world and they just… forget. And there other plot points like that. Also, every time something appears for the first time, I know it’s the last time in the show – the last time I hear Sam do an exorcism in latin, it made me emotional!
They made so many uninteresting choices, it’s baffling.
yeah Pellegrino got to me! He’s always good – but Lucifer is a little limiting in terms of emotional expression. with Nick – my God!! again, I don’t care about Nick and it’s amazing they thought we would care about Nick – they were DESPERATE to create a plot not involving JA and JP.
I keep blocking Asmodeus out of my consciousness. It’s like I don’t want to admit he exists. I was blocking it out AS I was watching it.
/ coming to “our” world with the promise they’re just regrouping before going back to fight for their world and they just… forget. //
yeah … what was that. and why are they sometimes in the bunker and sometimes not? did they all just get jobs in town and head off to work every morning? Terrible plot-line. “Chief”. Ugh. it’s the asa-fox-ification of hunters, something Kripke despised back in season 2. He felt the danger! He felt the dangerous possibility of macho posing … so he was like “burn it to the ground”. In the world of macho posing, women as human beings aren’t valued – UNLESS they’re “badasses”. This is a thing that happens in stories. and disappointingly Dabb walked right into it. Worse, he couldn’t SEE it – he was PROUD of what he was doing. and from the way SS talks in interviews, she was proud too. because she didn’t value what was established in the original story – because that was created in the dark ages, before … #MeToo? I mean, it was confused muddled thinking. #MeToo scrambled people’s brains. Like … wayward sisters a response to #MeToo is just ridiculous but that was kind of how it was positioned.
I feel like Season 12 was LESS bad than it was on my first watch – because first watch I was just so heartbroken at what was going on, the falling apart of the show. But I have already blocked much of it out. I think I hated season 13 more – but season 12 is just so CONFUSED. you get the feeling they have no idea what they’re doing – OR they’ve made such a huge mistake with BMOL and they don’t realize it’s a mistake so they can’t abort. Season 15 was so atrocious it scorched the earth of the rest of the show and I am still trying to compartmentalize it – and not let it get in the way of my re-watch of earlier seasons. I just watched the first Chuck episode – and it’s just amazing how much Chuck-God has DIMINISHED the earlier plot-line with Chuck – where a plot twist like Chuck-God should ENLARGE the earlier episodes. It’s so obvious watching the first Chuck episode that Chuck-God was just an act of desperation – imposed by a less imaginative team – and also I think a way to bring fan-fave and convention regular Rob Benedict back.
// yeah … what was that. and why are they sometimes in the bunker and sometimes not? did they all just get jobs in town and head off to work every morning? //
Yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever, and it’s so detached from reality – what they did so well in the early seasons, where single mothers were so overwhelmed by work they didn’t see the signs of a haunting, where people were caught up in daily life, to the degree that the brothers could use that, and also we could see how weird their lives were compared to normal people.
Here? A bunch of extras who can’t act, with bad blocking, and no inner or outer lives.
// “Chief”. Ugh. //
hahaha, I left a yelling comment somewhere on here not long ago just yelling about that. I hate it so much.
//something Kripke despised back in season 2. He felt the danger! He felt the dangerous possibility of macho posing … //
And Harvelle’s Roadhouse did it so much more elegantly and in a more interesting way than “they tell stories about us, Sammy.” It wasn’t a fucking bookclub, it was a bunch of weirdo loners, with a common interest but basically antisocial people who couldn’t get along. Which, while there is the danger of the macho bullshit and of too much comfort coming with some sort of established network, which needed to be burnt to the ground, at least was dynamic in how it was laid out. There was potential (I still miss Ash lol).
// #MeToo scrambled people’s brains. Like … wayward sisters a response to #MeToo is just ridiculous but that was kind of how it was positioned. //
Yup, again, the least subtle, dumbest response — so disappointing too because, as much as I love “badass” women (and I really do), I love the MANY ways women create, cooperate, resist, survive, thrive. Donna Hanscum was such a great example, she didn’t need the badassification! She was tender and funny and optimistic and it was great and NEEDED in that world – when every person involved is a “hunter” (ugh) and they all act the same, when everything is flattened, what story is there to tell?
How the vocabulary was simplified is also very telling of a stupid way of thinking. There used to be so many dimensions to that world, when every new supernatural occurrence could be something different and new, and every person caught up in it also came as an individual: Bobby is not Rufus is not Missouri, is not Pamela, is not Joe is not Ash.
But then, it became: hunters versus monsters. Bland people you can’t tell apart and ridiculous guys with fake teeth. Idiotic binary thinking. GODAMMIT.
// I feel like Season 12 was LESS bad than it was on my first watch //
I watched the last episodes last night, and just seeing all those cartoonesque Brits… ugh. Ketch. And the other brit and the other one. And Mary. Fuck me. it’s so bad.
// Season 15 was so atrocious it scorched the earth of the rest of the show //
The worst. What a way to end. I completely reject anything to do with Chuck as God. Nope. ESPECIALLY given what they did with it. But also because I just really loved when there was room for imagination – what is hell like? What is God like? Those things SHOULD be so much bigger than can be onscreen, that we could only get glimpses and let our hopes and fears fill in the rest. That’s when the show was at its strongest, in my opinion: you’re a strange room that’s not quite right and you know some celestial being has created something your human brain can process, you heard wings and you knew an angel had arrived. It’s so simple and IT WORKS. It makes the audience more active and it’s so much more interesting. You just need, as a writer, to be willing to be offering ambiguity – which, again, the whole show was built on that! And they went on the opposite end of the spectrum, where everything became literal.
UUUUUUGH.
And when you flatten what strong women, or just WOMEN are like, you also flatten men. Again, that very stupid binary thinking: Dean is a good guy so he doesn’t fuck random barmaids and doesn’t say bitch. I mean, he kills people, as one does, no big deal, but HEY AT LEAST HE’S NOT A SLUT. And Sam is the gentle one, so he’s always everyone’s shrink and has no inner conflict whatsoever and he only has sex with women coming back to life in lavender water or whatever.
WHAT THE FUCK.
I LOVE this thought.
It’s not just about flattening women. Flattening women is basically a byproduct of the overall flattening in evidence.
and like you say the binary thinking – which we all sensed instantly as season 12 even began. like, what happened to Dean? what happened here? the moralistic overlay – which we could SENSE. Dean doesn’t say hello to the waitress he literally just fucked – because … it’s hard to personalize a one-night stand, hard to imagine your way into a one night stand that is also tender and comforting? which is basically Dean’s whole THING. I just watched Monster Movie – I love Jamie! a perfect representation of the Dean “thing” in operation. No one’s getting “used”. they’re consenting adults. he leaves her with a smile on her face.
// he only has sex with women coming back to life in lavender water or whatever. //
lol stop
re-watching season 4 is so instructive. I forgot just how morally compromised Sam was. it’s breath-taking. such exciting storytelling. when he says to Ruby “I have to take on Lilith because Dean isn’t strong enough” i literally gasped. You can HEAR Ruby’s sinister whispering influence there and Sam can’t see it.
It’s so good!
LOOK at what they did to Sam in 12-15! counseling everyone, being totally okay with Mary jumping ship, having no strong feelings about ANYthing – WHAT. WHAT ON EARTH.
get the fuck outta here Dabb
// it was a bunch of weirdo loners, with a common interest but basically antisocial people who couldn’t get along. //
yeah! hunters as lone wolves – not people who get together for a kegger and swap war stories like asa fox. again, try to picture Ash at that gathering. or Bobby. the whole aesthetic is different.
In re: “badass”. One of the most badass woman fictional characters ever is Ripley in Alien/Aliens – but she is human, she is terrified, and by the time she gets into her little forklift – she is furious. There’s something very human-sized about Ripley. compare to Clare in full makeup saying “I’m here to save you”. Or the superhero-ification of things like courage / honor / bravery. even something like Hunger Games hits different than “baddassery” – because they’re just humans, who have to pull their shit together to survive. I don’t like badassery when it judges vulnerability as weakness. My acting teacher friends have to combat this on a daily basis in their acting classes – and those who have been acting teachers for 30 years say that what’s going on is NEW – they’re a little taken aback by it. historically actors have been drawn to acting and love the parts of acting where they get to explore and express vulnerability. the opposite is now true – (broadly speaking) – and it takes a LOT to convince these younger actors that showing vulnerability is not somehow retro or being “weak”. My friends say it’s really weird to be faced with an entire group of actors who DON’T want to be vulnerable. it’s wild. faced with actors who have to “win” in every scene – which basically makes every script un-play-able because no human wins in every interaction, fictionally or in reality!
so I guess I’m seeing that everywhere! I’m not saying it’s the younger actors’ faults – it’s a zeitgeist thing – and they are a product of their time, of course. the internet has re-wired brains to fear exposure. it makes total sense. and there are exceptions, of course – and those exceptions are the ones who are actually working and making a living. (ahem Kyle Gallner.).
But you see this reflected in storytelling as well!
// Donna Hanscum was such a great example, she didn’t need the badassification! //
Amazing example! she was kind of the final late-era character to be introduced who had some depth. are there exceptions? it’s all a wash. Kelly barely makes a dent in my consciousness.
// cartoonesque Brits //
the artful dodger Mick … was that his name? ugh.
He at least could act – whereas Ketch was just an attitude. and completely villainous and yet they kept him around. I’m watching the whole Castiel arc now – season 4 – and it’s all morally ambiguous and genuinely huge the implications – faith and doubt, the morality (or lack thereof) of possessing other humans – what responsibilities do we have to each other? I think they were attempting the same thing with Mick – like, breaking ranks – but the whole thing was so Hogwarts-adjacent it was hard to care. It’s saying a LOT that Castiel – the ANGEL – from HEAVEN – seemed more real than a Cockney orphan in a British boarding school – but that’s the magic of the earlier seasons.
BMOL. that was their big play for season 12. Humans as baddies. They had nothing else up their sleeve. and once they locked into it, they couldn’t get out. BAD.
I agree with you that the power of suggestion and imagination in the earlier seasons – God the invisible, the angels invisibly flapping in and out of scenes – the amazing effects of angels dying – with their huge wings impressed on the pavement – fascianting and fabulous! they truly SEEMED “supernatural”.
Once you go literal – and Chuck is a God in tennis shoes – and the amulet returns in a literal way – you completely diminish the magic of what was established ten years before.
Chuck is another one of those characters from a whole other world – the regular world – who somehow finds himself in the midst of Sam and Dean’s world – like, they literally do not know ANYONE like Chuck, lol. There are no hunters with Chuck’s sensibility – of course, because anyone that cringingly fearful and solitary would be weeded out. and yet … here he is. required to be brave. Same with Kevin Tran. Oh, and Donatello too. in a way, the prophets were a great way to loop in these totally different types of people, from a middle-class world – who suddenly have to enter the grease-monkey sensibility of Sam and Dean. I loved that.
What you’re saying about young actors is so strange and sad, and also makes perfect sense. We’re living through very scary times, and I get the appeal of wanting to avoid looking at anything scary. It’s also why the youth is so conservative. It’s survival instinct kicking in in times of fascism.
But man, that is not how you create art. It might be how you create CONTENT, I guess.
And from writers who have worked, it really, really baffles me. If I could time travel and be invisible, I would PAY to be in that writers room and in meeting with execs, etc, just to see HOW it all went down. Was there any pushback? Did some of the writers question the decisions being made or were there all there to collect a paycheck until they could work on a project they actually respected? I know it sounds harsh, but from an audience perspective, it just looks like nobody gave a shit about the essence of the show. Steve Yockey, maybe, being the exception, because his episodes seemed to at least always try to steer into the direction of what the on the road, MOTW show it used to be.
// those exceptions are the ones who are actually working and making a living. (ahem Kyle Gallner.). //
I know you might not know this, this might be news to you, and to anyone who knows me, really, at this point, but I love him.
Am I responsible for pointing you towards Kyle Gallner? Can I take credit? Because if so, I am VERY proud. He’s special! you’re way deeper in the weeds than I went – so any tips would be beneficial for a deeper exploration.
haha It would have happened anyway, I was on my way there – I had JUST watched The Passenger, just for him, when you posted about “a punk love story,” which would have been enough to peak my interest, but “a punk love story with Kyle Gallner”? Forget it, I was done, so you definitely had a hand in tipping me over in the obsession that was already brewing.
// you’re way deeper in the weeds than I went //
Sheila, I have Gallner SPREADHSEETS. haha
The oldest stuff can be a bit harder to find, but it’s easy to find a lot of the police procedurals he did in the early 2000s. It’s very interesting – I mean, not the shows, they are stuff I didn’t watch then and have little interest in now, EXCEPT they’re not interesting as a piece of historical media: post 9/11 America, the constant worry about mass shootings, the general anxiety of not knowing who the enemy is, hiding amongst “normal” people. That’s a period where Gallner was playing Disturbed Young Men, and it’s interesting, because he’s white and has this very easily accessibly sensitivity, he played mostly rapists and killers, sometimes their victim, but very often BOTH perpetrator and victim. He was a sort of container for the “male loneliness epidemic” of 20 years ago. So, that’s interesting to see.
It’s so interesting to see the choices he made – granted, I imagine sometimes the choices made themselves because he had to pay rent – but still, it’s not like he was out of work, he worked very consistently. He’s been in a sort of lane (horror, genre), and. a lot of similar type of characters (he’s not a “chameleon”) but he seems to have been interested in challenging himself in deeper ways. When you zoom out and look at how often he’s played stories where there’s some iffy sexual thing going on in some way, and that’s kept happening even now that he has, probably, much more choice, so it’s not like he’s stayed stuck in typecasting from his teenage years. But, that’s an interesting thing to notice – how comfortable he is going there, and it’s never show offy, and it doesn’t seem gross either. He seems to find what’s interesting in those stories and just not be scared by those aspects.
Oh wow, okay, I’m gonna stop there. But I guess at some point (2026? lol) there’s a long ass Substack essay coming for the ten people who read me occasionally.
Interesting!
Oh no, did I not make it interesting? WAIT, there’s more, there’s so much MORE!
haha
Some of my friends are being very patient – supportive, even – with my little obsessions, and I’m very grateful
I just said it was interesting, lol!! I LOVE this shit.
Finding coherence in what must have felt a little bit random to him – like, you take what you can get as a young actor – is cool. even back then (or maybe especially then) you can see the essence. it’s one of my favorite things to do. Like watching Dark Angel and squinting through the screen. You really CAN see it. it’s THERE. it just needed a chance to express itself on a large enough scale. (and of course most actors don’t get that chance. it’s … unfortunate but … it’s always been a tough gig.) a lot of people don’t go for the “completist” thing but I can’t do it any other way – and I appreciate people who are this way as well. Because there are only so many hours in the day! Like, I was watching TV movies where Dean Stockwell literally had one or two lines and trying to see his essence. and it was THERE.
I thought you meant interesting as in “oh yeah, wow, shut up weirdo,” which, fair.
Re: Dark Angel, are you talking about Jensen Ackles? The last time I did such a deep dive in a actor’s filmography was for him – scouring the internet for some really shitty torrent of old episodes, haha. Some of these stuff can be found on streaming platforms now. And yes, you could totally see it – I haven’t re-watched Dark Angel in a decade, but I remember one scene where you could see the creativity of that guy, how he was super attuned to what was happening around him – it was a scene with the dog guy? I might need to re-watch.
And yeah, with Gallner, it’s really cool to be able to go back so far, because he started so young and worked quite a bit as a child and teenager so you can see the progression. Especially in Smallville – his first appearance, he’s not bad, but he’s not really good, it’s like he’s not 100% there, he seems a little unsure of what to do, but since it was a guest role, he popped up for one episode here or there so in the four years between his first and last appearances, he had gained so much experience (Veronica Mars, among other things) and it really shows. It’s so interesting.
my cousin Mike recently went to his first Comic Con because of Snowpiercer and texted me on his first day there, something like “there are so many massive movie stars here but I gotta tell you something. the two Supernatural guys are fucking GODS here.”
!!!
oh and you KNOW that my cousin Mike had to go up and befriend them and tell them about my blog. “my cousin sheila is a real writer and she has analyzed you two as though you’re the dead sea scrolls.”
// Like, I was watching TV movies where Dean Stockwell literally had one or two lines and trying to see his essence. and it was THERE. //
I’ve bought the DVD boxset of Quantum Leap, which is one of the first TV shows I ever felt deeply in love with. I never got to see all the episodes, and I haven’t seen any in… 3 decades, maybe? I’m a little scared. I’ve had the DVDs for a while but I’m waiting for the right time (probably summer depression).
hahaha Cousin Mike getting a glimpse into the SPN madness! Amazing.
Yeah, I really love how intense some of the Comic con fandoms things can get – I don’t enjoy cons, but I love shows that create this kind of reactions in fans: fanfiction, art, etc. Wynonna Earp, a little Canadian show, had/has that, and I’m in awe.
// oh and you KNOW that my cousin Mike had to go up and befriend them and tell them about my blog. //
oh my god STOP IT, that’s amazing, haha. Life is so weird.
Jared put “sheila variations” into his phone. lol !!
Hi Jared. we love you.
oh my god, HELLO MISTER PADALECKI, MUCH ADMIRATION FOR YOUR CRAFT IN A RESPECTFUL AND NOT THIRSTY WAY.
hahaha
// he seems to have been interested in challenging himself in deeper ways. //
it’s interesting about him not being a chameleon. and he’s also not a “character actor”. I mean, he’s almost 40 – so we’re looking at a 20+-something year career at this point – which is so exciting. I LOVE discovering actors on this “tier” of success. even more than hot new movie stars. It’s why the character actors of the classic Hollywood era are basically as good as you’re gonna get, acting-wise, in any era ever.
He can play a good dirtbag. He could go Appalachia or he could go street-punk. He could be skateboard-anti-chic. He could be a good redneck. He’s good-looking but in a more “generic” way than, say, Jensen. He can “hide” more than Jensen could. (Hide, in a good way.) and as we saw in Dinner in America, he’s sexy, but in a dirtbag real way. (Dirtbag is … a compliment?).
Jensen couldn’t hide – he was soooo pretty, especially as an early 20something. he is lucky – LUCKY – that Dean came along. to challenge him and toughen him and season him. and the talent is in the choice. Jensen chose to stay with this niche show, flying under the radar, where he wouldn’t be winning Emmys left and right. THAT’S his talent: he RECOGNIZED the gold mine, he totally understood what he had in supernatural. soooo many people, 95% of actors, would have left – and we’d never have heard from them again.
Yes, completely different men, completely different vibes and physiques and everything… except that both of them, when they open their characters up, it’s just SO overwhelming, how unashamed they are to show vulnerability. Basically the opposite of the trend your acting teacher friends see.
In Dinner in America, when he sees her sing and reacts to it, I can barely watch, even thinking about it makes me tear up. And of course, that’s also the appeal in Dean Winchester – there is no feeling ugly or painful enough for Ackles to find. And they both seem like pretty well adjusted dudes, kind dads, etc. I mean, you never know, but sometimes you DO know – (Health Ledger).
And yes 20+ years of work to watch, but I think he’s entering the most interesting part of his career. He played young adults way into his 30s – he was still playing teenagers in his late 20s. He’s only played a father twice so far, from I’ve seen so far (as per my spreadsheet), and one of them was a small role in which he just MENTIONS having a kid.
But now that he doesn’t LOOK so young anymore, I’m so curious about what he’s going to go to.
// He could go Appalachia //
Yeah, I’m keeping Outsiders for last because 1/ it looks like extremely my thing, and also the screenshots of him in it on imdb make me lose my mind.
Please, sir, this is too much.
Only rivaled by this (Scream).
(comment stuck in link Purgatory, but it’s worth it)
Oh so I was right about Appalachia! I’ve never heard of that. I love david morse too! (why would you name something after such an iconic 20th century book? It’s like naming something Wrinkle in Time and having it nOT be the actual Wrinkle in Time).
that outsiders screengrab – is SOOOOO dirtbag-chic.
// THAT’S his talent: he RECOGNIZED the gold mine, he totally understood what he had in supernatural. //
Yes, and to be fair, I think it was a virtuous circle: he quickly offered much more than what was on the page too – you clocked his weird sexual way of being confrontational with the Roy the guide in Wendigo, and then he’s super funny and starts showing the cracks in Phantom Traveler, and the writing adapted to all of that. Kripke is a funny guy, but I’m not sure they would have been able to push so far as Mystery Spot does in season 3 if they hadn’t seen that these two leads had incredible range and were game for all of it. And I imagine that it definitely played a huge role in making them stay this long: where else do you get to play horror, action, slapstick, dark comedy, parody, romantic lead, occasional soft porn lol (Heart), western, drama — ALL OF IT?
They’ve been in cool or okay projects since, and as much as I love them staying in the macho/daddy issues/cowboy lanes, I so want to see Jared in a goofy romcom, honestly.
// that outsiders screengrab – is SOOOOO dirtbag-chic //
Yes. It’s magnificent, isn’t it? The hair, the facial hair, the tattoos, the… everything. it’s a lot. It’s A LOT.
Jared, if you read this, I want to write a romcom for you, hit me up.
Dirtbag chic: did you mean the one from Scream? I thought the Outsiders one was more Clean White Trash, but they’re cousin genres, I guess. No?
Either way, both very much my jam.
Clean White Trash is definitely the vibe. Ash-adjacent.
// Ash-adjacent. //
hahaha, love them white trash boys. If either of these guys drove into town, listening to some Southern rock, I’d be in trouble. I’d commit crimes for them.
Well, maybe not anymore, my joint hurt, but you know, a few years ago.
// What you’re saying about young actors is so strange and sad, and also makes perfect sense. //
Yeah. Plus de-valuing anything written pre-2018. so they’re approaching everything with suspicion. it’s very anti-art. One of my acting teacher friends was like “sometimes I want to tell them to just be an advocate full time for their cause – because acting just isn’t for them” – which of course they can’t do. Granted, these people are young – but I was a young actor too – and this was just not a “thing” in acting classes when I was a teenager. Everyone was fighting to be the most vulnerable. If you don’t have talent, then vulnerability like that is irrelevant – but STILL, you need to at least be INTERESTED in vulnerability. Not everything is meant for Instagram or Tik Tok reels – it’s a real uphill battle.
This is one of the reasons why talking with Jacob Elordi was so awesome. there are still many many people who “get it” – who are not throwbacks – who are very Right Now – which I think Elordi is. He’s a very Right Now actor. and yet he loves exploring ambivalent dark vulnerabilities – and he’s quite disciplined. every project requires something different. This is definitely a larger generational stereotype – but we all are a product of our time. “My” time we were obsessed with not “selling out”. completely foreign to Right Now – where “get that bag” and side hustle are a necessary part of survival since the traditional ways of “making it” have totally broken down. Our obsession with not “selling out” was an Achilles heel, imo. But there are flip sides to All the Coins. There are people making “content” on Tik Tok who I believe are true artists – and that format is PERFECT for what they are doing. whether or not it will “translate” into the mainstream is somewhat irrelevant because the mainstream itself doesn’t really exist anymore, not like it used to. So going through mile-markers of accomplishment also doesn’t really exist. Like comics who are filling huge theatres based on crowd work clips on Tik Tok (Matt Rife) – nobody NEEDS to strive to get on SNL anymore, whereas just 15 years ago that was the goal. You HAD to strive to haul yourself up that ladder because there were no other options.
It’s an interesting thing – and those who know how to work this new system – who have taken to these platforms – I mean, it would have been amazing to have had those options back in my 20s, tbh. Nostalgia is a trap. If the internet existed when I was in my 20s, we all would have been all over it too!
But it’s when you get into serious conversations about being a serious actor – that’s when the TikTok-ification of art becomes a trap. Or social media in general – where vulnerability is often mocked. People pounce on you if you’re not perfect.
This is a side note but I follow a lot of New York dance studios on Instagram. I love to watch the dancers at work. But the Instagram-reel-ification of what has historically been a totally private space of work – i.e. dance class – has changed the vibe in the room (apparently: I hear dancers complaining about it). Suddenly a dance class is a full on performance, broadcast to perhaps millions – and it CHANGES the work, it re-wires the process itself. This is happening across the board and it’s really hard to “opt out” I imagine. It must be really hard to say “no thank you”.
// There are people making “content” on Tik Tok who I believe are true artists – and that format is PERFECT for what they are doing. //
Of course! And who get a platform they wouldn’t have gotten when you could only go mainstream or never be seen – so many people who wouldn’t have made it as comedians and who are HILARIOUS with just a phone in their bedroom. Art and storytelling are like water, they find a way. And we’re in a messy period where the main institutions and industries are in trouble, but I’m also really curious to see what will emerge from it. The number of TV shows has drastically reduced in the last years but all the writers trained to write TV and the audience still want long form stories (I know I do): where will it go? Indie stuff on Youtube? There’s GOT to be some sort of renaissance at some point, and I’m hanging on to that hope, honestly.
Whatever happens, Kyle Gallner will be there anyway.
// Suddenly a dance class is a full on performance, broadcast to perhaps millions – and it CHANGES the work, it re-wires the process itself. //
I know nothing about dance specifically, but it’s striking how there’s so little space left for genuine exploration when everything – including your romantic relationships, your kids being born, your parent dementia… EVERYTHING – is turned into a spectacle. How and when do you process things? You can’t go deep, you create while being WATCHED. Well, you can, but not sustainably, not constantly, and not every form of creation. You need privacy, you need room to be bad, to be cringe, to not have found yourself yet.
It’s like how we used to see child stars grow into themselves and how hard it was for them – going through phases, like Millie Bobby Brown is doing right now, which is very normal – but now almost every person with a cell phone kind of goes through that same ordeal?
We’re a very insane society – and I say that as an insane person.
// There’s GOT to be some sort of renaissance at some point, and I’m hanging on to that hope, honestly. //
yeah there will be. It’s hard to know how it will happen – the situation is so looped in to our current hellscape run by soulless sociopathic tech bros. I have hopes that we will “look back” on this time with horror – “remember when the industry basically killed itself making horrible choices?” audiences want good stories. look at what is happening right now with Sinners – which I havent’ seen. there are all these articles like “wow, the box office was a surprise” – when it SHOULDN’T be a surprise and you should LEARN from what is happening and stop treating it like an anomaly.
everything’s very unpredictable though. something like The Fall Guy – which I loved – was a “flop” – and it’s hard to know why. Someone like Glen Powell rising is also treated like a “surprise” – which to me is also indicative of how there isn’t insitutional memory anymore. His rise should NOT be a surprise. he’s the new hunk in town. every generation used to have one. why do we not remember what happened 15 years ago? lol it’s not THAT long ago.
// He’s a very Right Now actor. and yet he loves exploring ambivalent dark vulnerabilities – and he’s quite disciplined. //
So, do you think it’s just something people have naturally, or is there some cultural aspect that makes them more prone to resist the trend? What are your thoughts on those people who are both Right Now AND also very much doing their own thing?
I don’t know. I was just talking about this with someone the other day. I have no research to back this up – it’s purely just a FEELING, a sense I have.
Stella Adler used to say “the talent is in the choice”. this is something people REALLY dislike – (some people) – but I have found it to be true. Look at the choices people make. Yes, sometimes choice is limited and you have to make do with the material you’re given – but again look at the choices people make when the material ISN’T good (or great). Like Gallner. What is he doing when he’s a bit player? that’s where you can see it.
and then when someone becomes a star – you can see the talent in the choices they make. whether or not you like the person isn’t really the point. Leo is a good example. it’s what he did AFTER Titanic that shows his talent – although Titanic is also important. You become that famous – what do you do next?
so I think Elordi is working in that realm – the choices he makes shows what he’s about. and he came from the same Euphoria pool everyone else is coming from. But he understands the continuum OUTSIDE of his moment – he is a movie buff – and he wants to join THAT continuum. he doesn’t want to just be a Right Now person. he has a long haul in mind. and for someone like him – a sex symbol heartthrob – he has to be REALLY careful and intentional in what he chooses to do – which I think he is doing.
it’s very risky and you can’t be scared of being exposed. you have to fight imposter syndrome. which I think is more of an issue for this younger generation – just because they grew up online, and “the internet is forever”. You have to be willing to have everyone say “wow, he is over-stepping” or “I guess he’s not all THAT” or “who does she think she’s fooling??”. which again I think Jacob is doing. if you look at the choices he’s making in terms of directors he’s choosing to work with. Timothee Chalamet is doing this too. Michael Jordan is doing this. Josh O’Connor … remains to be seen … but I have hope. Ayo Edibiri is extremely Right Now and I feel like she’s really forging her own path in really exciting ways. Sidney Sweeney – I have huge hopes for her. she knows what it’s all about. and she’s a sex symbol – AND a woman. difficult. she has REALLY had to be intentional and not-give-a-fuck about the choices she makes and has taken the reins of her own career – which I imagine has not been easy to do. would be very easy to coast – and maybe even preferable! – but the talent is in the choice. I’m super impressed. Zendaya I think is a little lost. she’s also very Right Now but she seems a little blindsided by it all. Mia Goth is SUPER Right Now but also steeped in cinema/acting history – giving her a leg up on all the competition imo. she’s “it” as far as I’m concerned!
Off the top of my head comments. Lots of good work being done in a really confusing environment!
// God the invisible, the angels invisibly flapping in and out of scenes – the amazing effects of angels dying – with their huge wings impressed on the pavement – fascianting and fabulous! they truly SEEMED “supernatural”. //
Yes, you’re watching season 4, now, I think? I ache for all of that – so evocative, both visually and in the writing. Actors who could act, who looked UNIQUE – Alastair, Uriel, Anna… those people had FACES, and they could fucking act, and they were given great stuff to act. It was all so murky and difficult, and never just one thing. All characters were CONCEIVED with tension: he’s an angel but his job is to nuke a town when things don’t work out, she used to be an angel but she preferred earthly pleasures, she’s a demon who is manipulating Sam and she genuinely loves him.
Then you get “he’s English so he wears tweed lol” fucking kill me.
yes I’m almost done with season 4. I think it might be my favorite season. It’s so good with the brother-conflict – it’s really really bad. Dean is so out of control – and yet he’s right to be worried. I just watched the Adam episode – and the final scene is fascinating and disturbing. Kind of the button to the final moment of Yellow Fever – which to me encapsulates the whole season.
again there’s sooooo much plot in Season 4 but the main event is what is going on between Sam and Dean. and there’s such a progression. Dean starts to feel special and chosen and he has FEELINGS about it. he starts to feel he’s worth something but he also feels really exposed. Sam is growing in strength but … he’s a junkie. all of this is continuing to play out in season 8 and 9 – so many seasons later. they were STILL finding new ways to explore the relationship – and it didn’t feel repetitive to me. every single time this conflict comes up it is informed by what came before. that’s why the two of them settling into cliched “roles” circa seasons 13-15 – it’s so disappointing. they aren’t supposed to be static “types”. that was never supernatural. Ugh.
// he’s an angel but his job is to nuke a town when things don’t work out, she used to be an angel but she preferred earthly pleasures, she’s a demon who is manipulating Sam and she genuinely loves him. //
yes! these are real story ARCS. and having them all unfurling at the same time is so exciting – and sometimes disorienting. everything seems about to fly off the rails at every moment and they sustain it start to finish – it’s really amazing.
// they’re not interesting as a piece of historical media://
they ARE interesting as a piece of historical media
(i typed too fast, i got Gallner excited)
Thread getting unwieldy – just like the old days.
// Yes, and to be fair, I think it was a virtuous circle: he quickly offered much more than what was on the page too //
100%!! I LOVE those first five six episodes because you can see it happening. Wendigo is probably most interesting – because “on the page” you can tell Dean is Mr. Macho Tough Guy – just like Kripke wrote him in the pilot – wise-cracking, etc. But Jensen is ADDING this stuff – almost compulsively. the sexy moment with Roy, the softness with the girl – I don’t think it’s in the script yet, but by the next episode, it’s there consciously.
that’s part of the talent is the choice thing – Jensen just digging in and pouring all of his weird little impulses into this material which 9 out of 10 actors would have played on the nose. But he just WEIRDED IT UP. Love him.
I just think it was one of those one in a million things that sometimes happens – and Kripke was just blown away by both of them, you can hear it in how he talks about them. what they brought to his initial idea!
// Kripke was just blown away by both of them //
Yes! And he also surrounded himself with good writers (seasoned or not) and excellent directors, and same of the crew. The show would have not been what it is without what John Shiban was bringing his experience on the X Files, or Raelle Tucker and Sera Gamble’s existential angst. Faith was the episode I realized – wait, the pretty one is dying and I’m falling in love with that damn show!
Kripke seems really good at surrounding himself with really solid people. I can’t imagine him backing away from difficult conversations either, and that’s also probably the difference between a good showrunner and one that lets the show go to shit: when you’re steering the boat, you need to be able to say “this is a dumb idea,” or “what is going with Sam in this script, I”m gonna re-write this shit real quick,” or “this needs to be re-cast because what the fuck.”
Speaking of X-Files …
I don’t think X-Files was originally envisioned as the most epic unrequited-yearning-love-romance of all time but … that was the chemistry between those two stars – you either iGNORE it or you lean into it. it’s the kind of “happy accident” directors dream about. You HOPE for something like that – and you can only get so much from a “chemistry read”.
speaking of which – I SO WISH we had the footage of Jensen and Jared’s “chemistry read”. as far as I know, we don’t have it. we have Jared’s audition – which is so cool to watch – because what you see in the audition is basically what ended up onscreen. his instincts! his ability to just chill and be himself. He did say that at the time he didn’t really care – he came off a long spurt of working all the time, and he was into just living his life, and hanging out with his girl and his dog – I mean, he literally said something along those lines. there is something to be said for going into an audition and not caring at all about whether or not you get it.
// you either iGNORE it or you lean into it. //
How stupid it would have been to ignore it. I never cared one bit about the aliens. I love the folklore aspect (same thing that drew me into Supernatural) but I kept watching for the slow burn.
// I SO WISH we had the footage of Jensen and Jared’s “chemistry read” //
I know!!
// his instincts! his ability to just chill and be himself. //
I’m really curious about that. Because, yes, there’s this, but he also said that he prepares a lot for scenes – where, if i remember correctly (and I’m paraphrasing) Jensen Ackles learns his lines by placing himself physically in the space and after a few times he’s good to go, but Padalecki’s process seems more cerebral – and it doesn’t come across, which means it works really well, I guess. But even though he also seems like he can be fun and cool to be around, I’m not sure I’d describe him as chill — you know? So I wonder how he balances that. How are you someone with quite a bit of angst at times, but still manage to get out of your own way to be very relaxed in front of the camera?
Those latest seasons, where his character is so often paper thin, apart from what HE brings, really made me appreciate how much he did that even more — keep track of twelve, fourteen years of story. Again, it was even more glaring watching backwards, because I wasn’t even pretending to try to keep track of the plot. And watching that way made me appreciate his work even more – both of them, but him in particular, because he was cast as the protagonist of the show, and by season 15 he’s almost a supporting character for Jack and Castiel, and whoever Destiel is (lol), but he still shows up the same.
// How are you someone with quite a bit of angst at times, but still manage to get out of your own way to be very relaxed in front of the camera? //
I know. Jared amazes me actually – because he is so silly, such a prankster – with a lot of hyper energy, but then he can just FOCUS it. he can turn it on and off. I always wondered about any “hangovers” they might get from emotional scenes – but they both seem like such pros, not a lot of FUSS.
I think whatever was going on in that audition – his mindset was just “if I get it, great, if not, cool”. You just don’t sense strain or “acting” at ALL – at least in my memory of that audition. there’s no difference between him bantering with the casting director – and him reading the sides. It’s the same exact energy.
You watch it and go “oh. that’s Sam.” and so it doesn’t even seem to be an audition. he’s just chilling out and talking with the casting director and then he’s reading the sides and it all feels very low stakes in a very relaxing way. Of course there’s more to it than that ! I’m sure he prepared! Which also probably helped with how relaxed he seemed.
I wish we had Jensen’s audition!
my cousin Mike has been a showrunner on a couple different projects now, two of which originated with him. It’s an absolutely insane job. You have to please everyone. Every call is yours. It never stops. The pressure … I don’t know how he does it. He has three kids. He coaches Little League. again, I don’t know how he does it.
You have to be willing to be the Bad Guy. and like you say shoot down people’s ideas. Kill people’s darlings. and yet you also have to make sure everyone likes working there – you want to keep people with you who are good. and of course once writers get really good they want to go off on their own – or advance. so how do you KEEP people on the team? a high turnover is usually a bad sign. but keeping people together is really hard.
Kripke just sensing the roadhouse was wrong. Willing to just obliterate that entire world in 5 minutes just to avoid the storytelling trap of it. so smart.
// It’s an absolutely insane job. //
Yeah, I remember watching the doc Showrunners when it came out and be like, wow, that is bananas. And then I got some managerial jobs in libraries and was also like, wow, if I could avoid this in the future, please and thank you. haha
// You have to be willing to be the Bad Guy. //
Yeah, that’s leadership – striving for what’s best for the project overall rather than trying to please everyone. You don’t have to be a dick, in fact, it”s better if you’re not, but having no vision or not making strong decisions is equally bad.
Now, I realize that it’s all verrrry easy to criticize from the comfort of my own home when I couldn’t do a tenth of what those people do. But that also comes with the job, ESPECIALLY if you’re gonna mess one of my favourite shows.
the truly weird thing about Supernatural is that it’s not like a whole new team of outsiders swooped in to “shake things up” at the end of season 11. it was all the same people!! Dabb had been on the show since … almost the very beginning? or the very beginning?
like, he understood the show! why break it? You can innovate – you should! Sera G did! – but you have to actually love the show. I just am so confused.
Watching it backwards really is interesting – the show never “played it safe”. they let things play out taking up entire seasons – season 8 and 9, or Sam being soulless in season 6 – and a lot of people DIDN’T like those choices – but they stuck to it. maybe there were a lot of people who loved season 12-15?
Is that possible?
Yeah, but again, there’s a difference between having been there, as staff, and being at the helm. It’s so clear. But also, yeah, Singer was brought on board to second Kripke because he had no experience showrunning, meaning his job was to help steer. I guess by that point that role had changed, and so, … it didn’t happen? Like, when he was directing Patience, he didn’t wonder, what the fuck are we doing?
// maybe there were a lot of people who loved season 12-15? //
There seems to be but I also know how a vocal minority can distort reality. I think by that point a lot of people had abandoned ship. Most of my friends who like the show didn’t even get to season 10. People move on. I mean, not us, but people! haha
// 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. //
I hope you’re wrong, but… I get where you’re coming from and I’m afraid you’re right. I watched this one last night and I noticed the same thing. What makes me hope it was intentional was that during his monologue, even HE abandons himself — he does mention that it wasn’t fair to him, but when he presses on, he talks about what happened TO SAM: he lost his soul, he was tortured in hell, etc. Oh yeah, who else was tortured in hell? LET ME HUG YOU DEAN, YOU CAN CALL ME MOMMY IF YOU WANT (ew, sorry)
Also, kind okay how Smith’s blankness works, there, but sadly, more by accident than anything else. When they come back, there should be some new found connection, but the acknowledgement of all of it is in the script, she says it… and she seems to feel none of it. Given the performance Jensen gave, it’s just so disappointing.
Lyrie – hey! coming back to this now!
// sadly, more by accident than anything else. //
Yes, I agree. I think that’s the main thing I find sad. they’re not doing things “intentionally” – and JA and JP are so good they’re basically just creating subtext naturally and complicating moments (in a good way) – but … you can only do so much.
super interesting – I am now at the end of season 1. with John and Sam and Dean holed up in that cabin – and John tells Dean he’s proud of him with that whole manly JDM teary smile. and this is the “tell” for Dean that John is possessed. the fact that John tells him he’s proud of him. lol. So then I think back to the family reunion – and JDM being all tearful manly and … again I just feel like it was a missed opportunity. Like so many other missed opportunities.
Like, okay, John “comes back” – is he the John of 2005? or has time passed on his end? He hasn’t had time to reflect on his own behavior? Or has he? I just wish it had been more fucked up – you could still come to the same conclusion (teary family hug) – but have the characters work more for it. Make JOHN work for it.
Instead they just have everyone say exactly what’s in their hearts right to each other and then hug it out.
It’s so fucking boring!!
// you could still come to the same conclusion (teary family hug) – but have the characters work more for it. Make JOHN work for it. //
And you can also give SOME sort of closure without everything being neatly tied with a bow, every issue solved. Know your genre – that show is not therapy feel good. At its core is IS twisted. The need to have everything sanitized, including vocabulary and feelings… ugh, burn it.
// The need to have everything sanitized, including vocabulary and feelings… ugh, burn it. //
Burn it like Mom on the ceiling.
lol
hahaha
“It burn buuuurned my mother, and it cursed my brother, leaving us in tears” *shakes head on the beat*
“this song is a banger!” thinks Dean.
oh I love it so much
also: “that’s adam. he’s in the cage. in hell. with Lucifer.”
oops.
Ha, I was coming to your blog because I JUST heard Kripke on a podcast recommend Strange Darling, with… KYLE GALLNER, so I had to let you know about this very satisfying moment.
He also talked about how he prefers to burn things to the ground (lol, we know how literal he can be with that), his preference for not having recurring sets, etc. and it felt very validating – like YEAH, that’s why Supernatural became… not quite Supernatural. Kripke, in general, doesn’t like to play things safe, story wise, and Gamble is also very much a “let’s throw everything and trust we’ll find new things later” type of person. And then came the BORING choices.
Oh my gosh worlds collide – now they need to work together!
what podcast? I’d love to listen, Ash’s mullet!
oh my god, I would die of happiness if they did – I bet they’d get along, they have a similar energy – smart and also let’s fucking do it and see what happens kinda thing.
And the podcast is Scriptnotes, by John August and Craig Mazin. The latest episode.
awesome thanks!
If you do listen, feel free to share your thoughts!!
It was cool to hear about his experience in tv before Supernatural. He got one failed show under his belt, which taught him a lot about business shenanigans, so it makes sense that he was more prepared to deal with the “it’s too dark” kind of bullshit – although, it’s not just experience, he’s also clearly good at that type of work.
Now watching Beautiful Creatures (2013) with Kyle Gallner in a small role, and the protagonist played by Alden Ehrenreich, who was little brother in Wendigo.
It’s the theme of the day.
I somehow didn’t put that together – that Wendigo boy was Aldren Ehrenreich. I remember seeing Hail Caesar and being like “WHO is THAT.” it was one of those performances – you kind of couldn’t even believe it was real somehow? “Would that it TWERE so simple. Would that it TWEHHHH so SAYmple. Would that it tweahhhhh so SAYmple.”
Little did I know I’d seen him before!
“It’s…complicated”
hahahaha so good! So charming and movie-star handsome and real. I so remember being like “holy shit, who is this guy??”
“This is bad. Bad for movie stars everywhere.”
I haven’t seen Hail Caesar – I haven’t seen any of the Coen brothers more recent movies, which, I’ not proud of. At some point, I got so obsessed with TV I basically stopped watching movies.
But reading you, Mike and Sheila, I really want to watch it! Aldren Ehrenreich has a great presence in Beautiful Creatures – there’s an ease in his behaviour, he’s effortlessly charming.
So many actors get recognition for other stuff, like “wow, Sterling K Brown is incredible” and Supernatural folks are like “yeah, we know.” People thirsting over Walton Goggins is also very funny to me – interesting collective choice, but hey, why not – but I’m really amused by the people who talk as if he has just been discovered.
I felt this way about Alexander Hamilton. I’d been into him literally since I was in high school. it was a lonely passion for many years.
and suddenly ….
Right, it was very niche until it became mainstream. Did you feel validated, or protective of your “thing,” or both, or something else? It must have been strange, when it really became huge.
there were times when I was like, “Oh NOW you get it, I guess better late than never.”
My mother got me tickets for the Broadway show in preview – speaking of Supernatural: Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr!! – and it was absolutely surreal. To sit there and listen to the opening number with the refrain of “ALEXANDER HAMILTON” ringing to the rafters.
It was like my wildest weirdest never-will-happen can’t even imagine it dream come true.
soooo niche. and to those who DO know the history (of their own freakin country) – Hamilton was basically thought of as a wild-card grandiose enemy of all the main figures. so “sticking up for him” was not at ALL popular. Ron Chernow’s book did a lot to basically place him properly in the pantheon – and there had already been a groundswell of interest in him (particularly in 2004, the centenary of his death: there were events all over NYC, many of which I attended!) and then of course I lived for many years literally right down the street from where the duel took place. Moving from the city was difficult, even though it was the weirdo pandemic time when nothing was normal: the final place I visited before I left was that spot.
I think I’ve written more about Hamilton here than any other subject, including Elvis !
// It was like my wildest weirdest never-will-happen can’t even imagine it dream come true. //
How amazing.
Yeah, I remember, the statue. Didn’t you use to call him “my dead boyfriend” or something like that? “went to visit my dead boyfriend”, and it was a photo of the statue.
“Is it hard to dance with those bernaners on yer head”
I love how they turned this phony date into a good sweet time. He’s in awe of her.
It’s fun to go through later Coens movies looking for mirthless chuckles. (Kinda getting off the Alden Ehrenreich topic here. FWIW I actually liked that Star Wars movie he was in, but I was never a hard-core SW extended universe guy I just think some of them are fun. I know I saw Wendigo, I made it through the first 6 seasons, but the early episodes are pretty hazy. Enjoying the retrospectives & discussions here though!)
Yeah as far as I know Hail Caesar was my first introduction to him – I just had no context for what I was seeing, and he seemed so fully realized as an actor and comedian – I was like “where has he been??” He’d BEEN there, working! His “aw shucks” thing in Hail Caesar was so much fun because then it was undercut by the guy’s charm and skill – how he turned that fake date into a great time, and was really open and into her, polite, gentlemanly – like a human in the middle of all the fakery. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it but I just remember my first response – everyone else in the movie is just so damn famous and he was a newbie!
The way he sits down on the divan and then … moves over a little bit? like … the camera’s rolling, guy, you have to just stay where you landed – it looks so awkward otherwise!! soooo funny. and props to Ralph Fiennes too!
Definitely first time I saw him, since I only watched SN later. But then my movie watching is so spotty it was also the first thing where I saw Channing Tatum, so you can’t go by me. (Have since seen some of Tatum’s earlier work, I’m not a complete philistine, just slow.)
And I shouldn’t’ve said “later” Coens movies, pretty sure I was thinking of a mirthless chuckle that Tilda Swinton gives in Burn After Reading, years earlier.
I might re-watch some early Supernatural when you backwards-watchers get to the earlier stuff, but I find these days a combo of reading, baseball & early bedtime is really squeezing my narrative movie & TV viewing. If I can get through Benedetta before it leaves Criterion at end of month, it’ll be an accomplishment
I think Hail Caesar is the perfect “way in” to Channing Tatum!
Baseball season definitely cuts into potential viewing hours.
I’m feeling a little burnt out right now, to be honest, and the SPN rewatch has been refreshing, just what the doctor ordered, even the bad later seasons.
oh and thanks Mike! yeah if you were up for a Supernatural rewatch you’re in pretty safe territory seasons 1-10. or, at the very least, 1 to 6. after s10, I just can’t recommend anyone watching. which is sad.
but to mis-appropriate casablanca – at least we have seasons 1-6.
Thank you, SPN. I was there from the beginning, watching the Winchesters do their hunting thing. I sat through many a mediocre episode the last couple seasons only because I found the Winchesters brothers so engaging. Focusing on the last 3-4 seasons, I decided to stick it out until the bitter end, even while not being a big fan of Jack, revived Mary, revived Bobby and their storylines. Then there was the big build-up to the return of John Winchester which got me all hyped but I was underwhelmed by the delivery. Oh well… let’s keep hope alive.
I kept my eye on the upcoming finale, curious to see how the past 15 years would be tied up and also to witness the end of the characters who were so dear to me. I’m grateful for the beautiful scene we got between the brothers… that was enough for me to be able to handwave the poorer episode that lead up to that.
Pat – hey!
// I was underwhelmed by the delivery //
yeah that seems to be the thing . they gave us all the things we supposedly wanted but in a way where we were like “……. meh.”
It really makes you appreciate even more just how high quality and focused and connected the team was up until season 10. They made it look easy but it obviously was NOT easy!!
(Lyrie: page not letting me Reply, too many replies deep I guess.) Hail Caesar is really great. It’s only like half way a story, there is a main plot but it’s mostly an excuse to hang a bunch of old-Hollywood set pieces of various sorts. At least 3 musical numbers, 1 also dance, other water ballet, there’s a singing cowboy, a swords-n-sandals Jesus epic, rival gossip columnists, backstage drama, commies, several confused men of the cloth, even an uplifting spiritual message to end. Good stuff. (Just to name one standout performance, Tilda Swinton kills in a dual role as twin sister journalists.)
Scar Jo is great as a kind of cross between Jean Harlow and Esther Williams. I need to watch it again. I love that the commie threat is not just paranoia. there’s literally a Russian sub off the Santa Monica pier.
and Channing Tatum tap dancing. and George Clooney as this big dumb dupe of a movie star. sooo funny.
speaking of Channing – there was a fun behind the scenes video of the rehearsals for that dance number. and Channing – who clearly is an excellent dancer – had to basically absorb how to tap dance during this rehearsal period. all of the other guys were world-class tappers. he said something about how he really figured out that in tapping your feet are the percussion – whole different mind set. Normally if you’re dancing you want your feet to be QUIET. All these dancer extras in the rehearsal supporting him – it was so cool!
I’m not sure if this was the featurette I saw but it came up on YouTube so thought I’d share:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G1rI8dcD10
Yup he talks about the new head space of tapping. he thought somehow the tapping would just happen when you do the steps – but no, you are basically percussion and you have to play your instrument. it’s so cool.
That featurette is great. That’s really interesting, I never thought about how he’s stepping up into a level of dance that he really hadn’t been at before. Kind of like Oscar Isaac learning to finger pick for Llewyn Davis. And then he has to perform with all these stone-cold tap professionals. Really impressive. Would never have occurred to me he wasn’t an accomplished tap dancer
Not sure how the following anecdote ties in here, but feels related: In Mike Leigh’s Topsy Turvy, Timothy Spall as Richard Temple plays the Mikado, who has one big dance number. Mike Leigh said, Spall really couldn’t dance, but he acts so well you believe he can dance. (But really it’s the opposite since Tatum CAN dance. Similar can-do attitude though)
And a Catholic priest, and Orthodox priest and a Protestant minister cycling through like seven heresies in about 2 minutes while a Rabbi looks on appalled
hahahaha!!!
Hahaha, what a list, you two are really selling it! Not that I needed convincing, I just need to… get around to it.
I haven’t seen many things with Channing Tatum. I think only Logan Lucky – I remember nothing about it because I have a shit memory but I remember enjoying it a lot – and the romcom he did with Sandra Bullock, recently. He was really fun in both, and I love a man who is seems comfortable playing men… I don’t know how to say – not dumb men, but men who are not the brightest? But I don’t mean that in a bad way. There’s a humility in being like, yeah, I’m gonna be the hot hunk that get Sandy Bullock all hot, and that’s enough – you know?
Magic Mike XXL. It is so magical I saw it in the theatre like 4 times. it’s just so … “everyone should feel good and happy and comfortable in their own skin and we strippers spread joy and please women up and down the Eastern seaboard …” like that’s the whole movie. I kind of can’t believe it exists.
He’s very humble for being … who he is. and yeah, he’s fine with being eye candy – for women AND men. Danny McBride turning him into his masked sex slave on a chain in This is the End (which I consider a masterpiece – in my Top 10 of that year!) and referring to him as “Channing Tat-yum” is so ridiculous but it kind of gets at the whole Channing thing! I mean, that was Seth Rogan’s idea. basically ‘oh you know one of us would turn Channing into our sex slave if the apocalypse ever came.” and CT was totally up for it.
hahaha WHAT? This is the End sounds amazing. Don’t know if Magic Mike XXL would be my thing but I appreciate the idea very, very much – valuing pleasure without shame!
oh God, This is the End. It’s one of my regular go-tos – I watch it maybe 2 or 3 times a year.
Danny McBride: “He means ‘rapey’. He doesn’t want us to get rapey.”
^^ guffaw. every time.
Michael Cera hahaha
// “Would that it TWERE so simple. Would that it TWEHHHH so SAYmple. Would that it tweahhhhh so SAYmple.” //
I was crying with laughter – he’s so serious, he’s really doing his best! I had a great time, thanks to both of you, Sheila and Mike. My memory being what it is, I was surprised to see Channing Tatum when his musical number came up – what a treat!
hahahaha it goes on forever!
I love how he makes a theatrical gesture and Ralph Fiennes slaps his hand to stop him – and in the next second Ralph makes the same gesture. Oh it’s so good!!!
very glad you saw it!