Supernatural re-watch, Season 4

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 4, episode 1 “Lazarus Rising”
Written by Eric Kripke
Directed by Kim Manners
I gasped seeing Kim Manners’ name come up. Welcome to the new digitally-shot Supernatural. Supernatural is so old its first seasons were shot on film. An actual physical object. They used the Red camera in Season 4, a very very good digital camera. Feature films use the Red. This season, to me, LOOKS cinematic (although all the early seasons do). The Red gives the images a pop though. You really feel like y ou could reach out and touch the skin and the dirt onscreen. The SHADOWS sculpting the faces. It’s like magic, but it’s not: it’s the artistry of everyone involved, mostly Kim Manners who understands light and shadow, and understands these faces. Castiel entrance is such a spectacular set piece, my God, it’s still exciting- and I shake my head, completely baffled, at what angels turned into in later seasons. Honestly, once Balthazar died it was corporate MLM snoozeville. But lOOK at this character introduction. He keeps trying to say Hi and he blows out windows and blinds a woman. Lights explode. Nobody even knows there IS such a thing as angels. And Misha Collins is so intense, he’s truly “other”.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 2 “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester”
Teleplay by Sera Gamble
Story by Lou Bollo and Sera Gamble
Directed by Phil Sgriccia
We are in Dean’s Henley Era and I couldn’t be happier.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 3 “In the Beginning”
Written by Jeremy Carver
Directed by Steve Boyum
“You need to stop it.” It’s so annoying when Castiel is cryptic! This one was a total revelation on first viewing. I couldn’t even believe it was happening. There was this sense – back then – of eagerly filling in the blanks of this family history – and yet they could take their time with it. We’re in season 4 and we’re still learning new things. I can’t help but think if Supernatural came out now, all of this would be front-loaded (to be fair, it’d have eight episodes a season if it came out now). Watch Dean give Mary the warning. This is why I say Jensen is tough as an actor. He doesn’t “indulge”. He focuses on suppressing the feelings rather than expressing them, because that’s what’s right for the character. The result, of course, is that Dean is extremely emotional – but it’s despite himself. This type of acting takes a tough mindset. You can see Jensen’s toughness in operation in Dean’s little monologue of warning to Mary. Dean thinks he’s going to be able to get through it, he has no sense of how MUCH emotion will be there until it floods him. The beautiful thing about this – and about Jensen – is he the actor is in control of this. He controls what we see, what we don’t. He’s young to have mastered this much control over his own emotional instrument.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 4 “Metamorphosis”
Written by Cathryn Humphris / Jeremy Carver
Directed by Kim Manners
Moving backwards, broken record, I am always alarmed when these Sam-Dean disagreements come up, since they are nonexistent in later seasons: to kill or not to kill? What if we give the potential monster the facts and let him make the choice? So here we get all that times 10, because Dean saw Sam and Ruby doing their sex-kink-exorcism in the opener. Dean is on the warpath after that, leading to an insane fight scene where Dean punches Sam in the face, twice. Dean’s refusal to listen to what Sam is saying, his refusal to consider that maybe what Sam is doing is okay … launches us into the real VIBE of season 4, the brotherly conflict: Sam being in danger (and not realizing it), and Dean losing his shit. Here, this conflict is brought into stark relief with the “rugaru”? monster who – incidentally – tries to satisfy his hunger by trying to rape his wife, a queasy correlation made between hunger/sexual violence. Dean has no problem pulling rank. It’s interesting to watch the progression of this dynamic.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 5 “Monster Movie”
Written by Ben Edlund
Directed by Robert Singer
A fave. Those old Universal monster movies are classics and it’s so cool that they still – STILL – inspire other artists. Ahem.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 6 “Yellow Fever”
Written by Ben Edlund
Directed by Robert Singer
For me, this episode is peak Supernatural. It does so many different things, and yet nothing feels obligatory. You don’t hear the creaking of the wheels, you don’t feel the plot being presented. The “monster” is actually dangerous and puts one of them at risk. It gives the actors a lot of fun things to play. What is going on with Sam right now is all that’s going on with Dean, because Dean has no boundaries. His refusal to remember hell, or even to acknowledge it, hardens into a carapace – and this is a nice metaphor for dealing with what you’re afraid of. The honeymoon glow of realizing the angels have taken a personal interest in him has diminished. Now he’s left with panic about his own fate (and the teenagers on the corner), as well as real fear about what’s going on with Sam. You have all THAT but you also have the hilarity of Dean’s transformation, and Jensen’s overall meticulous excellence with tracking that change. It all works so well together, so much so that the final moment – when Sam’s eyes briefly flash yellow – is devastating.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 7 “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester”
Written by Julie Siege
Directed by Charles Beeson
Yet another creepy middle-aged dude who tries to be hip to the kids (he “rapped with her about her work” – gross), all while he is using and manipulating them.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 8 “Wishful Thinking”
Written by Ben Edlund
Directed by Robert Singer
There’s stiff competition, but I think the suicidal teddy bear is the funniest thing that has ever happened, not just on Supernatural, but in the history of the planet.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 9 “I Know What You Did Last Summer”
Written by Sera Gamble
Directed by Charles Beeson
Another interesting example of an Arc-Heavy episode from back in the day that also manages to stay connected to the emotional through-line, i.e. the brothers. This is all very Heaven and Hell-y, angel and demon-y – but it’s season 4, it’s all still new, so there is some excitement in the unknown. Ruby and Sam are a wild card pairing, and it took me a while to come around to Anna, but I am okay with her now. I think it is an extremely difficult role: she has to start as this cringing confused girl, but then her dialogue is all this incomprehensible stuff about grace and prison and commanders, and I think she does a good job with all of it. Anna and Ruby do a LOT of heavy lifting in this episode, and it could be a real slog, but the show still knew how to handle this shit. They forgot how to do this later. There’s a plot-dump but ALSO some important flashbacks, very different from the endless Season 8 flashbacks which take up half the season – my God, why?? Here, we are shown what we can already guess, the true nature of Sam and Ruby’s relationship. And finally: we get the butch-est scene EVER of wounded Sam and Dean stitching themselves up and drinking whiskey. It’s insane. Also insane is the sex scene between Sam and Ruby, as graphic as this fairly chaste show ever got. No wonder those two got married. Side observations: I love the sheer SQUALOR Sam is living in during Dean’s “time away”. The pizza boxes, the half-finished house – or house gone to seed – the grossness of his living conditions, a pure sign of his vulnerability to manipulation from someone who says “I can show you a way out.” Production design so on point. The details of all these different squalid spaces are so well thought out and specific. Again, once the bunker became a regular, we didn’t get much squalor anymore.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 10 “Heaven and Hell”
Teleplay by Eric Kripke
Story by Trevor Sands
Directed by J. Miller Tobin
Sam had sex with a demon and so Dean had sex with an angel. It’s only fair.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 11 “Family Remains”
Written by Jeremy Carver
Directed by Phil Sgriccia
Babar alert. The episode is dark and dirty and nasty, although I’m not sure exactly … the point? Maybe the point is it makes me happy to be back in the era when the show had a distinct aesthetic. Because it’s all about me.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 12 “Criss Angel Is a Douchebag”
Written by Julie Siege
Directed by Robert Singer
Sam was into magic? Really? Making a thematic connection between Sam and Dean and those old magician coots is a stretch. I think The Mentalists does this sort of thing much better- where Sam and Dean are immersed in a “scene” where literally everyone is engaged in the same activity which the puritanical Sam and Dean find a little bogus. They are outnumbered. But The Mentalists was funnier.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 13 “After School Special”
Written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin
Directed by Adam Kane
It’s obvious teenage Dean isn’t quiiiite right, and it’s not the actor’s fault, it’s a casting thing, so let’s just leave it at that. Teenage Dean will be much more fleshed out in Season 9 – SEASON 9 – with the whole “boys school” thing. We swing from the specter of old age in the previous episode to the brothers’ young adolescence in this one: a gap of hard road. The look on that poor teacher’s face as he takes in Jared’s (admittedly gorgeous) face, the cuts on it and bruises … and realizes what a hard life this man has had, trying to square it with the cute kid he remembered. I love when a side character gets to bring his whole life to a moment. Then there’s a stunning scene in the car on a rainy night, blurry windshield and lights, deep thoughtful conversation: gorgeous.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 14 “Sex and Violence”
Written by Cathryn Humphris
Directed by Charles Beeson
I really love this one. It’s a PhD dissertation on the gender-swamp. The audience is implicated too because you assume Dr. Cara Roberts (the excellent and captivating Maite Schwartz) is the siren. She has to be, right? She’s so overt with her sexuality. And not in your typical “performative” way. It’s not cliched: this is a grown woman who is clearly activated sexually, so much so she emanates that “I just got laid” or “I am just about to get laid” energy. It is a thing, sorry to be blunt. Sam gets the message (pheromones). If you’re not clueless to these signals, it’s apparent she’s picked him out as a playmate. So again: we are implicated. We feel like we’ve solved the case before Sam and Dean have. Sam sleeps with the doctor – in her office – Sam! – putting himself at risk, or so we assume. I’m not saying assuming she is the siren is misogynistic or even sexist: the assumption goes back much farther. We assume sirens are women, because men are the ones who wrote the stories back to antiquity. And, not for nothing, but women – or, at least, sex with women – WAS dangerous, because unprotected sex led to either pregnancy or syphilis. You took your literal life into your hands if you were promiscuous and single in the 19th century back to the beginning of time. Yes, women are blamed for these things, and that’s awful, but it’s not some weird conspiracy mystery that sexual women were looked at as dangerous (back then, I mean. If you think that way now, get the fuck out of here). Once you learn about what syphilis did to people back before penicilin, it makes you want to kneel in prayer, thanking the Lord above for science. How wonderful, how subversive, that the siren is the MAN, and Sam having sex with a woman he met an hour ago is FINE (as indeed it is fine), it’s DEAN who’s fallen under the spell. Of his new bro. A stand-in brother. But because sirens also have sexual interpretations, made explicit in the episode, Dean’s new “friendship” is a sexual seduction, and he doesn’t clock it. Sam is the one constantly being violated, but Dean – in a way – is the more vulnerable one. Why is this? Maybe because Sam knows that there ARE things called boundaries, and they are difficult but they are worth striving for? And Dean has no idea what Sam is even ON about when he talks about boundaries, and Dean finds boundaries dangerous and unsettling? Is that it? Whatever the case, Dean falls for it. It’s so good. And the infection is passed through saliva (or, bodily fluids, in general) and at one point the siren literally ejaculates into Sam’s mouth. I’m just reporting what happened.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 15 “Death Takes a Holiday”
Written by Jeremy Carver
Directed by Steve Boyum
RIP Pamela. In this re-watch, I was mesmerized by the motel room. Every surface is tempered, and greenish, like unpolished brass, maybe, or, more likely, rust-covered. Maybe it’s mold or just discoloring from age. Everything is greenish. There’s a small old TV up in the wall. The curtains are thin. There are these weird cut-outs in the wall, spaces, almost like a truncated stoa from ancient Greece, only grody and moldy. The amount of detail given to this dark weird space is so beautiful.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 16 “On the Head of a Pin”
Written by Ben Edlund
Directed by Mike Rohl
Surprisingly still difficult to watch. This is where Castiel begins to emerge as his own being, and Dean clocks the change. This, naturally, will lead to 10 more seasons of increasingly irrelevant Castiel plot-lines – but in this moment, here, now, it is thrilling and unpredictable. The show – plus Jensen, Misha, etc. – have laid the groundwork for what the angels are about. They are scary pure warriors and to have one of them go a little soft is shocking. And it’s not shmoopy, it’s frightening. Dean has his “why am I the center of attention” thing this whole season and I am here for it.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 17 “It’s a Terrible Life”
Written by Sera Gamble
Directed by James L. Conway
“The End” and “It’s a Terrible Life” are lessons taught by Zachariah. It’s his thing. Zachariah makes his entrance with a lesson. Because he is such a disgruntled put-upon middle-manager type, the corporate setting really fits! There’s a lot of fun details here, especially watching Jensen and Jared remove their Sam-ness and Dean-ness, while still being convincing while also a little bit blank-slate-y.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 18 “The Monster at the End of This Book”
Teleplay by Julie Siege
Story by Julie Siege and Nancy Weiner
Directed by Mike Rohl
Here’s the deal: If Chuck is God, then this introductory episode years before is LESS entertaining, less fun, less interesting than it was to begin with. Having some big twist like that should be satisfying, yes? It shouldn’t DIMINISH the past story, right? Like learning the Trickster is Gabriel: when you learn that it makes the original Trickster episode even MORE interesting. Or big plot twists like the one Ruby is playing this whole season, her long long con. Once you know the truth, it makes even MORE sense, and when you watch it again you can incorporate your new information and it’s even MORE entertaining once you put the pieces together. But Chuck being God makes THIS episode seem … unfinished. And that’s NOT the impression the episode gives as a stand-alone.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 19 “Jump the Shark”
Written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin
Directed by Phil Sgriccia
I include this gif because it might be my favorite part of the episode. Jensen pulling himself up out of the crypt. There’s another great motel room in this episode.

Plus: I am assuming you’d have to be Gen X to the core – in other words young enough to have watched The Brady Bunch in its entirety – to notice that the diner where Sam and Dean go to meet their half-brother is called Cousin Oliver’s. It’s so hilarious. Equally hilarious is the detail the props/production department put into that sign. Just LOOK at this beautiful thing:

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 20 “The Rapture”
Written by Jeremy Carver
Directed by Charles Beeson
Misha does really beautiful work in this episode. And it calls into question the morality of the whole angel thing. You are possessing someone else. Yes, with their consent, but you are ruining people’s lives and you’re being rapey. This conundrum is not REALLY addressed again – at least not in re: Castiel – until we get to the dreaded Hannah in her rolled-up jeans or capris or whatever they are. She’s the one who’s like “This isn’t right” and even though Hannah didn’t work as a character, when she decides to give up her vessel so her vessel can live it’s important – although really I think it’s just used to jump-start Castiel’s new plot-line, where he tries to make things right with Claire. This, of course, means we will be saddled with Claire for far longer than Ellen and Jo were even on the show. If memory serves, Dean makes some snarky comments early on about “meat suits” and Castiel assures him his vessel wanted this but … We get into the whole angel possession thing repeatedly when Michael and Lucifer come into play, which is very soon, and then of course there’s the Dean-generated debacle that is Gadreel. I think a lot more could be done with this whole angel possession thing, just in terms of the ethics of it. And because it was Hannah who monologued about the ethics we might not be inclined to listen. Because she just ruined our day with three bean surprise.

I sound stark raving mad. But I KNOW my people know what I’m talking about.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 21 “When the Levee Breaks”
Written by Sera Gamble
Directed by Robert Singer
To beat a dead horse from my Season 6 recap: I want to point out that when Alistair straps Sam into the demon-torture-table – the same one Ruby AND Meg were strapped into – SAM gets to be clothed. I see you being skeezy and hypocritical, Supernatural.

Supernatural, Season 4, episode 22 “Lucifer Rising”
Written and directed by Eric Kripke
I’ve seen fans be like “the way Bobby talks to Dean is unforgivable and I will side-eye him forevermore.” I guess I just don’t watch the show that way. The way Dean is talking is outrageous – he literally says “I don’t think Sam is my brother anymore. If he ever was.” And Bobby flips out. So he doesn’t use the language you would deem appropriate. It’s not a therapy session held between two well-adjusted therapized men. Stop being so middle-class lol. Bobby has had it with Dean’s attitude, and saying Sam was maybe never his brother is too far. Dean has tried. He has tried. This has been a very intense season of Dean trying. What I love about season 4 is I can see both sides (I usually can). I’m not a member of the Winchester Cult (or as I call it, their Belljar), and I don’t think Sam is wrong to want to assert boundaries. He KEEPS TRYING to assert boundaries – and sometimes he does so in a healthy way (Stanford) – and sometimes it’s insanely wrong (hooking up with Ruby) – and sometimes it’s hurtful – (not looking for Dean when he’s in purgatory) – but whoever said “setting boundaries” is this pleasant calm process? Especially if you were never taught the healthiness of boundaries, especially if you grew up in a Family Trio where boundaries were suspect? Sam was violated before he even had language, he was part of a family system which was like a cult, and so he broke free – awkwardly. He ran away. He had to. Going to college was the ultimate betrayal and Dean mentions it here – AGAIN. He STILL feels betrayed. So. Sam doing all kinds of things to assert “I am my own man” makes total sense to me. I mean, I don’t want him to be hanging around demons but again: when you’re not taught things properly as a kid, you’re left vulnerable.