Directed by Robert Singer
Written by Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker
Robert Singer has said openly that he is a character-guy, not a plot-guy. He was brought on early on as an executive producer, to not only help Eric Kripke make the show a success, but to also bring his expertise to bear. If Kripke had his way, it would be all-gore all-badass all the time, and he has admitted that. He joked that he couldn’t believe his name was on anything as “classy” as the “Faith” episode, but he was very very proud of it, that the story he thought up would lend itself to such a mood. Singer is drawn to the characters and relationships. He feels the plot will work itself out, but his primary focus is the relationships (and you can hear it in his commentary tracks. He points out tiny acting moments, things he can’t take credit for, but loves: “God, look at how he does that …” “Look at this moment coming up …”)
Robert Singer is my kind of guy, in other words.
Salvation is a place in Iowa but here it enters the show on not only an existential level but a spiritual one. Pastor Jim has been mentioned a couple of times, as a friend of John’s, and someone who would take care of the boys on occasion when they were young. It’s interesting to consider Sam and Dean in a religious environment. The show handles matters of faith somewhat delicately, which is funny because they pretty much lampoon religion wholesale, turning angels into bureaucratic dicks and God into a deadbeat Dad, for example. But in terms of whether or not to believe, the show doesn’t come down on either side. Arguments are made in favor of both. And the brothers get into it a bit in Season 2, a fascinating precursor of what is to come. “Faith” was the first gauntlet thrown down. A statement of purpose: We will feel free to go HERE, just so you know.
“Salvation” isn’t the abyss of “Dead Man’s Blood,” although it does have its disorienting moments, as is usually the case when all three Winchester men are in a scene at the same time. The season is racing to its conclusion now, so “Salvation” is where things start to wrap up. Meg re-enters and we know she’s always big bad news.
The mood of the episode is gloomy and grey. “Dead Man’s Blood” was dark and shadowy; “Salvation” on the other hand is heavy, looming, low grey skies, with constant rain. You can see the rain dripping on their jackets, their hair, in the puddles around them. The wet-ness has a double function. It makes the world look unwelcoming, that’s for sure, but it also works thematically. “Salvation was created for sinners,” says Pastor Jim in the teaser. Baptism is obviously one ritual connected to salvation, and so the wet-ness throughout makes the entire episode feel like it’s a baptismal font overflowing. I mean, holy water is basically poured out through the pipes at one point. So the Winchester brothers, trying to understand what the demon wants (although John already knows), are entering a world of religious symbolism and iconography that threatens to drown the world in a flood. As the series continues, the brothers worry about their souls, for good reason. Souls are left behind. Souls can have a life of their own. Souls can be damaged irrevocably. Water is life-giving, essential. It can also be destructive. It has strong symbolic properties.
The Arc of the episode is simple (unlike “Dead Man’s Blood” which leads you into a Hall of Mirrors). There’s a lot of plot here. The Colt. Meg. The demon. Sam. Sam’s visions.
But the real interest is in the relationships. You can feel it in how Singer films those relationship scenes. He presents them with loving detail.
Only one episode to go in Season 1. I can’t believe it.
Teaser
Blue Earth, Minnesota
From the town of Blue Earth to the town of Salvation. Nice work from you, Supernatural.
We start off with stained glass. Jesus and his disciples. Goblet. Bible. The accoutrements of religion. Pastor Jim (Richard Sali) stands at the altar of a small dark church flipping through the Bible. He is alone. Sudden blowing wind causes the bank of red candles to flicker. Meg (Nicki Aycox, whose performance has definitely grown on me with re-watching) enters. She says she “needs to talk.” He is open and pleasant. He seems like a kind man, the best of what organized religion may have to offer. A non-judgmental listening ear. I love the dichotomy of priest-Jim and hunter-Jim. Hunter-Jim clearly feels totally free to “judge” and kill the supernatural. I also love the image of a hunter-priest although in the wrong hands it could get all …
But instead we get this.
Meg seems truly penitent, and actually almost afraid at points, at the levels of her own bad-ness. Is there no hope for her? Echoes of Crowley later … “How … can I even begin … to look …” It’s a con, obviously, on her part, but it’s still extremely believable.
When Pastor Jim says to her, gently, “Salvation was created for sinners,” he is rewarded with a blank face. (I wrote a little bit about my love of the “blank face” school of acting here. Meg is a perfect candidate.)
Meg talks to Jim, sitting in a pew, looking up at him. She’s done really bad things. Lied, lusted. He listens. But when she says she “met a nice guy” and slit his throat, her eyes turn black. She reveals herself to him. Pastor Jim, horrified, stumbles back, and with that one movement we know he’s not just your regular priest. He calls out to her, “You’re not supposed to be here.” A church is supposedly hallowed ground. Hell, hallowed ground killed the Racist Truck, why the hell is an actual demon immune to it? Because these things only work when the plot needs them to work. Okay?
Cinematographer Serge Ladouceur films her beautifully as always, almost every shot making her into a symbolic creature. It’s not realistic framing at all. She’s got the yellow hair, the tight red coat, and darkness surrounds her figure. The glimmering red candles blurry in the background. There’s almost always the color red whenever Meg is in the frame. She stands, seeming quite menacing, saying, “Maybe that works in the minor leagues,” suggesting that there is a hierarchy of demons with increasing powers. Isn’t that convenient.
Pastor Jim runs from her, down into his basement, and then barricades himself in what is basically a badass ammo-stash room, with a wall of super-intense high-end weapons that makes John Winchester’s Batman panel look like Tinker Toys. However, Pastor Jim bypasses all that and goes for a knife, which is when little pixie Meg kicks down the door, the lights of the stained glass window streaming in around her.
Religious imagery in high baroque gear in “Salvation.”
He whips the knife at her and she catches it in mid-air, sneering, “You throw like a girl,” and I’d like to point out that the first person to make an “oooh you’re a girlie-man” comment on the show is, technically, a woman. Pastor Jim asks, “What do you want?”
Which, frankly, is a good question. She says she wants “the Winchesters.” I get a little lost sometimes in terms of what everyone wants. But I’m not a plot-girl. As long as I get the basic gist, I’m fine. I’m in it for the relationships. Meg wants to get the Winchesters because they have the Colt. She wants the Colt because it could kill her and her boss/yellow-eyed father, and she wants it out of commission.
Pastor Jim says he hasn’t spoken to John Winchester “in over a year,” and then says, “Even if I did know, I’d never tell you.”
She slices through the air with the knife, opening his throat, and in less than 5 minutes of screen time Pastor Jim had already become a character that I liked, trusted, and then mourned. Bobby is about to enter the series. Bobby has not been mentioned once. The series eventually backtracked on that and made Bobby an alternate father for the boys, a huge influence in their childhoods – something Sam and Dean obviously would have mentioned along the way, except that the writers hadn’t made Bobby up yet. It’s forgivable, but a definite glitch. There’s also the fact that John Winchester had clearly done something to so infuriate Bobby that Bobby threatened him with a shotgun at their last meeting. Just a day in the life for John Winchester. And I imagine the boys would rise and fall according to their fathers’ friendships. “Hey, whatever happened to Bobby?” “Forget him. He’s dead to us now.” “Oh. Okay.”
Very cult-like. You’re a person, and then when you’re outside the charmed circle, you’re an un-person.
The scene ends on Pastor Jim, hand over his open throat, gurgling and dying in the corner of his Bat Cave.
1st scene
Manning, Colorado
Inside the “beautiful mind” of John Winchester.
John has set up shop in the Homeland of Daniel Elkins, Manning, Colorado. He has created his command center in the rustic cabin we saw in “Dead Man’s Blood,” and here is where we pick up the trail. What’s great and spooky, though, is how the 1st scene begins. I know I go on and on about “establishing shots” (shots which show the whole room, placement of the characters), but I will keep doing so because it pleases me, and the cinematographer and directors of the show are clearly in sync on the style they want. The opening of this scene is abstract in the extreme: close-ups of different objects, the camera moving from one to the other, so you get completely lost in the collage. It starts out with a deer’s dead eyeball. If you think of serial-killer films/TV shows, often the killer’s “lair” starts out with a shot like this one. Really really close on a series of creepy objects, scarier and scarier, until finally, you can see the whole room. Criminal Minds uses this style ad nauseum, it’s part of the serial killer playbook. Go in deep closeup to the unhinged mind of a madman, see his possessions, the way he sets things up – before pulling back to let us see him.
So. I’m just saying. It’s pretty funny to use a page from the serial-killer playbook in order to “establish” the Winchester headquarters.
And, seen only in passing.
So much awesome. Notice the name circled emphatically. Hm. Maybe Sam would see that and say, “Uhm, Dad, what do I have to do with the evil Virgin Mary thing you got going on there?” And phone number for Gerry. Member Dad’s friend Gerry from Phantom Traveler, the very first episode to feature a demon?
John shows at least an echo of a very grim sense of humor with his little addition “UN” before the word “Easy.” Granted, it’s not Mel Brooks, but it’s something. Picturing him alone in the Sleep Easy Motel, drinking whiskey, books piled up, 15 voice-mails from Dean on his phone, salt poured around the door frames, and in a moment of clarity looking around him, seeing the crazy, and scribbling “UN” drunkenly on the notepad. At least that’s my fantasy of the moment.
We are buried, visually, in the obsessive disoriented mindset of the hunter. We pull down from the maps on the wall to the face of John Winchester, who opens the episode, something we don’t expect because it always starts with Sam and Dean. Not this one. It’s an intense technique, holding our beloved stars back, prioritizing John. The Colt lies on a pile of paper on the desk. John gestures at the collage behind him, and says, “This is it. This is everything I know.”
Finally we get a shot of Dean. Of Sam. They’re separated. Dean is looking down, hearing what John is saying, but not looking. Sam looks directly at John. John explains that after years of looking for the demon, a year ago he picked up a trail. Dean says, “That’s when you took off …” But again, not really looking at John, a fascinating choice. He sort of moves away, and as he does, he DOES look at Sam. Sam is really the one he checks in with, the one he goes to.
The demon’s “trail” has spread across the United States, and the pattern John discovered is that “it’s going after families.” And Mommy is burned up on the night of the infant’s 6-month birthday. Sam, who was born into this cult, remember, and has only been given fragments of information, the “need to know” thing, looks alert at that. “I was 6 months old that night?” Sam is putting it together: “So … this demon is going after kids. For some reason.”
Give this man an extra cookie.
And he then makes the leap, the all-too-common Winchester brothers leap to self-blame. “Same way it came for me?”
John, of course, knows way more than he’s telling. But we won’t even know the details of it until Season 2. Until LATE in Season 2. Amazing patience. The fact that he pauses here could be seen a million different ways, that he doesn’t answer. Meanwhile, right behind the guy is a postcard with Sam’s name circled!
“So … Mom’s death … Jessica … it’s all because of me?”
He’s pissed rather than self-pitying. But Dean must intervene with that line of conversation. He already knows where Sam is going. He knows because they’ve had this conversation before, and he knows because he would go there himself. “We don’t know that, Sam.”
A quick jagged fight breaks out. It’s the same fight they’ve been having since, damn, “Bloody Mary”, with the great scene in the car on the rainy night. It’s the accumulation of memories, it’s the fact that they have argued about it so many times already, that Dean has said over and over and over, “It’s not your fault” – it’s the repetition that makes these scenes possible. Everyone is on a hair-trigger, and ready to blow. We’ve COVERED this. Within 2 seconds, Sam and Dean are yelling at each other.
John stands and says, “Okay. That’s enough.”
I love how they obey. It’s pretty great. It’s a silent beat change.
Sam is worked up, pacing, back on topic, demanding, “What does it WANT?”
Of course, by now, John has a damn good idea “what it wants,” and he’s looking right at him.
Sam is aggressive. Dean is subdued. Everything is under control for Dean while Dad is in the room. There’s a muzzle on Dean. It brings out interesting behavior, the almost choir-boy aspect of him looking down, obedient, calm, circled in upon himself. John gives them the low-down, and you can feel the buried burn of frustration there, the sense of failure. “I’ve never gotten there in time to save –” It’s his own brand of self-involved self-pity. And it’s Dean’s job (again) to pull his father out of it and get him to focus. “So how do we find it?”
Without the other two even knowing it, Dean is managing them. At great cost, perhaps, but it’s natural to him. Ackles is so good at it. I think John and Sam, on some level, feel superior to Dean. They’re the sergeants, he’s the grunt. But he’s quietly keeping everyone in line and on point. It’s not easy, not when those two yahoos keep spinning off into psycho-drama.
So John blah-blahs about the signs that crop up in the areas where the demon appears.
Dean, unlike Sam, doesn’t fly in with a comment, but he sure has some thoughts about the new information. Watch him take it in. He looks at Sam. And then back at Dad. His face has gone soft. It’s the child. The look on his face when anyone mentions “home” (I went into that here, the small eruptions of feeling, and breaking down, when Mom or family or home comes up, even casually.)
“These things happened in Lawrence …” Dean says.
John is pretty upfront here, with both his information, as well as his emotions. The hair-trigger in abeyance. But it is also fascinating to remember how much he ISN’T saying, specifically about Sam, and watch how Morgan may be playing that as well. His feelings about Sam. The thing he will whisper in Dean’s ear in Episode 1 of Season 2. It would be interesting to read John’s current journal entries. How MUCH does he know? What is his timeline? What does he think will go down next? What is his plan? And – if Pastor Jim hadn’t bit it, and if they hadn’t had the car accident, and blah blah … what would have been his plan then? Sure, kill the Demon, and there’s a revenge element, but there’s something else. Something having to do with Sam. So it’s a very layered scene, when you consider what’s coming.
We’ve been so accustomed to just having the two guys as our focal points for the entire season. But John Winchester is the focal point of “Salvation”‘s opening scene. Dean and Sam are to the side, blurs behind him, or seen only in conjunction to him. Robert Singer is very very sensitive to relationship and the ties that bind. It is one of his gifts as a director and an invaluable contribution to the show.
Demon signs have been popping up around Salvation, Iowa. Supernatural has fun with Biblical place-names and have almost from the get-go, member Phantom Traveler? The first episode (besides the teaser in the pilot) featuring a demon?
2nd scene
A long shot of John’s Phallic Truck barreling along with the Impala behind it, and the camera moves down and we see a glorious ridiculous sign on the side of the road.
“JW” is not a book in the Bible, although it is certainly “the Book” according to the Winchester boys. The whole sign is crazy, with the Loto numbers, and the fact that the sign is on the other side of the street so it reads “Leaving Salvation” as opposed to “Entering Salvation”, and then the threatening fundie question with the British spelling, and the bogus Bible verse.
Well played, Supernatural, well played.
Next we see John careening off to the side of the road, with the Impala following.
The following is a great scene. Lots of information to impart, but the emotions are bigger than the information, and that’s the milieu I enjoy. It also just flat out LOOKS great. It’s cinematic, inventive with angles, Ladouceur coming up with different ways to suggest both the isolation of each character and the triangulation of the relationship.
John has gotten the call about Pastor Jim’s death just then, and has to pull over. We, too, are looking to John as the leader, whether we want to or not. Hell, I’d pull the Impala over as well. And instead of being holed up in a dark interior, or buried in pitch-blackness like they were most of the time in “Dead Man’s Blood,” we see them out in the world. It’s raining. They all look horrible. Singer/Ladouceur have chosen to almost completely blur out the tree background, so that the guys are all given this moody black-green-brown backdrop. That dark background acts like the dark cloths used in jewelry stores to highlight the stones.
In other words, their figures literally POP out of the screen. So the look is both realistic and grubby and poetic and symbolic.
There are all of these interesting angles, too, and they move from one to the other: Sam by the car, Dean, with John’s shoulder, Dean alone in the frame, Dad alone in the frame, or sometimes John with the blur of Dean. It makes me wonder how they filmed it. It’s clearly three angles – a couple of shots of John from Sam’s point of view. But it all is knit together into a seamless emotional whole. The variety of camera angles feels deliberate and specific as opposed to showy and attention-getting. It shows how tied together the three men are, invisible ropes binding them, the eye-lines of the camera angles acting like a thread connecting them, but it also shows how each one is wrapped up in his own concerns as well.
So let’s talk about specific moments.
As John tells them what happened to Pastor Jim, Dean and Sam are both upset and thrown. John is their anchor, the one with the knowledge, so he is the focal point, but watch, in their behavior, how much they are drawn back to one another. Even when they don’t look at one another, the magnetic pull is strong. Over the course of the season, John has stopped being the checkin-point (due to his absence) and they now need each other. Just a glance will do. “Are you hearing this?” “What do YOU think about this?” The glances are constant, compulsive. It’s relationship through behavior.
And, as always, it is Dean who helps everyone focus. “What do you want to do?” he says to John.
John’s plan is extremely elaborate, involving all of the hospitals in the area, and finding children whose 6-month birthday is coming up. Sam, rational soul that he is, balks at the thought of it. How many kids could that be? As the scene goes on, with the reverberation of Pastor Jim’s death churning underneath it (one of the few people John hadn’t alienated in his life), one can feel John’s emotions start to rise. Old griefs, old losses, helplessness, anger. And when his emotions start rising, he gets fierce, focused, and tough. Pastor Jim was innocent, except for the fact that he was connected to the Winchesters. Collateral damage like that is going to be an issue throughout the show (well, it starts off with Jess, she is the prime example of it). Totally innocent people caught in the crossfire. No wonder hunters hunker down alone.
Sam’s question doesn’t go over well, and John throws his aggression across the empty space at his son: “You got any better ideas?” It’s so intimidating Sam says, “No, sir,” with Dean in the foreground, looking over at his brother. It’s a reminder of the accumulation of witnessing, of being forced to watch your brother be humiliated, shut down. I mean, it’s not on the level of being tied to a radiator and starved to death alongside your sibling, so let’s keep some perspective, but this sort of constant belittling treatment is its own kind of hell. (At the same time, I’m also like, “Uh, yeah, Sam, thanks for sharing, but DO you have a better idea?”)
Dean, the good soldier, understands the plan and heads back to the car, and we see him in the background, with John in the foreground, who seems momentarily unable to get back into his own vehicle. The emotions we’ve felt in his voice (the emotions he struggles against) are overflowing, and he can barely move. Dean senses this, and hesitates.
Absolutely gorgeous shot, my favorite in the episode, with John in front, Dean a blur in back. It’s a work of art.
What is equally gorgeous is John’s inarticulate reply to Dean’s question. People don’t always come out with how they feel in perfect thesis statements. It’s not how human beings speak. Sera Gamble and Raelle Tucker leave a blank in the script, a compelling blank, allowing Jeffrey Dean Morgan to fill it in with behavior. John is almost in tears, and says to his boys: “It’s Jim … I can’t ….”
And that’s it.
Morgan looks both focused and a little bit insane, like a general who has been out in the jungle too long and has lost perspective. “This ends. Now. I’m ending it. I don’t care what it takes.” Along with the military idea, the moment also looks like a man propping himself up in order to keep the morale of his troops intact. It’s sincere but performative, at the same moment. I like the moment a lot, and I love the look in Morgan’s eyes.
3rd scene
John pulls up in front of one of the hospitals. His truck is still speckled with rain. Continuity. And, of course, only in TV-Land could you park right in front of a hospital’s entrance. He reaches into the compartment in between the seats and shuffles through the pile of badges there, pulling out the one he wants. While he may not be into the whole “costume” aspect of the job of hunting, he’s not THIS guy.
Meanwhile, Sam is already set up in another hospital, with a nurse bringing him a pile of folders. It’s an interior, and hospitals are usually fluorescent-lit but this is Supernatural, so we get a moody grey environment, in keeping with the rainy skies outside and the general mood of the whole episode. Her scrubs are grey. The walls are grey. He starts going through the birth certificates, jotting down notes.
And then Dean has a beautiful small scene. He enters the lobby of his hospital, and there’s a pretty woman (Serinda Swan) behind the front desk. She’s wearing a pale blue top, in keeping with the color palette of the episode, and yet it’s bright and soft, representing hope, possibility, comfort. She’s not wearing a red top or a yellow top, that wouldn’t “fit” with the colors going on throughout.
She sees Dean come in and smiles welcomingly. He sees her, and immediately is struck by her prettiness. His whole expression says, “Well, hellooooo there.” She says, “Hi. Is there anything I can do for you?” as he approaches the desk, and the question is just too perfect for a double entendre, and in the middle of the gathering storm it is, inadvertently, an “offer.” She obviously doesn’t mean it that way but Dean is sensitive to language, and says in reply, almost collapsing a little bit, “Oh God, yes”, and there’s almost a helpless pleading in his voice. It would seem gross or “too much” from anyone else, but Dean’s honesty in these hitting-on-Da-Ladies moments is WHY he is successful with women, something that resentful Nerd Boys cannot understand. And she laughs at what he says, surprised, flattered, flustered. Of course, in a normal situation he would then say, “What time do you get off?” But not today. Reluctantly, he pulls out his badge, and says, “Only … I’m working right now.”
It’s a strangely profound little moment, played for its slight comedy (“awww, look at Dean flirting!”) but, as always, Ackles brings something else to the table. The moment lasts 2 seconds and it’s RICH and multi-layered.
That vulnerability to women I keep pointing out, how surprised he is by them, touched, drawn to them, what they represent, not just sexually, but emotionally – and maybe for Dean those two are one and the same. Women also have an open-ness to him which doesn’t take on a threatening aspect, a total relief. Even in the middle of a tense situation, a pretty girl smiles and he double-takes, swoons, acknowledges what’s going on, acknowledges what he wants. It’s a quality I admire in men, the ones who put themselves out there like that. Recognize that this is coming from a woman whose most successful long-lasting relationship (with the Tough Guy I’ve mentioned before, the Dean-type, the crawling-through-the-window guy) began with him saying to her in a crowded bar, “You have no idea how badly I want to tap that.” “That” meaning me. So rude! Right to my face! I had been batting off creeps and letches since I was 10 years old, but somehow he said it without seeming like either. He was a magician, man. We had already been doing splashy-splashy for a while that night, having clocked one another as “You. Me. Hubba Hubba”, and finally we were both getting drinks at the same time (what a coincidence!) and we just stood there, and that ridiculous comment was how he broke the ice. I had to somehow remind him that I have BOUNDARIES, SIR so I walked away from him and went back to join my friends: You can’t just talk to me like that. (Of course I was psyched, too, because I wanted to “tap that” as well, but go in the right order, dude, please!) He told me later that me walking away with nary a “Goodbye” was the moment he “fell.” “You were right there, I had you, and then BOOM, you were gone.” Then began his second approach, which was far more traditional, as well as completely adolescent. It involved him basically pulling aside my good friend (whom he didn’t know at all, but had picked up on the fact that we were friends) and whispering to her, “I just scared your friend off. I didn’t mean to. I like her. I would love to get her phone number. Do you think I messed up? Do you think she’s mad?” (Do you like me? Check Yes or No.) Which … picture a big brawny guy, 6 feet, with bandana around his head, battered jeans, a pack of cigarettes unironically rolled up in his T-shirt sleeve, anxiously whispering to the friend of the woman he just hit on with a RAMPANT lack of success. Anyway, it all worked out, albeit with its own vocabulary. I was messed up and wild and had just come out of my first relationship, which had a dynamic reminiscent of the one in Sleeping With the Enemy. He was tough and cranky as hell, yet completely uninhibited and free, as well as gentle and a total pussy-cat in a lot of respects, and also running from a terrible trauma that had completely altered the course of his life. He and I ended up lasting for years. Listen, courtship makes sense only if everyone’s into it. And “You have no idea how badly I want to tap that” was the “beginning of a beautiful friendship” so go figure.
That’s all part of my own personal experience of my “filter” for Dean. And I’ve got an even more personal “filter” for Sam, and that has to do with my mental health, and being “the sick one” and “the one” everyone was worried about (and for good reason, but still: no fun at all). These are personal essays in many ways, although re-caps as well. You can skip the personal stuff if you don’t care for it, but I’m bringing to bear all of that stuff when I watch the show, AND it was one of the ways it drew me in. I was Dean in a lot of ways, back then, and attracted a lot of crazy attention in my 20s – some good, some really bad – people all up in my grill – and my Tough Guy was Dean-ish too. It’s part of the reason why my filter for Dean is not “victim” but “survivor.” It cuts pretty close to the bone. The relationship didn’t last forever and we knew it probably wouldn’t, but it sure met our needs and gave us both safety, comfort and total trust, something neither of us found easy or even plausible to expect from life. It’s all eerily familiar. One of the most interesting things about Supernatural IS that as specific as it is, it is also broad enough that all of these disparate people can watch it, with their own individual filters, and see/get different things. It’s rather remarkable.
On a larger level, an Arc level, the moment with the pretty girl in the hospital takes on a lot of meaning in terms of character. Dean is a driven workaholic, and will not drop everything to bang a broad in a broom closet. He has some self-control. There’s a funny scene in Season 2 when Sam gets wasted and Dean scolds him, “Dude, we’re working a case right now.” Dean works hard and plays hard. He compartmentalizes, and for him that is healthy. Women are responsive to his open-ness, they don’t PUNISH him for being open. His dangerous life makes these things even more necessary for him. And yet repeatedly he has to walk away from such comfort. You see his whole life, really, in that regretful look as he pulls out his badge.
There’s a world-weary-ness to him that is touching. It’s hard for him. He manages to get a tiny bit of flirting into the moment, which is not a surprise, since Dean would Bat his Eyelashes at the Black Hills of South Dakota if the moment was right. Flirting makes the world seem kind.
He could “have her” if he wanted to. He knows it, she knows it. He assumes it, and yet he does so in a friendly way – which, again, should not be attempted by amateurs. And you’re sad for him. Not just because he can’t take Miss Blue Shirt out for a drink. She’s irrelevant in the long run. But because of what his entire life demands of him, and what he gives to that life without question.
4th scene
Research project complete, Sam emerges from the medical center, engrossed in his notebook, when suddenly flashes of unconnected images – a night lamp, a freakin’ clown (poor Sam – “why’d it have to be clowns …”) – come fizzling into the frame. Sam stops in his tracks, wincing with pain, hand to his head. He hasn’t had a “vision” since “Nightmare,” 7 episodes back (also written by Gamble & Tucker). His ESP thing hasn’t even come up recently, whereas when it first started happening Dean referenced it all the time, usually in a jokey way, as though joking about it could make it go away.
The unconnected images coalesce and we see a mother (Erin Karpluk) holding a baby in a dark nursery. She puts the baby in her crib, and the scene fizzles a bit, jump-cutting forward, reminding us it’s a vision, not an actual scene going down in real time. We see a closeup of the woman’s face, and Sam is suddenly back in the moment, worn out and freaked, but the vision has ended.
Maybe Sam had hoped the “visions” would go away too. Wouldn’t you? Sam hasn’t quite analyzed what is going on with his visions, and its all exacerbated by the fact that Dean is uninterested in discussing them seriously, he’s too afraid of them. But here, we start to see the pattern. We start to see the connections.
Sam, thinking it’s over, rubs his face, looks around, and, like Dean in the scene with the Pretty Blue Shirt, he looks very young. And suddenly, the images are back, the pink night-lamp, the woman in the nursery. There’s a glimpse of a dark figure against a window. Then we see the woman, from outside her house, pulling aside the white curtains to look out. A train whistle sounds.
Then it’s really over, and Sam is returned to his body, heaving for breath, as the rain falls around him . The vision was strong, and Sam respects it, because it’s always been “right” before. He doesn’t stop to wonder what it means. He heard a train whistle in the vision, so he pulls out a map from his backpack, and Singer chooses to pull back, seeing Sam from further back, with some obstructions in between us and him, so we have to peek around them to see him. It’s an elegant and simple choice, making Sam seem lost in the larger world, life going on around him, ignorant of the unfolding crisis. The local map shows the train tracks running through town (right along, whaddya know, “Grace Avenue”), and he hurries off. The music is the “mournful emotional” music, not the “ominous and urgent” music. The “mournful emotional” music, involving an eerie sad piano, and some strings, shows up when the brothers are connecting to other characters (and feeling how these characters inform their own lives). It is music of the Past.
Sam hustles through a park, holding the map, heading for the train tracks, for Grace Avenue, to see what he can see. He stops to check the map and then, dammit…
Go away, pink night-lamp! Leave me in peace! The vision recommences where it left off, with the woman looking out the window. Again, with the dark figure glimpsed in the nursery. And back to that dad-blasted pink night-lamp, the anchor of the vision. At this point, Sam could be forgiven for getting a little frustrated. “Can you show me a little bit more, please? I got it, I got it, there’s a pink night-lamp, but WHAT. ELSE.” The vision fizzles to an end again, and Sam is left wracked in the aftermath. I like how Padalecki plays the visions as an actual physical phenomenon, like an epileptic seizure, a spasm of nerves that leave him tenderized. With each vision he is more decimated. They seem to actually hurt him, physically, a nice touch.
It’s pouring rain. You can hear it hitting the ground. It’s the soundtrack to the whole episode. Sam moves on to the nearby Avenue, and immediately sees the house he saw in his vision. It’s a bit too perfect, that, you know, it’s the first house he sees, but we only have 40 minutes to nail the episode, so some sacrifices have to be made. It’s also a bit too perfect that here comes the mom he saw in the vision, walking down the street with a baby carriage. How amazing that she happens to be right there the second Sam emerges from the park! Not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, especially since there is already so much rain in the episode.
Sam runs over to the young mom and baby and if I were her, I would have shouted, “STAY BACK, GIANT!” But he offers her help, so she can close her umbrella (a funny line from him, “Looks like you don’t need that anymore …” Ah, Vancouver weather, and having to quickly justify its fluctuations!), and he seems like such a nice guy that she is not alarmed by his intrusion on her boundaries. I can’t help but think that Dean, sweet as he can be, would completely eff up this interaction. Sam, though, doesn’t. He says, “Sorry, I’m rude … I’m Sam … I just moved in …” Sam, awkwardly, flailing about, tries to keep the conversation going. “She’s such a good baby!” he announces. I mean, I feel for him. How do you immediately interrogate a woman about the baby in her carriage without seeming like a A-1 Top-Level Creepazoid?
But the young mom, Monica, is happy to talk about her baby, and says that yeah, she never cries, she just “stares at you”, and “sometimes it’s like she’s reading your mind.”
Okay, Supernatural, relax now with the connections, you might hurt yourself.
Monica does seem anxious to, you know, get to her damn house which is right there, but Sam keeps it going, “Have you lived here long?” You can see the anxiety in his eyes. How can he get her to say what he needs her to say? He saw her in his vision. He saw that dark figure in the nursery. And, bless her, Monica cooperates, saying that “Rosie is 6 months today.” Monica is proud. She thinks she’s having one kind of conversation, and her expression changes when she sees Sam’s sort of all-over-the-place reaction. He laughs at what she says, but it seems forced, he glances down at the baby, seems troubled, lost in thought. I mean, put yourself in Monica’s shoes. You’d be like, “Oh, grrrreat. A kook has moved into the neighborhood.”
Mournful piano music again. The music of both connection and loss. That little baby girl in the carriage IS Sam. And he’s looking at a sweet young mom, and she IS Mary. The sword of Damocles hangs over the family.
Monica looks up at the strange guy, waiting for him to continue speaking, a little bit confused, a little wary. It’s the flip-side of Dean’s glimmering flirtation of possibility in the hospital. Both guys are showing more than they are telling. And notice: the women are kind about it. Women are on the periphery of Supernatural, for the most part, and you can see how these guys need women in their lives. Not just as sex partners. But as emotional counter-balances. Jeez. It’s essential. There’s a little bit of all of that in Sam’s face.
Sam can’t warn Monica. He knows he already seems a bit crazy. So he just says, “Take care of yourself, okay?” Seeming happy that the awkward moment has passed, Monica says, “You too, Sam” and moves on with her life, going to meet “Daddy” who just pulled into the drive. Sam stands and watches, Dad coming out of the car to kiss wife, baby carriage in between them, another happy threatened family like his own. And if I were Monica, I’d be like, “Honey, why is that guy standing at the end of our driveway watching us?”
Meanwhile:
Sam almost doubles-over in pain. The vision clarifies itself. There is a clown hanging from the ceiling. And please: look at the shadow it casts on the wall. It’s inadvertently hysterical.
The clown slowly circles and catches the light, all the colors bleeding out with the reflection, making it look murderous and sentient. Objects seem alive, in other words, which we’ve seen in other similar scenes, especially in the teaser in the pilot, with Sam’s nursery objects hovering there, static, in a state of waiting. The door, with the crazy shadow-clown on it, slowly opens, and there is a gust of wind, setting everything in the room in motion, mobiles and shadows. We see the baby in her crib, the camera moving towards her, a shadow looming up and over the slats. Monica, in her nightgown, opens the door to the nursery, and sees the black silhouette by the crib, same as Mary Winchester saw. She gasps, and suddenly she is pinned back against the wall, and then, awfully, we see what happened to Mary, to Jess. So far, we have only seen the end result, the women pinned to the ceiling. Now we see how they got there. And it is terrible. The issue with a lot of CGI stuff is that while CGI can do anything, there is still sometimes a slick-ness or perfection to the images that creates a distancing effect in the audience. We just somehow know what we are seeing is not real, so some tension is lost. But Monica going up the wall looks real. It’s awkward, terrible, her head bumping against the ceiling. It is so frightening.
Rosie, sucking on her pacifier, stares up at the new mobile she’s got going on, her crying mother on the ceiling, and the camera swirls around beneath Monica, blood opening up on her stomach, and droplets falling towards the camera. Brutal.
Monica is screaming. The room bursts into flames.
5th scene
An important family scene. The Winchesters have booked themselves into a crappy dingy motel in Salvation. The wallpaper in the kitchenette looks like thwarted muddy sunrises, or a phalanx of second-hand vinyl albums. Sam is seated at the table in the kitchenette, rubbing his head, and slowly we see John and Dean sitting on the beds in the bedroom area, their poses identical, backs hunched over, hands crossed, looking over at Sam.
You know Sam headed back to the motel, knowing he was going to have to tell his dad and his brother about the vision. And you know he dreaded it. He would dread it if it was just him and Dean, but he dreads it even more because … oh God. What the hell is Dad going to say about this semi-new development?
I get a bit overwhelmed in scenes like this, because there’s so much behavior I can’t decide what to focus on. So I watch the scene multiple times, and one time through I ONLY watch Sam, and one time I ONLY watch Dean, and one time I ONLY watch John. It’s a good way, too, to watch how each actor meticulously tracks whatever thru-line he’s playing, because it’s different with each one.
Sam patiently, holding back his anger at being questioned and doubted, says he saw the demon and he saw a woman burning on the ceiling. Watch Dean randomly futz with his coffee cup in the background. He needs more coffee. His cup is empty. Sam is psychic. Dad’s here. Dean’s hating life.
But Sam is halfway incapacitated, and John’s anger is churning around, so Dean has to try to manage the event of the conversation. He stands up, and heads to the kitchen with his coffee cup for a refill. “At first we thought they were nightmares, but then they started happening while he was awake.” His voice is quiet, calm, unemotional, just telling the facts, like a doctor giving a diagnosis. It’s a way to survive the psycho-drama of the other two. Maybe if he is quiet enough, everyone else will calm the fuck down. It’s great because he was totally like John in those early vision episodes – pissed, freaked, and almost blaming Sam for having visions. Everything changes when John re-enters. Dean goes into neutral gear. And yet, if you notice, that neutral gear is subtly on Sam’s side. It’s not a coincidence that Dean gets up at that moment and moves away from his dad. Yes, he needs more coffee, but it is also a moment when he joins Sam on Sam’s side of the room. Blocking should be motivated like that.
Sam starts talking, and we see both “boys” (they’re not boys, they’re men, but whatever, the show insists on calling them boys so I’ve gotten into the habit) from John’s point of view. Seen psychologically (as all good camera angles should be seen), they look very far away from John, way over there. They are both busy doing other things, not looking at him, Dean’s back to him, Sam’s head in his hands. John isn’t LOSING control of his sons, he’s LOST control. It’s a nice point of view shot that highlights how together the brothers have become, how, more often than not, it’s now two against one. Those alliances and loyalties shift, and every scene with these three guys in it is a dizzying disorienting muddy slope, with glances, and pauses, and silent stuff filling up the gaps. Everything is in a state of constant FLUX, and that, above all else, is what John Winchester can’t stand. Like all cult leaders and dictators, what he yearns for is total stasis. Stasis is, naturally, impossible, in life, Unless you are a marble statue. But even a marble statue is deteriorating as we speak. Life is movement. Stasis does not exist. Look out for those who yearn for it, especially those who cloak it in a “happy ending.” They’re the really dangerous ones.
I’ve written before about Dean being a fantasist, something it’s hard to perceive at first because he is so rational and only believes in what he can see. But we saw in “Shadow,” that his dream is to “be a family again”, with Sam, Dean and Dad. Not sure what glory days you’re referencing there, pal. There were no glory days. It’s all in your head. I don’t blame him for that, we all have “castles in the air” that help us keep going, keep the faith. But his “be a family again” thing from episodes ago starts to look incredibly sad as Season 1 comes to a close, because it’s based on so little. It’s sheer HOPE on his part, that’s all. Dean has invested his life, his heart, in something that is quite hollow. (This is cult talk. It is difficult for long-term cult members to “get out,” not just because their movements are controlled by the leader, but because, psychologically, it is unbearably painful to admit that you have invested so much of yourself in something that is empty. I am almost word-for-word quoting Jason Beghe’s famous interview about his extrication from a cult, easily findable on Youtube in its entirety: he put it so perfectly, and understands it so intimately that it applies here.)
But my point is: John is a fantasist, too. We’ll see that really clearly in a second.
Sam is saying that whenever they get close to anything involving demon, the visions get stronger. Dean is Mr. Coffee Man, and John, 10 miles away on the bed in the next room, says, “When were you gonna tell me about this?”
Notice, he looks at Dean when he says that, not Sam, even though it’s Sam’s news, Sam’s visions. The eye-lines are quite clear. (If you want to hear me ramble on about the importance of eye-lines in terms of letting audiences know where we are in space you can read this piece. But it’s also here, in the fact that John’s eye-line is clearly not at Sam level, but at Dean level. And we the audience know that because in the shot before this one, they established where everyone was. Maintaining proper eye-lines is one of the most important jobs in cinema, and they often maintain proper eye-lines with graphs, charts,and geometrical drawings involving vanishing point, etc. If your eye-lines are effed, you lose clarity. You lose the sense of who’s talking to who, who is where. Ackles and Padalecki probably aren’t even there when John looks over and up at Dean. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is looking at crewmen and cameramen and a pre-chosen “spot” for his eyeline, meant to be Dean. Nuts-and-bolts, kids. Love it.)
John demands why Dean didn’t tell him about Sam. It is Dean’s job to keep Dad informed (only in John’s fantasist world, however, because he never picks up the phone). His reprimand of Dean is an acknowledgement that there is some distance between Dad and Sam, and Dean is the communicator, the conduit. Imagine Dean growing up and having to listen to Dad complain to him about Sam, and also listen to Sam complain to him about Dad. Bunch of whiners. Honestly. To quote Dean in “Dead Man’s Blood”: “Terrrrific.” Or, even funnier: “This all sounds like Sad Times at Bitchmont High.”)
Helena pointed out in the comments section to the “Dead Man’s Blood” re-cap how John Winchester uses the phrases “your brother”, in particular during the fight with Sam on the road (“your brother and I needed you”) – it drags in Dean, even though Dean has nothing to do with it. Hey, John, why don’t you just say “I” needed you – see how that feels, it feels more vulnerable, doesn’t it? And here comes another “your brother”, only now it’s lobbed over at Dean. “If something like that happens to your brother, you pick up the phone and call me.”
Immediately, any discerning viewer will know the line is ridiculous. Unfair. I love that it is so, and although it certainly launches Dean into his next moment, a very important one for him, why I love it is that it cuts John down to size. He cuts himself down to size through his own sloppiness. Gamble & Tucker are no dummies. They write him very well. In general, John is written very well. In a way, the entire performance is a giant cover-up. Of the secrets he’s keeping, for sure, but also of his sense of vulnerability and helplessness. The cover-up is sometimes seamless, and sometimes it is sloppy. That one comment from John is the sloppiest he has gotten. I realize quoting myself is obnoxious but here goes: In Metallica’s 3-D concert film from last year (which I loved) there’s a plot-line involving a skinny kid in a hoodie facing down evil malevolent forces, giant reapers on horseback, for example. In the review I wrote:
Trip, as played by Dane DeHaan, is a skinny kid in black jeans and a hoodie. He is overwhelmed by forces larger than him. He is not physically strong. He is an outcast. James Hetfield may be a tattooed rock god, wearing all black and a bullet belt, stalking around on a stage the size of St. John the Divine like he owns the joint, but he still identifies with guys like Trip. He identifies with the outcasts, the scared kids of the world (“Enter Sandman.” their most famous song, features a child’s voice praying), and Trip is the stand-in for all kids who feel like they don’t fit in, who are scared and feel powerless, who find strength in music like Metallica’s. That’s when the device stopped feeling like a device and felt like an expression of the band’s identification with its own fan base, with the guys they used to be.
The whole heavy metal soundtrack of Supernatural work on multiple awesome levels, symbolic and emotional. Much of that type of music has to do with evil, hopelessness, and sometimes, flat-out Satanism. But as I also wrote in that Metallica review:
As macho as Metallica’s collective stage presence is, what they tap into is a very dark place where they are alone, helpless, and isolated. Music critic Steve Huey once observed that “in one way or another, nearly every song on ‘Master of Puppets’ deals with the fear of powerlessness.” That’s where the rage comes from.
And that’s John Winchester, in a nutshell.
It’s also Sam and Dean, but they are younger, they still have some emotional flexibility. But just wait.
One of the subtle little tricks the show has pulled off is almost invisible, but it’s something I come back to again and again: In the phenomenal episode “The End,” we see Dean 5 years in the future, post-Apocalypse. He is now the head of a compound, and has changed in ways both subtle and hugely obvious. It’s the look in his eyes, the placement of his voice, the cautious wariness in his aspect … the open fluid vulnerable Dean of the present moment has vanished. Some aspects remain. The sex drive, obviously. The willingness to get the job done. In the commentary track, I think it was Singer who said that Dean, 5 years in the future, is “emotionally truncated,” a GREAT phrase. But what I’m getting at is: Dean and Sam end up averting the Apocalypse. Yay! Good for them, party hats all around! Sam does not wear a white suit and white shoes and loll about in a garden in Detroit. They saved the world. The future, as seen in “The End,” does NOT come to pass. HOWEVER: Dean has become AS “emotionally truncated” as we saw in “The End.” He didn’t NEED the Apocalypse for the truncation to occur. It occurred all on its own, through the constant rigors of the job, the whole Lisa-Ben debacle, his year in Purgatory, and every other setback. Zachariah “showed” Dean what life was like 5 years in the future to warn him. Dean got that warning, made up with Sam, and together they stopped the Apocalypse. But the worst has come to pass ANYway, and the Dean we see now, exactly at the time that “The End” took place, 5 years on, IS the Dean we saw in the vision. So the whole destiny conversation takes on fascinating and disturbing shadings, because Dean couldn’t stop himself from becoming who he saw in that alternate universe, and here he is, he is that guy, and it’s a connection the show has never addressed outright (and neither should they). I think it’s fantastic. One of those invisible thru-lines that exists, and is there, should you feel the desire to pick up on it.
Dean cannot ignore John’s comment. He cannot say “Yes, sir” although he knows he’s supposed to. It’s unfair and he’s pissed. “Dad, I called you from Lawrence. Sam called you when I was dying.” “Faith” seems like a million years ago by now, and Sam’s phone call and nail-biting aftermath feels like it happened in another universe. So far nobody has called John on his lack of response. No one has made a peep until now. The truth of the moment is so unassailable that Sam looks away (I probably would, too), his face buried in shadow, and John can’t respond. You see him want to. You see him hate Dean’s tone, and you see him hate that it is Dean who is taking that tone. But you can’t argue with truth. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if John had fought back, with excuses and explanations. It would have been interesting to see how Dean would have handled it.
As it is, John says, and it’s pretty major. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Which sort of leaves Dean hanging out to dry, similar to the moment at the end of “Dead Man’s Blood,” when he asks his Dad, “I am right?” He’s not sure, he doesn’t trust. You can see Dean hovering there over John, his arms dangling uselessly, fingers on his right hand flicking about. It’s almost worse to have John take the scolding.
And John, because he’s John, can’t resist adding, “Although I’m not too crazy about this new tone of yours, you’re right.”
Sam has literally screamed in Dad’s face at the top of his lungs, but it’s DEAN’S tone that is the problem. It puts Dean in a box. No wonder he’s an unrepentant floozy when he gets the chance. No wonder he melts, almost visibly, when Pretty Blue Shirt smiles at him openly. Acceptance. He is let BE by friendly women who find him sexy. Or … he understands that they want something from him, but unlike everyone else who wants something, this he can provide with pleasure. And they’re happy about it. Everyone wins. This is where I identify with Dean. I’m a floozy too, and for similar reasons. But Dean is 27 years old. To criticize him on his “tone”, especially when he’s “right,” is so controlling. But Dean takes it.
It’s great family stuff.
Even better, Sam interrupts from the background in a tired annoyed voice. The standoff has gone on long enough. Also, you can imagine he’s thinking, “Jeez, guys, I’m still in the room, and I’m the one who just had the super-important vision, can you both put your damn cocks away and pay attention to ME?” These men, honestly. Sam says, “The demon is coming tonight – and this family is gonna go through the same hell we went through.” Sam speaking breaks the spell Dean is under, caught in his father’s attention, and he moves back to the coffee maker.
Sam’s phone rings. Sam picks it up, and we hear a smiling chirpy voice, “Sam??”
Sam asks, “Who is this?”
And then we see Meg, the game-changer, the wild card, the one that the Winchesters thought was just a regular messed-up girl in too deep who fell 7 stories. That was ages ago. Meg is stalking around in what looks a basement, and there’s a similar fancy-shmancy gun rack on the wall. She’s the only figure we see, we have no idea where she is, although it looks like Pastor Jim’s basement.
Sam says, “Meg,” and John stands up.
Sam: “Last time I saw you you fell out of a window.”
Meg (cooing): “That hurt my feelings.”
Sam: “Just your feelings? That was a 7 story drop.”
Then, alarmingly, she says, “Let me speak to your dad.”
John seems to already know that she was going to say that and has moved towards Sam, but Sam lies, “I don’t know where my Dad is,” and Meg says, vicious, “It’s time for the grownups to talk, Sam.” She knows Sam’s weak spot. After all, he told it to her at the bus station in “Scarecrow.” John, shadowed and grim, grubby and unshaven, looms over Sam, and takes the phone. Wonderful shot of all three men in the same frame. Beautiful. Look how grubby the surroundings, and how they pop out of it. All the colors are right, drab, grim, military camouflage.
Meg is enjoying herself. John moves away from his sons, listening to her describe how “Jim Murphy choked on his own blood,” a line that hurts.
“Today I’m in Lincoln,” she says, and as she circles the room we see a man (Josh Blacker) in the foreground, tied up, gagged. “Visiting another old friend of yours.” She rips his gag off, and the guy blurts, “John, whatever you do, don’t give them–” She grabs the phone back. John is at attention now. Lincoln. The voice. He says, “Caleb?” and Dean and Sam look alarmed and tense in the background. We’ve gotten to know Caleb too, only through Dean mentioning him. Dean called him for information on the Daeva. He seems like a good guy. But he’s toast. Meg says, “We know you have the Colt, John …” and John pauses before saying, “Nevah heard of it” basically, which she fully expects, and then, quickly, with almost no preamble, slices Caleb’s throat open. We don’t see it, but we hear him gurgling offscreen. Watch her face right after. I find it very interesting. It’s not gleeful. It’s something else. Remember who she is, remember what we learn in the next episode. I think that’s what we’re seeing.
But it’s gone in a flash. She’s back to John, “That’s the sound of your friend dying. Now let’s try this again. We know you have the gun, John. Word travels fast. So as far as we’re concerned, you just declared war.”
Hilarious. The war really doesn’t have anything to do with the Colt. I mean, it DOES, but not REALLY. You know. Kinda like this.
It’s important but only as an instigator and a focus-point. The game obviously is much bigger than getting the Colt back, although, yeah, it would help to have it out of circulation. But the real game has to do with all those infants, and burning Mummies, and drip-dripping dirty blood.
“War has casualties,” Meg says, and we see Caleb’s dead face, it’s pretty awful.
John is now framed through the cheese-ball cut-glass wall separation in the hotel, a striking and dramatic image, making him look like he’s in a triptych in a church or something. Sam and Dean are nowhere to be seen.
He says, “I’m gonna kill you,” and her response is, “John, please. Mind your blood pressure.” She knows his weak spot too. My “take” on John here is that he does not come off well. I keep going back to that comment from Bobby later in the show when he says to Dean, “You’re a better man than your father ever was. And a better hunter.” Dean can’t accept it, of course, but like Meg says later, I’m a little “underwhelmed” by John, especially after all the gaga-eyed commentary from Dean throughout the season. It’s another way I realized how unreliable a narrator Dean really was. John is playing a different end-game, it seems, than the one he’s revealing to his sons. I’m fascinated, basically, by how incompetent he comes off. It’s not immediately apparent, because Morgan is such a strong presence, and Dean and Sam are pretty much in thrall.
So she tells him how it’s gonna be. Unless he hands over the Colt, she will kill all of his friends, one by one. It’s astonishing he has any friends left, but that’s beside the point. It’s enough of a credible threat that he pauses. He’s framed repeatedly like a religious icon, a gleaming face from out of a blackened ancient church wall. John finally says yes, he will bring the Colt, and she gives him the address to a warehouse in Lincoln, at “Wabash and Lake.”
Listen, you can’t kid a Chicago girl. Well, I’m not one anymore, but I didn’t leave my heart in San Francisco, I left it in Chicago, and Wabash and Lake are Chicago streets, sister. And of course those street names were used specifically in The Matrix, which had nothing to do with Chicago, except that the Wachowskis were raised there. So it’s a nice association, if you pick up on it.
She tells him to meet her there at midnight. They are currently in Iowa. He won’t make it in time “and I can’t carry a gun on a plane,” the clearest explanation ever as to why hunters drive everywhere. “Yes, I’d like to check my cross-bow, please.” “Can I take my Colt in the carry-on?” “At least my holy water is in TSA-approved bottles, right?” Meg doesn’t give a shit. Oh well, then your friends die. She hangs up on John, and there’s a cold-hearted button to the scene, where she looks at Caleb, his throat open, blood soaking his shirt, and that awful open-eyed stare of death on his face. Her comment? “What are you looking at.”
She’s a tiny blonde thing but she is heartless and she’s better than John, that’s for sure.
Back in the motel room, Sam is asking about his “friend” from the side of the road, “So you think Meg is a demon?” and John answers, “Either that or she’s possessed by one.” The ins-and-outs of demon possession are still a new thing to Sam and Dean, and that qualifier “or she’s possessed by one” will come into play, big-time, at the end of the next episode.
Dean, again, is the forward-mover, the one who tries to focus the group: “What do we do?”
John’s decision, to go to Lincoln, is greeted with alarm by both Sam and Dean. But he doesn’t “have a choice”, and then, woah, shot of two gigantic Winchester heads.
Now comes John being what I would call dense. Your mileage may vary. He says that no, he’s not going to hand over the Colt, but he will hand over a fake one, since “besides us and a couple of vampires” no one has ever seen the Colt. Like I said, I’m not a big plot-girl, but this seems pretty weak to me. And it seems that of COURSE the demon will “test” it on someone before letting John go. Sam and Dean both don’t think too much of the plan. They’re both asking questions now, and their voices are tense, almost scared. Events are moving quickly, too quickly to catch up with, and they are both so accustomed to Dad as Leader that it throws them into a tailspin of alarm. If it were the two of them, they might argue, and all of it would SUCK, but they would hash it out.
There’s a beautiful shot of Dean listening to John’s plan of buying a Colt at an antique store. Dean doesn’t respond right away. But his face says it all. He’s angry, but there’s more going on there. He doesn’t think the plan is smart. John may be reckless, but he is always smart. (At least, according to Dean.) So Dean looks … thrown … just a tiny bit by … what Dad is giving off, the stupidity of the plan.
“You’re gonna hand Meg a fake gun and hope she doesn’t notice?” Dean asks.
John says, “As long as it’s close, she shouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
There’s an interesting transference of energy going on. Sometimes it’s best to not label, because then all you can see afterwards is the label. I like to keep the moments open to ALL their possibilities. Moments don’t have to be one thing. The best moments have multiple “things” in them, and you can turn up the frequency on one of the “things” and that’s all you hear, but turn down that dial and turn another one up, and another meaning comes pouring out. It’s why it’s fun to re-watch the show. John is subsiding a bit, which is odd and different from our conception of him (and remember, we’ve really only seen him through the eyes of his sons – we’ve HEARD more about him than we’ve actually seen him in action) and Dean is rising. It’s almost like they are one being: and Dean is rising BECAUSE John is subsiding. A counter-move on Dean’s part, automatic, organic. John getting thoughtful and interior messes up Dean’s equilibrium and suddenly Dean is raising his voice, which is not like him, and John doesn’t flinch, or shut Dean down, or correct Dean’s tone. It’s a fascinating little glitch in the wavelength.
“What happens when she figures it out?” Dean demands. It’s more of a Sam line than a Dean line, and it’s eloquent of the shit being stirred up in that dark room.
John says, “I just need to buy a few hours, that’s all.” It’s a suicide mission, sacrificing himself so that Dean and Sam can get the job done back here. Somehow, in the flurry of emotions going on, the brothers had missed that. Sam gets it before Dean does, which usually happens when it comes to why Dad is doing what he’s doing, the underlying mechanisms of Dad’s thought process. It all remains pretty opaque to Dean, and honestly, he doesn’t CARE “why”, if Dad gives an order that’s enough for him. But Sam is an analyzer and says, “You mean for Dean and me.” John doesn’t respond, and Dean looks over at Sam, shocked. He assumed they were all going to leap into the cars again and barrel off to Wabash and Lake together. But Sam knows better. (“We’re not different,” Sam said to Dad in “Dead Man’s Blood.”)
Sam says, “You want us to stay here … and kill this demon by ourselves?”
I mentioned John’s change in energy. Here we see it come out in full flower, and here we see something very interesting happen, something I’ve referenced already and we’ve talked about in various comments sections. It’s a line that becomes a huge echo chamber, the more episodes you’ve seen, the more seasons you’ve seen. It’s an almost reductive boiling-down of the characters’ spines (to use the Elia Kazan phrase). I hope you’re all keeping up. The “spine” being “what the character wants”, ultimately.
John picks up on Sam’s use of the word “want”; it’s all he hears: “No, Sam. I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home.”
On that Dean line, he turns away. Fascinating, eloquent. Sam gets the full frontal Dad, and John can’t even look at Dean when he says the line about what he wants for Dean. We can go in circles talking about meaning, and that’s part of the huge-ness of the moment. John stands with his back to them and we see them both, Sam looking at Dad, and there’s a tiny subtle symphony of behavior from Dean, a moment I find riveting. Dean goes inward, thinking about those words, and then lowers his head, but not before he throws a quick glance at Sam. Head down. Choir boy. Demure. John’s words seem warm and caring. It’s almost hurtful, embarrassing. It also represents John’s limited conception of what Dean would actually be capable of without hunting. But that’s just analysis. The guys here aren’t analyzing any of it. They’re experiencing it.
There’s so much in it, I like to consider all the possibilities, and let all of them live at the same time. It seems the truest way to approach that moment.
But the final kicker is John, shadows of leaves flickering on his face, in tears, saying, “I want Mary alive.”
While this is understandable, to say the least, it’s also indicative of where he’s coming from, what’s happening underneath, and the sheer level of fantasy he’s operating from. It’s been 23 years. She’s dead. Accept it. You could say it’s just a momentary “want”, thrown out there, but as my acting teacher used to tell us in college: when you’re acting nothing should ever be “just”. He would say to us, “The soup is never just warm. It’s either hot or cold.” It was his way of encouraging us to make bold choices, to “go for it.” To this day, if I catch myself saying “just,” I wonder where I might be lying to myself, or hedging my bets. The teacher would ask us: “So what were you doing in that scene?” An actor would say, “I was just trying to tell her I love her.” Teacher would correct: “And what’s ‘just’ about that?” It’s much more powerful to say: “I need her to know I love her.” It’s not semantics, it’s an attitude of commitment. If you’re going to tell someone you love them, DO IT 100%. And that’s what I see in John’s wash of self-pity there: there’s nothing “just” about that “want”. He wants it with every fiber of his being.
It was startling for me, watching the scene for the first time. That small section was so strange, so powerfully performed, but the words struck me. It was like I couldn’t even hear what he was saying. (That often happens with John Winchester, one of Morgan’s greatest contributions to the character. He’s disorienting.)
John turns back to them and says, “I just want this to be over,” and he looks like a ruined man.
Huge closeup again of the two guys, Sam in focus, Dean blurry, and then the focus switches in the same shot, whoosh, so Dean is in focus and Sam blurs out. It’s so uber dramatic: “Oooh, look at Sam’s nostrils … OMG now there’s Dean’s stubble!”
After all that, after all that was just revealed, the brothers are lost, emotionally worked up, frightened (by the events, and by their dad’s emotions), and they need a check-in. But it’s slow, cautious. It’s an extremely full moment.
6th scene
They’ve got some sort of spiral cam going on here, with an overhead shot of John’s Bat Man trunk (and now all I can see are the little compartments for the trial-size holy waters), circling down over the Gun Porn, with Sam and John at the trunk, and then revealing the muddy road leading up to the car, and the Impala approaching. I wonder how many scenes they have shot on this actual patch of road with that bridge behind. It’s raining, full-on. You can see it hitting the puddles.
Filmed from below, so they all seem both menacing and powerful, they meet up, Dean getting out of the Impala. John looks expectant and says, “Did you get it?” It’s reminiscent of the “Dead Man’s Blood” excursion Dean was sent on. There’s a grim mood. John’s chaos of emotions have subsided, and now he seems alert, expectant, and maybe even … a little excited. Dean doesn’t share that mood, at all, and quietly draws out the antique gun wrapped in a paper bag and hands it over.
“You know this is a trap, right?” Dean says quietly, and John has a strange light in his eyes, a smile on his lips. John says, “I can handle her.”
You can hear the rain falling around them.
Dean says, “Dad, promise me something … if this thing goes south, just get the hell out. Don’t get yourself killed. You’re no good to us dead,” with a little half-laugh at the end, trying to keep himself light, trying to be strong. It’s a real warrior moment. You wouldn’t say “Don’t get yourself killed because I love you and I don’t know how I will live without you.” That’s not how soldiers going into battle pump themselves up. It would also be extremely poor script-writing. The way it’s written gives Ackles something to play with, something to subvert, skirt around. He looks both tough and shaken at the same time. He looks kind and also pissed off.
John takes out the two guns, and gives his sons the low-down on the limited number of bullets, to “make every shot count.”
“Yes, Sir,” says Sam, but Dean is wrapped up in his own shit.
John gives a little motivational speech – “We’ve been waiting our whole lives for this …” “You finish it. You finish what I started.” Sam looks intense and focused, jawline twitching at the ready, but Dean looks … there’s almost a cold assessing expression in his eye, something a tiny bit sullen. He’s seeing his father. And there’s also the fact that any time John Winchester leaves a room, however casually, Dean knows he may never see him again. Separation is terrible for Dean. He wants everyone to be together always.
John is addressing his instructions to Dean, Sam getting thrown a glance here and there, but it is Dean who is the receptor of the main message. Dean takes the real Colt, quietly, and puts it inside his coat. The mood is somber. You ache for someone to make a joke. Something.
Sam says pointedly, “We’ll see you soon, Dad.” John faintly smiles at that, and looks back at Dean, and there’s no sentimentality in the moment. Dean looks tough, stoic, and pissed. He doesn’t like his dad’s plan at all, he has an opinion about it, and he thinks it’s stupid. He also thinks they should stick together. But the time to say that has passed.
John has a big manly heroic exit, going to his truck, looking back at his sons, and driving off into the not-sunset down the muddy muddy road. On the surface level, it is what it is: a brave man going into an unknown future. On a deeper level, it’s bull shit. God, it’s such an effective performance, because it operates fully and truthfully on both levels. If Morgan wasn’t such an inherently sympathetic actor, John Winchester wouldn’t be the character that he is.
7th scene
Having clearly driven 90+ miles an hour the entire way from Iowa to Nebraska, and perhaps peeing in a cup as he drove so he wouldn’t have to stop (sorry), John arrives at the storied intersection of Wabash and Lake in Lincoln, Nebraska. And whaddya know, it’s still raining. Storm front covering the entire mid-West, apparently.
Dude, look at your fucking truck. It’s about to turn into a Transformer.
The warehouse is a great atmosphere, steam belching out of various pipes and grates, and red lights blurring out in the background (cue Meg! Your key light is ready!), a spooky and deserted gigantic space. John’s plan remains opaque for the moment but he does seem quite interested in the little spouts on a nearby roof bursting with steam. Inside, the wet-ness continues. The ceiling leaks. John hustles through a tunnel of some kind, the floor wet, reflecting him, the walls slimy. He’s looking for something. I find his holy-water-through-the-pipes plan implausible, and I realize that I am saying that about a show involving demons and ghosts and vampires …
8th scene
Back in Salvation, Dean and Sam sit in the Impala, staring over at Monica’s house. It’s night-time. A stakeout. She can be seen through the window of the house, serving dinner to her husband (David Lovgren), happy and unaware of the darkness gathering around her family.
The scene in the Impala is broken up into pieces, as we go back and forth between the drama of John in Nebraska and the boys in the car. Although the situation is tense, and both of them are in a state of readiness and preparedness, the tension of being around their father is gone. The brothers may not be world-class communicators (and who of us are), but they do pretty well, and you can only see that through the contrast. Sam throws out suggestions and Dean shoots them down, but there’s a wary humor in it, not a belittling “that’s dumb” subtext. “And how often has that worked for us?” Dean drawls. Sam thinks it over, yeah, yeah, you’re right. His next suggestion is, “We could just tell them the truth.” They both sit there, considering it, considering how weird that would be (“O hai, a demon is coming for you. Please trust us. Kthxbai.”), and then say, in unison, “Nahhh.” There’s also a sense of uneasiness in Sam (“What’s coming for these people …”), and Dean talks him out of it. We know what we’re doing, we’ve got a couple bullets, we get the Demon before it gets them, we know the plan, let’s keep focused.
The compulsion to align themselves exactly to their father’s every mood-swing is gone, and there’s a relief in that. But that relief brings with it more questions for us, that underlying What do we think of John Winchester thing, which was certainly very much in operation for me the first time I watched Season 1. It’s a slow unfolding, rather than anything driven down with a sledgehammer. It’s twisted, subtle, and, amazingly, can actually disappear altogether if you’re not looking for it.
Dean says he would feel better if they were with Dad, “backing him up,” and Sam says he’d feel better if Dad were there with them, “backing them up.” A slight variation in attitude. I like it. It’s strong on Sam’s part, based on a belief that he and Dean are equally important, and, in a way, what they are doing is MORE important. There’s that solidarity thing again, and Dean does hear it. He doesn’t reject it.
If you listen to the lines of the scene, the back and forth, they are constantly disagreeing, correcting each other, adjusting each other. But it’s not rancorous. This is what conversation looks like, feels like, when you’re two separate people. You bat ideas around. You accept, reject. You move on. You throw in a joke.
9th scene
Back among the belching steam pipes, John climbs up to a small water tower, surrounded by steam, so he looks completely villainous. Then, ominously, Meg suddenly steps into the frame in the foreground, and there’s beautiful split lighting on her: white on one side, red behind. The fires of hell. It’s the look they’ve used for her almost from the start.
John, hiding behind the tower, emerges once she’s gone and climbs up the little ladder, opening the lid. We get a shot of him from below, looking up at him through the water, a great effect, and one that Supernatural will use repeatedly. And here, baptism gets literal. The water that has been everywhere in the episode pools up, overflowing. John pulls out a rosary and murmurs some Latin incantation over it and drops it in the water. Cool.
It looks exactly like the Heart of the Ocean descending into the depths in Titanic. And randomly, I was looking for a screen grab of that necklace floating down into the blue-black ocean to show the similarity, the chain coiling around in a serpentine way – and look what I found on the first page of Google results. First page! I wasn’t even searching for him and he showed up anyway. I laughed out loud.
Dean Winchester would slit his wrists in if he saw that in “French Mistake.”
That necklace floating down, with John Winchester’s face, wavering above through the water, is a stunner.
10th scene
The stakeout continues.
Similar to the scene in the hotel room “Shadow” where Dean is completely de-railed, Sam is caught up in the momentous nature of the event headed down the pike. The showdown they’ve been training for their whole lives is here. Dean isn’t into that line of conversation, and he looks uneasy. It’s a jinx to talk like that. Nothing’s happened yet. Stay focused. Treat it like any other job, do what we always do. Sam, though, can’t help but be himself, and that’s one of the reasons I love him. He says, “Yeah, but this isn’t like always.” And, beautifully, Dean considers it. It’s okay to agree. So he does. “True,” he says.
Think of how far they’ve come in Season 1 in terms of their relationship.
Sam, sensing that, begins his “Thank you for everything” monologue. Dean is confused. It’s not that Dean doesn’t want to be thanked. He gets annoyed when those he saved forget to thank him, for instance. But in terms of his family, he’s not quite conscious of how much he is taken for granted, and not quite aware of maybe how good it would feel to be acknowledged for everything he does. The whole family is so traumatized, and their lives are so strange and violent it has brutalized ALL of them, so sitting around bitching “I do everything for this family, you could at least say ‘Thank You'” like a martyr-ish mother … it just would be unseemly in the Under-Siege Commando mentality of the Winchester men. However, it certainly is there for him, on some level, and won’t really start emerging until Season 2, Season 3. Hell, it’s still emerging. I love these Long Emotional Arcs so much I want to dry-hump them on the couch.
Did CHiPs ever attempt an Arc like that?
Quick answer.
The “goodbye before we storm the breach” thing is common among soldiers, and yet understandably resisted, because it acknowledges the possibility of death, and you need all the courage you can get in such a moment. So don’t you say goodbye yet is also one of those things that is a survival technique. It’s not just denial.
Sam’s speech is good, though, and very revealing (and well played). “You’ve always had my back, even when I couldn’t count on anyone, I could always count on you …” Not sure if that is strictly true, Sammy, because Dean probably cried himself to sleep the night you “ditched” the family, but still, I appreciate the sentiment. Also, live it up, because that feeling you have is going to change big-time! Just wait until Dean sends you a fake SOS text from your girlfriend!
Dean listens, and his face is open and simple. He’s not “weighing in” in his mind, or rejecting, or wallowing in the praise. He’s listening. But when Sam says, “I wanted you to know that, just in case …” Soldier-Boy kicks in and Dean flips: “I don’t want to hear that friggin’ speech, man. Nobody’s dying tonight. Not us, not that family, no one. Except that demon. That evil sonofabitch isn’t getting any older than tonight, you understand me?” It’s Dean at his very best.
And Sam hears him. He gets it. There’s almost a smile on his face. It is this kind of moment that makes Dean necessary to the group, Sam needs it.
11th scene
Back in the warehouse which has now been turned into a baptismal font. Meg stands in a cavernous wet dark space, looking around, the camera circling around her, finally revealing John coming out of the shadows. A shadow himself.
She says, “I can see where your boys get their good looks,” one of those sexually icky comments that monsters make to the guys on occasion, mostly to Dean. Watching Ackles tolerate that/handle that is very entertaining. He practically rolls his eyes in Abaddon’s face in Season 9. “You want to get ‘inside me’, lady? Get in line. I’ve been hearing that shit since I was 14 years old. Whatever.” John Winchester has a similar reaction to Meg’s comment, although he’s more Sam-like in the fact that he’s not penetrable in the same way as Dean is. It’s annoying to him, he feels the belittlement of it, but he doesn’t say anything. She’s just fucking around at this point, needling him, not worth it.
Then, of course, she has to twist the knife by saying, “I thought you’d be taller.”
I kind of love Meg.
There’s a bit of a standoff, in a dramatically lit space, one of those Supernatural spaces that is real and yet FEELS symbolic. And they do that by turning off all the lights, pouring steam into the room, and then having one small light source behind John. Easy-peasy. Noir-horror look accomplished. (The lighting in noir, stark and dramatic, is filled with psychological torment, it’s one of the distinguishing characteristics of the style, a look you could pick out of a lineup.)
Meg wants the gun. John wants to know how to get out of there. (I don’t know, dude, the way you came in?) As they “chat,” another figure emerges from the shadows behind Meg. She’s brought company, which seems to surprise John, although he can’t be that stupid. John is moving at a snail’s pace, pausing, thinking, hesitating.
He’s stalling, for obvious reasons. For Salvation, Iowa reasons. Meg picks up on it, demanding he hand the gun over. She’s starting to seem more volatile. John hands it over, and she looks at it.
John seems like he’s lying. Sam might have done a better job here. Dean obviously would have ruined it. She hands the gun over to her compadre, asking him to inspect it.
The moment stretches out forever. Anything could happen. But it still comes as a surprise when Meg’s pal suddenly turns the gun on Meg, and shoots her in the heart. Of course the “fake Colt” would be tested before John would be allowed to leave. Perhaps the ensuing melee will be elongated enough that it will give Sam and Dean the time they need. Meg wasn’t expecting to be shot and seems more put out than anything else, shouting at her pal, “I can’t believe you just shot me!” I love Aycox’s line reading there. It’s funny.
John’s busted. He runs. He has somehow memorized the complicated maze-like structure of the warehouse. He’s opening hatches, climbing down ladders, running through tunnels, as though it’s his own backyard. He is leading the demons where he wants them to be, for his Holy Water Master Plan, and that’s just how it goes down. They’re behind him, he turns a spigot, releasing a fountain of water which starts to flood the already-wet tunnel, and since it’s now holy, the demons’ feet burn when they try to step into it. John is seen through the flow of water, and he’s smiling with triumph but he looks like a fucking sociopath.
Having created a temporary slightly implausible barrier, he runs off. If John Winchester were a different kind of guy, we (or let’s say I) may applaud his ingenuity. But it seems a bit weak, especially considering his reputation (which, granted, we only know about through the warped totally biased eyes of Dean and Sam). No wonder Ellen was like, “Fuck that guy, he’s reckless as well as stupid.”
12th scene
Dealing with bodily functions is on my mind, so I wonder how many times Dean and Sam have had to step outside the Impala to piss during their stakeout. Dean is on the phone, calling Dad, no answer. Sam says, and it’s weak, “Maybe Meg was late – or there’s bad reception …” Try to put a positive spin on things. Only way to get through it. But something’s wrong. The radio fizzles into static, and … something is coming.
You get a great long shot of the house, the camera moving in, as though it is from the point of view of the demon. Lights start flickering, inside and outside, and you see Sam and Dean FEEL it happening (you can also see the blurry lights behind them flickering, a nice detail). The leaf-shadows on the hood the Impala seem damn near alive. Ready, Sam and Dean leap out of the car. Sam’s the one who grabs the Colt, an invisible detail I find interesting. There’s been no discussion of who is going to do the shooting when the time comes. But clearly a decision has been made.
Like the criminals that they are, Dean and Sam break into the house. It’s dark in the downstairs area, and they sneak forward, looking around. When the husband we saw in the driveway attacks Dean with a baseball bat, it’s a powerful moment. We don’t even see the actor. He’s barely shown. But his voice – “Get out of my house!” – is panicked, furious, palpably real. The bat doesn’t hit Dean, instead smashing into a lamp, and Dean grabs control of the poor guy and wrestles him up to the wall. Just imagine it from that guy’s perspective. Think about Sam and Dean shooting a damn clown with a shotgun in an upstairs hallway, with a little girl standing right there. And the parents are like, “WHAT. IS. HAPPENING.” It honestly can’t be explained, really.
Sam and Dean seem like assassins, and Dean has the guy against the wall with the baseball bat, saying to him repeatedly, “You have to listen to me. You have to listen to me. We are trying to help you.” For a second you think it might have worked, although I sure as hell wouldn’t take this strange hot man’s word for it. I’d try to kill him. The poor guy screams, “MONICA GET THE BABY” and it’s heart-wrenching. Seriously.
The family here the mirror of the family back in Lawrence. The young parents with children. Trying to do things right, keep everyone safe, it’s really the only job you have as a parent. I feel for the guy. But when he screams that, Sam starts screaming, “DON’T GO IN THE NURSERY”, which, honestly, just exacerbates the problem. The chaos is intense, so intense that Dean finally just punches the poor guy out to shut him up.
Meanwhile, Monica, alarmed, has run down the hall into the nursery and we see it all unfold just as Sam did in the vision.
The dark figure over the crib, Monica being pushed irrevocably up the wall. Dean has dragged the poor dad out onto the lawn, I’m assuming, and meanwhile Sam is running up the stairs and down the hall to the nursery. As he bursts into the dark room, you can see Monica’s legs hanging down into the frame, and it’s a great effect, totally spooky and otherworldly. The dark figure stares at Sam, and suddenly, for the first time, we see the eyes gleam bright yellow. And in those yellow eyes you see recognition, pleased recognition, a welcome sign put out for his beloved protege.
Sam is awesome, because he’s stunned, and scared, and Monica is screaming, and he sees the yellow eyes, but he doesn’t hesitate, he raises the gun and fires. Look at this completely surreal image.
The figure evaporates, and poor Monica falls off the wall. She is completely hysterical, and, like her husband’s screams downstairs, hers are heart-rending. “MY BABY. ROSIE.” Sam is confused, as he helps her up, the urgency still pulsing through the moment: “Where the hell did it go??” He was expecting something else, for the shot to land, for the figure to go down, something other than evaporation. Dean has run up the stairs, and poor Monica is being pushed out of the room by Sam, and she’s screaming. Listen to how fully Erin Karpluk “goes there” with her screams as she is pushed down the hall. It makes my throat catch just to hear her. Dean runs to the crib to scoop up the baby, and right afterwards, the crib bursts into flames.
One cannot ignore the perfect symmetry of Dean grabbing the baby as an adult with the moment in his childhood when his dad handed Baby-Sam off to him and told him to run outside. Sam, that baby long ago, is now on Demon-Killing Detail, a pretty radical change, and Dean? He’s grown, but his role is the same as it was back then. Life loops back on itself constantly.
13th scene
John Winchester, stranded, in the largest factory complex ever created, it’s basically a small village, runs around, looking for a way out. He can’t find one. Heaving for breath, surrounded (as always) by steam and shadows, he takes out his phone to dial Dean, but suddenly, just like Monica in the house, he is flung across the empty space and pinned against the stone wall with an invisible force that makes him cry out, and he is forced up the wall, his feet dangling.
Lookin’ kinda sexy, just hangin’ there, John.
14th scene
Windows crash with the explosion within the house, and the camera moves down to the front door where we get the crazy sight of Sam hustling Monica out, holding the Colt.
It’s gloriously absurd. “Here you go, ma’am, I just broke into your house with a gun, and shot some weird thing in your nursery, but I am on your side, with my antique gun, TOTALLY.” The flames have engulfed the house behind them, and Monica’s husband has emerged from the knockout punch and charges up the lawn, ready to fucking kill both guys. Dean gently hands the wrapped-up baby over to Monica who may still be hysterical but she knows that these guys somehow saved everyone’s lives.
Once Dean passes the baby over, and everyone is safe, it’s like Monica and her husband vanish from the brothers’ minds and they turn back to look at the house. Sam knows he didn’t kill it. Something went wrong. The nursery window is roaring with flames and suddenly, with a clang of bells, the “Demon” clang, the big ol’ symphonic John Williams clang of Hell, we see a dark figure up there in the flames, standing still, looking out at them. Its mere presence is a taunt.
Sam starts to run for the house and Dean has to bodily pull him back, another dovetail with the pilot, when Dean had to drag Sam out of Jess’ burning room. The particular conflict here (“I am ready to die for our cause” “The hell you are”) becomes almost rote through the series, the themes of self-sacrifice, suicide-through-heroic-acts, and whether or not dying is worth it, is there such thing as an “honorable death” (Tessa the reaper says there is, and Dean disagrees). Season 9 is when it takes on its full psychological import, in terms of what that impulse means to them as brothers. It’s a subject they have confronted in various ways for seasons on end. Here it is now, in embryo.
Helpless, the brothers look up at the window, at the black figure, and it eventually vanishes, the flames bursting into the vacuum. I love the shot of Sam that closes out the scene. Dean looks rattled, but Sam looks ferocious. It’s intense, he’s chomping at the bit.
15th scene
The visual structure of this scene is more traditional than the norm for Supernatural: We have establishing shot, medium shot, closeup, and then holy shitballs TOO CLOSE BACK UP. It’s an extremely emotional structure, and very effective (that’s why it’s used so often in film and television, it gets the job done, it practically tells the story FOR you).
Sam sits on the bed, where John was sitting before, in the same pose, back hunched over, hands crossed. He’s surrounded by red, he’s wearing dark maroon. The window has a bluish aspect over to the side, but Sam is caught in the red-ness. We could also say it’s reminiscent of the Meg lighting, which would work thematically, considering the secret working its way towards Sam.
I wrote a little bit about the chameleon-like aspect of the production/costume design here. They use it very subtly, don’t make it too stylistic so it calls attention to itself, but it is definitely there. These are highly constructed shots. If he had been wearing plaid, you wouldn’t get the same monochromatic effect. And Dean blends into his background. You can barely see him through the shadows. He’s pacing, phone to his ear, waiting for Dad to pick up. Which, of course, dad won’t, because he is pinned sexily to a wall in Lincoln, Nebraska.
We’ve got the brothers in the same physical space but in very different places emotionally. Dean says, uneasy, very upset, “Something’s wrong …” and he’s focused back on Dad, where is Dad, how’s Dad doing. Sam doesn’t even seem to be paying attention. He is coiled up in the shadows on the red bed, in his red shirt, looking down. Dean is preoccupied, not picking up on Sam’s absence, assuming that he and Sam are in the same place emotionally. Dean loves unity. It is his goal. (It’s the compulsive “are we okay? We good?” thing he does.) “Something’s happened …” says Dean again, worried.
The framing here is identical to the one in the scene with the three men earlier in the episode, only now it’s Sam in the foreground, dark, in John’s former position, with Dean, in the same spot as he was before. It’s a visual call-back to that earlier moment. Infer from it what you will. Sam says, too pissed to even look at Dean, “If you had just let me go back in there, I could have ended all this.”
The ensuing fight gets pretty ugly.
Sam doesn’t understand the line in the sand that Dean has drawn. They have given everything, their whole lives, to fighting this thing. Of COURSE one of them might die in the process. But that’s not Dean’s view, and we’re really just learning that now. “It’s not worth dying over,” says Dean and Sam looks like he’s not sure he even heard right. It is where Dean differs from John, that’s for sure, but it also reveals a truth of where Dean is coming from, something that he probably would never have even HAD to express if Sammy hadn’t returned to the fold. Clearly Dean is also ready to sacrifice himself, but that comes later. A lot of stuff comes later. Dean’s issues with death are pretty intense (and that, basically, makes him a member of the human race). He cannot accept death. He is surrounded by it at all times, but death seems wrong to him, in a way that is both touching and childish. He lost his mother when he was 4. He will never make sense of that. He will never understand why innocent people die. He cannot reconcile himself to it. Watch how he deals with Layla in “Faith.” He is intimate with her, feeling for her, feeling the loss of her, feeling its unfairness. It will all start revealing itself slowly over Season 2, as we watch Dean deal with his dad’s death, and the “deal” Dad made, and what does that say about life/death, as well as his OWN life, and should he even BE here or not. It can’t be summed up in a sentence, obviously.
Sam seems genuinely surprised to hear Dean just come out and say that the demon isn’t worth dying for. Soldiers in the trenches MUST believe that whatever it is they are dying for is worth it. You know, who wants to die for cynical meaningless reasons? No one, that’s who.
As the scene moves on, the camera starts moving in. By the time we are in close to their faces, things are on the verge of spinning out of control. The disagreement here is almost total, and it’s circling us back to the argument on the bridge in the pilot, even the blocking is the same, although the brothers have reversed.
Dean has been changed by the year with his brother. He is happier with his life when Sam is with him. But all of that is going to be used against him, and also just flat out difficult, because hunting is dangerous and the fact of the matter is Sam very well might die, and if you want him to NOT die, then you have to drive him back to Stanford, drop him off, and never see him again. It’s a bind. The change is made manifest in the fact that Dean feels that Sam’s life is more important than killing the demon, that he doesn’t care if the demon dies as long as Sam survives, AND … killing the thing out of revenge, for Mom, for Jess, is useless, because even if we do kill it, they’re still GONE and they’re not coming back. It’s the same line Sam took with Dean in the pilot on that bridge-scene.
And now it is Sam who attacks Dean and pins him against the wall.
Ackles’ next moments, done in unforgiving and beautiful closeup, shows why he is the linchpin of the whole thing, its moral and emotional center. He visibly cracks. You can see it happen.
I imagine that there’s a choice behind that for the actor, a sort of permission given to oneself to “go there.” “Okay. Show time. Put up or shut up.” Because the moment is important, certainly the most important in the episode in terms of character.
The show flat out would not have lasted if we never got to see this side of Dean. We need that vulnerable raw underbelly. Not too much of it, but doled out in tiny doses … in order to keep us invested. That’s what John Wayne did, who was the epitome of American masculinity, but also one of the most vulnerable actors on the planet. Watch him put on his glasses to read the farewell plaque given to him by his soldiers in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and watch the emotion in that gesture, the gesture that admits he’s now too old for the job. Without vulnerability, you would not have John Wayne.
Dean has been vulnerable before. With the sheriff in “The Benders.” With Cassie. But not like this, this is new, this is Dean’s secret: “The three of us … that’s all we have. That’s all I have. Sometimes I feel like I’m barely holding it together, man.”
It’s hard for him to say, but has to be said. In any other context, it would be held against him. John certainly wouldn’t want to hear it. It goes against every fiber of Dean’s being to even admit such a thing to Sam, because Sam needs him. Everyone needs him. Dean’s mere presence seems to hold back the hostility between Sam and Dad, and he knows it, and accepts it. Everything will fall apart if he falls apart. (The scene with Tessa in the Season 2 premiere is killer in how it addresses all of that. KILL. ER.)
John said a similar thing in “Dead Man’s Blood.” “You two are all I’ve got.” But the sentiment is abstract for him, and you can tell it’s abstract. He barely spends any time with his sons anyway. He loves them, not saying he doesn’t, but it has become a concept rather than a reality. He got an urgent SOS from Sam saying that Dean was dying and he never called Sam back. Love is what you DO. When Dean says almost the same exact words to Sam here, it pulses with need and fear. It may be dysfunctional, but most love is, and whatever we see there in Dean’s face, it ain’t abstract.
It is Dean’s honesty that changes the energy in the room. It is Dean’s honesty that drops Sam’s defenses. People look to Dean, at how to be, how to react. It’s a hell of a load. But he has that emotional power. Sam is in tears, and they are so close together that you hope both actors brushed their teeth that morning. It’s intimacy. Intimacy between two men, in a non-romantic context, a sibling context, and yet adult … the kind of stuff rarely explored so thoughtfully in episodic television. Siblings are hard to get right. These guys, as unalike as they are, get it.
You think it might turn into a hug but thankfully it doesn’t. The moment is too raw, and Sam turns away, his head pounding again, the aftermath of his vision-heavy 24 hours. Suddenly, in a whoosh, all of his rage falls away, and he’s where Dean is, worried that Dad hasn’t called. It’s not right. Something is terribly wrong. Dean, still against the wall, is coming down from what just happened, what he just revealed. He can barely catch his breath.
Sam has gotten his shit together, and takes charge, telling Dean to try Dad again. Dean, probably thankful to be told what to do, to have something to do in general, calls.
The phone rings in a dark space for a while and then, fringed in red light of course, Meg picks up the phone, saying, “You boys really screwed up this time.”
Dean, hearing her voice, is visibly devastated. He says, keeping his voice steady, “Where is he?”
“You’re never going to see your father again.”
Huge zoom-in on Dean. ANGST.
Huge zoom-in on Sam. CONCERN.
Music rising.
To Be Continued …
Damn straight it’s to be continued.
//Dean has been vulnerable before. With the sheriff in “The Benders.” With Cassie. But not like this, this is new, this is Dean’s secret: “The three of us … that’s all we have. That’s all I have. Sometimes I feel like I’m barely holding it together, man.”//
I know it’s been discussed before in the comments, but this is such a huge moment. Let’s talk about it some more!
For me, it was always Dean’s line before this that really stood out: “If hunting this demon means getting yourself killed then I hope we never find the damn thing.”
I don’t have a lot of time to go into things at the moment, but that was where Dean came into focus, to me. It really underlines the difference between Dean and John…and Sam. In some ways, Dean has greater emotional health than John or Sam—Dean isn’t consumed by vengeance—but of course, in typical Winchester fashion, he takes it too far.
// Let’s talk about it some more! //
Yes, ma’am!
Such a key moment!! It’s almost shocking. I love it so much. I love how he is self-aware enough to correct himself – going from “we have” to “I have”. Notice how John is always looping everyone together with his language. Dean separates himself out – “Okay, maybe this is just me …”
It’s incredibly healthy, as painful as it is, like you say.
and right, to actually hear Dean say “I hope we never find the damn thing.”
Wow.
A very thought-provoking and enlightening recap as always. Here are my few random thoughts, written down as I read your recap:
– I can’t wait till you get to reviewing the episodes that JA directed. I’ve heard fans say he’s good, but since I know even less about directing than I know about acting, I’m really curious to hear the verdict from someone much more well-versed in the matter.
– Dean is a driven workaholic, and will not drop everything to bang a broad in a broom closet. He has some self-control. See? This is what really bugged me in “Rock and a Hard Place” – when Dean went with Suzy the former pornstar back to her place and discovered her porn collection (and who keeps their own porn in the top drawer anyway?) and Sam calls, trying to tell him the dragon is not really a dragon and Dean basically cuts him off in favor of getting it on with Suzy. What the hell, Dean?
– the artistic, breathtaking, use-them-as-wallpapers beautiful screencaps made my heart ache with how much I miss the look of the early seasons. I feel like the closest we got to that in the more recent seasons was the episode that Misha directed, there was a lot of really beautiful shots in there (especially all the close-ups of Dean drinking his beer).
– “Here you go, ma’am, I just broke into your house with a gun, and shot some weird thing in your nursery, but I am on your side, with my antique gun, TOTALLY.” This made me laugh out loud. Literally. It’s so easy to forget how crazy the Winchesters must look to the outside world!
– on the topic of JA’s vulnerability – I recently watched a short excerpt of a con panel with Julian Richings (Death) where he was asked what it’s like to play a character that even Dean Winchester is absolutely terrified of. And Richings replies something like this: “It comes down to Jensen being generous enough as an actor to be vulnerable. Because, you know, a lot of people, a lot of actors will say ‘I don’t get scared, I don’t do this.'” (Which, of course, is exactly the same thing you’ve been stressing in your recaps ever since the “Schtick” one if I remember correctly, but it pleases me immensely to see it acknowledged by someone who actually worked with JA.)
– oh, and one last thing: the fact that “our” Dean became the 2014!Dean even though the Apocalypse didn’t come to happen… ouch, that really hurts! There was a lot of speculation going on this past season about how the show would handle the 2014 situation, people were kind of expecting the Endverse to happen. But this? This is so much better.
Hunenka –
Thank you! Always look forward to your comments.
I thought “Weekend at Bobby’s” was particularly good – especially the hilarious chick at the woodchopper, covered in blood, her fingers awkwardly flailing around as she stands there frozen (it makes me laugh every time), as well as the montage-effect of watching Bobby work. Really good!
I know a lot of people were bugged by Rock and a Hard Place. It didn’t bug me. The banging didn’t happen at the crisis moment – if he had banged Suzy the pornstar down in the underground bunker while the Greek Goddess of Hymenation stalked around upstairs then, maybe, yes, but in the beginning stages of an investigation? Sam’s just doing questioning – he can spare Dean for an hour or two.
And yeah, ha, “I am now totes a chastity counselor, but I keep my porn videos at the ready in case I need a little Me Time.’
It was a silly episode – I didn’t mind it.
// how much I miss the look of the early seasons. //
TOTALLY. The show looks so grubby in these early seasons, dark, gritty, monochromatic – a totally unique look. I miss it too.
// It’s so easy to forget how crazy the Winchesters must look to the outside world! //
Right?? Like, who the hell ARE these guys? Attacking me with baseball bats and shooting guns in my baby’s nursery? hahahaha
// Because, you know, a lot of people, a lot of actors will say ‘I don’t get scared, I don’t do this.’” //
That’s it, EXACTLY. Clark Gable almost refused to cry when Rhett’s daughter died in Gone with the Wind. He just did not want to do it. He argued against it. He was pissed. He did not want to show “weakness”. But the director prevailed, and Gable cried, and it’s an incredible scene.
JA comes from a place of vulnerability and in an action hero, that’s some great stuff. Harrison Ford has the same thing, in his best action roles. One of his best scenes ever, in my opinion, was in the semi-dumb Air Force One where he begs the terrorist to leave his family alone. He’s the President of the US, the plane is out of control, there are Russian terrorists – and Ford just opens up that vulnerability and it is phenomenal acting. Lots of actors shy away from it. I’m so glad JA doesn’t.
// the fact that “our” Dean became the 2014!Dean even though the Apocalypse didn’t come to happen… ouch, that really hurts! //
Right?? It’s kind of perfect, awful though it is.
Thanks again!
//This is what really bugged me in “Rock and a Hard Place” //
Hunenka, I so hate that episode for the reasons you mention, hilarious graphic monologue from Dean aside, it is on my (very short) list of episodes that Never Happened. The Season 9 ‘pilot episode that never was’ is also on it.
Oh and while I’m here, I’ve never understood why the twinkly receptionist in blue doesn’t just clamber over the counter, grab Dean by the collar and drag him home.
“Bitten” never happened, as far as I’m concerned. And yeah, “Bloodlines.” Stop it. Horrible.
// I’ve never understood why the twinkly receptionist in blue doesn’t just clamber over the counter, grab Dean by the collar and drag him home. //
Seriously. It could almost go that way.
“while I’m here” hahaha
I’m glad you’re here.
Lord, here comes the flood!
Sheila, we don’t start off with stained glass. We start off with Carry On My Wayward Son! Come on! You know I don’t actually like the song itself. But I also LOVE IT.
John’s scar is very prominent in this episode. It’s worth pointing out considering the discussion previously that John uses himself as bait. Hunters are pure function. He is coooooold. If he ever looked at me the the way he looks at Sam once or twice in this episode I would probably just put some rocks in my pockets and jump in a lake and get it over with. Are you ready for Judgement Day indeed. He doesn’t care what it takes.
I really like Monica’s interaction with Sam. She’s great, natural. Fake baby in the pram when we first see her is the stuff of nightmares. Good thing the demon never got to it, it would probably be our evil overlord by now.
There’s a fantastic moment when Sam first says Meg’s name on the phone and Dean checks the surroundings, out the window. Such a perfect note.
Salvation for me ties the knot. There is something very definite in it about how the show is gonna run from here on in. Feelings are felt. Goals are achieved, but only in minor key. Friends are lost. As a stepping-stone to the next episode it can get lost, because after all, they only save one family. Hardly the stuff of finales. But it’s the stuff of relationships, that you so well triangulate. Having John there the whole episode is really destabilising. We’re talking isosceles not equilateral here. I find myself clinging to the Sam-Dean glances and blocking, moments of alliance. Their conversations at the end, oof.
What Salvation does is make you realise yes, this is it. I don’t want it that way, I want it this way. Them against the world. I want it the way Dean wants it — complicit again, we’re all fantasists. Even then: the two-shot at the end. Too MUCH. Dean’s face broken open and how he tracks Sam’s whiplash comedown. It makes my toes curl.
Jessie – bah, you got caught in moderation.
and yes, I am so sorry, Kansas starts the episode. My bad.
// John’s scar is very prominent in this episode. It’s worth pointing out considering the discussion previously that John uses himself as bait. //
Yes, the scar. The bait. It’s all there, right?
// Hunters are pure function. //
I like how you put that. And yes, the cold-ness is just icy here. No way in.
I also love the tiny moment you mention – Dean glancing out the window. Is she out there? A quick scan. Very nice.
// Salvation for me ties the knot. There is something very definite in it about how the show is gonna run from here on in. Feelings are felt. Goals are achieved, but only in minor key. Friends are lost. As a stepping-stone to the next episode it can get lost, because after all, they only save one family. Hardly the stuff of finales. But it’s the stuff of relationships, that you so well triangulate. Having John there the whole episode is really destabilising. We’re talking isosceles not equilateral here. I find myself clinging to the Sam-Dean glances and blocking, moments of alliance. //
Totally agree. “Dead Man’s Blood” is such a psycho-drama clusterfuck, and that has all washed away in “Salvation” – leaving, as you say, “Pure function” but also all this wreckage. You really can feel how ruined everybody is. Those glances between Sam and Dean are essential – for them, sure, but for us. It’s a reminder of humanity, for God’s sake. Because John Winchester. Woah.
// I want it the way Dean wants it — complicit again, we’re all fantasists. //
Yup. We’re “in”. And the show keeps reminding us of how difficult it will be, how much will be denied them, how bad it’s gonna get …
// Even then: the two-shot at the end. Too MUCH. Dean’s face broken open and how he tracks Sam’s whiplash comedown. It makes my toes curl. //
Totally. And it’s great how the next episode picks up exactly where that one left off, basically the camera moving into Dean’s eyeball practically.
Thank you, as always, for reading – and your observations. I get so much from them.
OMG, that screen cap of John. His watch flaring out. He looks insane. And this is the normal atmosphere for the Winchester boys. *shivers*
You’re talking crazy talk, Bitten is one of my favourites of season 8! Then again I am a slut for outsider POV. The gimmick is a streeeeeeeeeeeeeetch but I really enjoyed the character dynamics of the trio, the chick especially.
// Then again I am a slut for outsider POV. //
hahahahaha
Okay, I am willing to admit I may be wrong. I was wrong about The Benders!
//Sam is seated at the table in the kitchenette, rubbing his head, and slowly we see John and Dean sitting on the beds in the bedroom area, their poses identical, backs hunched over, hands crossed, looking over at Sam.//
//Intimacy between two men, in a non-romantic context, a sibling context, and yet adult … the kind of stuff rarely explored so thoughtfully in episodic television. Siblings are hard to get right. These guys, as unalike as they are, get it.//
Their sibling relationship is so real. The whole family dynamic is so real. Sam and Dean look nothing alike, their characters are quite different in a lot of ways, but they are brothers. The way they act makes it seem like they’ve grown up together, that they come from the same place. I love the little moments where they speak in unison or react in the same way to a situation. The show does it just enough that is seems real, not cutesy.
I think pretty much anyone who has siblings can relate (probably even more so if there are only the two of you and/or if the age gap is similar).
And that they each have different aspects of John in them—Dean has the mannerisms, the voice, but Sam has the personality. That it all seems so natural, and not studied, is what makes it seem so real. SPN has one of the most realistic portrayals of brothers/siblings, and family trauma, that I’ve ever seen.
It really is the heart of the show.
// It may be dysfunctional, but most love is, and whatever we see there in Dean’s face, it ain’t abstract.
It is Dean’s honesty that changes the energy in the room. It is Dean’s honesty that drops Sam’s defenses. //
And for all of Sam’s protesting (in to Season 9), it will always have an effect on him. Sam is a sucker for that unconditional love. Even though it gets incredibly smothering and overbearing, some part of him (probably the child in him) continues to cling to Dean.
// some part of him (probably the child in him) continues to cling to Dean. //
It’s so touching, and he fights against it too, which seems totally normal.
// The way they act makes it seem like they’ve grown up together, that they come from the same place. I love the little moments where they speak in unison or react in the same way to a situation. The show does it just enough that is seems real, not cutesy. //
Totally. It’s not turned into “schtick” (the bad kind) – and yeah, they totally seem like they have emerged from the same childhood situation. NOT easy to do, they’re just so in sync.
I love the whole “who takes after who” conversation. It switches, morphs, changes … it’s so fascinating.
//Hunenka, I so hate that episode for the reasons you mention, hilarious graphic monologue from Dean aside, it is on my (very short) list of episodes that Never Happened. The Season 9 ‘pilot episode that never was’ is also on it.//
The first, and only, episode I banished from my headcanon was “Man’s Best Friend with Benefits.” I can forgive a lot, from SPN. But. Not. That.
There are always gonna be some big fat LEMONS when you have so many damn episodes a season. The amazing thing is that they “get it right” as often as they do.
I mean, Season 1 survived “Bugs”. That says a lot!
//I’m glad you’re here.//
Thank you. It’s really a pleasure. Really, a fabulous recap, as always.
//“Man’s Best Friend with Benefits.”//
Just ew.
//There are always gonna be some big fat LEMONS when you have so many damn episodes a season. //
Like I said, it’s a very short list of lemons. A very tiny fruitbasket of lemons – certainly not enough to block Amelia’s waste disposal unit.
HAHAHAHA
That’s not a euphemism, by the way.
dying …
//Just ew.//
I think that sums it up perfectly.
//I find myself clinging to the Sam-Dean glances and blocking, moments of alliance. Their conversations at the end, oof.//
Jessie, great comment. These final three episodes are like tectonic plates shifting in the the Winchester Bermuda triangle of relationships (I think I’m done with that metaphor now.) Big Bad Dad has come back, Dean’s back to being punchbag and peacemaker, Sam’s back to being a pissed off teenager, and it looks like ALL IS LOST between the brothers but there have been these subtle shifts and rebuilding of the alliance between them that pays off in that almost final scene in the next cabin where Sam has to quickly choose between Dad or Dean.
Yeah, from the get-go, they’re looking at each other, for check-ins. Love it.
The whole early-in-the-season disagreement about “Dad was awesome” “Dad sucks” isn’t really happening here. That’s over. It’s murkier. They look to each other. John is such a black hole, he really is.
// He did not want to show “weakness”. //
Wow. I didn’t know that. But Gable ended up being great in that scene, so kudos both to him and the stubborn director!
I have a (probably stupid) question though: why exactly do actors have a problem with this kind of scenes? Isn’t that something they should somehow learn very early on – that their characters aren’t them, that their character’s weakness isn’t actually their weakness? (Putting aside the fact that in most cases it’s not even really a weakness at all…)
//It’s so touching, and he fights against it too, which seems totally normal.//
Yes. The rational part of his brain can clearly see the dysfunction in their relationship. He also clearly wants more for Dean—and for Dean to want more, to have more self-worth. But in a crisis, he clings.
Sam not looking for Dean, in purgatory, is a bit of an outlier. As irritating as that choice may have been (to us fans, and Dean), I could see how he just would have been burnt out at that point. Plus, Dean wasn’t alone—Castiel disappeared with him. Every other time, Dean was alone and there was no one but Sam (in Sam’s mind) to help.
When you don’t know what happened, but are fairly sure his “guardian angel” is with him…well, the pressure isn’t as intense.
May –
in re: Purgatory. I think Sam definitely justified it as “well, we said we wouldn’t look for each other,” as well as being devastated and burnt out. The long-term effects of being the Sole Reason for his brother’s existence … there may have even been some relief for Sam, not having to deal with that anymore (and HUGE guilt at feeling that relief).
Hunenka- I think it’s for a variety of reasons. Self-protection. Regular people don’t relish the idea of crying in front of others. Actors can be the same way. Sometimes it’s being protective of their image. Or of their character. Gable thought “Rhett wouldn’t do that.” JA pushed back about the hotel scene in Shadow because he felt protective of Dean. Kim Manners had to explain to him why it was okay and also necessary. Crying scenes also have a performance anxiety element. Of course you can use fake tears but still. Pressure. And yes thank goodness Gable cried!! So important!
//John is such a black hole, he really is.//
He’s an agent of chaos and disruption – that’s his legacy to his sons, and it’s still a raw wound. Happy Father’s Day! I don’t know if it’s a heretical thing to say in Supernatural world but I’m quite glad Dad snuffs it when he does, as he sucks the air out of everything, big, pompous, self-aggrandizing bully that he is. I’ve had enough of him by the beginning of Season 2. That’s not a criticism of JDM, by the way, it’s just an expression that the character has fulfilled its function nicely, now fuck off. It would be lovely if JDM had come back for the odd flashback episode, but as a presence in the show, he is the black hole that sucks the life out of everything. Like that scene at the end between Sam and Dean. Love that they deliberately loop back to the bridge scene in the pilot. Dean, rather than getting angry or bullying Sam into submission, admits his deepest fears, to refocus Sam on Dad, on rescue, on staying together – on family. But also I get the feeling from how it’s played that Sam sails right past most of what Dean is actually saying about himself. There is no direct response to that huge admission – it’s too big, too destabilising. There’s no catharsis in this statement for Dean.
Having said that, good to see some more Dad-art on the show, and your screen caps of the artwork and John’s demented all caps scrawls are a joy.
I like that Pastor Jim and Caleb also have a Bat Cave thing going on. Clearly a generational thing, to accessorise. Pastor Jim – does he supply holy water to hunters, and did he lend those priest outfits to Sam and Dean? Maybe he’s still friends with Dad because of his infinite capacity for forgiveness? I love that you first see him flicking through the bible in his church – because obviously, that’s where priests hang out to prepare their sermons, in their big, drafty, hard to heat, steadily falling to bits churches, just like academics hang out in lecture theatres, and surgeons hang out in operating theatres.
Helena – //’m quite glad Dad snuffs it when he does, as he sucks the air out of everything, big, pompous, self-aggrandizing bully that he is. I’ve had enough of him by the beginning of Season 2. //
YES. It was time for Dad to go. Like you say, he served his function – and that’s still paying off a freakin’ decade later, so well done, JDM, well done. But right, it’s time, Story-wise, to see Sam and Dean totally without that factor in their lives.
// But also I get the feeling from how it’s played that Sam sails right past most of what Dean is actually saying about himself. There is no direct response to that huge admission – it’s too big, too destabilising. There’s no catharsis in this statement for Dean. //
I love this observation. That’s happened a couple of times now. Sam missing what Dean is saying about himself – which clearly is a common thing with siblings.
And I love that the moment is not played as a catharsis – you know, if they had hugged, it would have been too easy, too shmoopy – and as it is, Dean is left sort of heaving for breath, by himself against the wall … and having just said that thing out loud it makes him feel even worse.
I love the Dad-Art! And look at the black figure through the red magic-marker flames. And he’s babbling on something about Mary’s death in the margins.
// I love that you first see him flicking through the bible in his church – because obviously, that’s where priests hang out to prepare their sermons, in their big, drafty, hard to heat, steadily falling to bits churches, //
hahahahaha
I don’t really have much to offer on this episode – most of my reactions here are just continuations of my reactions from Dead Man’s Blood, but there were still a couple things that stood out for me.
John’s emotions when he is talking about how he couldn’t get there in time with the other demon events, and the whole “It’s Jim . . . I can’t . . .” thing – this is exactly why I had such a hard time with his character. I couldn’t pin him down and put it into words at first. (Truthfully, I didn’t WANT to analyze my reaction to him too much at first – it was too overwhelming.) It’s self-aggrandizing, yes, but the emotion there is still genuine. He is truly broken up by the fact that he couldn’t save those other nameless families, and the death of his friend. It’s these things that made me WANT to root for him, despite all the other uncomfortable partially concealed truths I was picking up on. (Aside: I have to wonder about Pastor Jim a little. Obviously, he was one of the few who didn’t cut John off, but he had to see what was going on with the boys, and he never called CPS on John? It couldn’t have been a confessional privilege thing, because I don’t get the impression that John was a good Catholic. I can understand Bobby not calling, because he had his own insecurities about fatherhood, but a priest who is made out to be a good guy? I don’t know…)
//I get a bit overwhelmed in scenes like this, because there’s so much behavior I can’t decide what to focus on. So I watch the scene multiple times, and one time through I ONLY watch Sam, and one time I ONLY watch Dean, and one time I ONLY watch John.//
Maybe if I could do that in family sessions, they wouldn’t overwhelm me and stress me out so much. I need a modified version of Adam Sandler’s remote.
//“Although I’m not too crazy about this new tone of yours, you’re right.”//
So, I have a confession to make: I enjoy VC Andrews books. It’s not even really a guilty pleasure – I don’t feel that bad about it. They are TERRIBLE books, but I first read Flowers in the Attic when I was 12, and it warped me, clearly. (I liken it to my peers who still listen to NKOTB, unabashedly, even if it is the dark underbelly of that. But I’ve always been a dark underbelly kind of girl – I was reading Lurlene McDaniel books in second grade. Analyze all of this however you will.) But here’s the thing – I recently found a blog that does humorous recaps of VC Andrews books (the subtitle of the blog is “Keepin’ it in the family since 1979), so I’m reading this blog, and watching Supernatural, and reading the VC Andrews blog, and it’s all starting to run together in my mind, and damn it all if I’m not seeing parallels between Supernatural and Flowers in the Attic.
There was a scene in FITA where the kids – who have at this point been held captive by their mother for years and then all but abandoned by her while they were starved and beaten by their crazy grandmother – confront their mother. Her response – while, of course, is far, far more melodramatic and purple prosey than John’s – is essentially the same as his. She lashes out at them. She is appalled and angry that they are no longer under her thumb, no longer willing to buy into her act, and, essentially, they are no longer the abstract concept that she has of her sweet, obedient children. At least John acquiesces that Dean has a point.
(I just re-read everything I wrote, and realized the irony that I’m training to be a therapist, when clearly, I’M the one who needs professional help. Lol.)
Natalie –
// realized the irony that I’m training to be a therapist, when clearly, I’M the one who needs professional help. //
hahahaha
Welcome to the club.
Oh God, Flowers in the Attic. I read those in junior high – when we all read them – and now, looking back, I am amazed that our collective parents weren’t swooping in and burning those creepy sex books in a huge bonfire in the backyard. I don’t condone burning books. But those books are SICK. (And VC Andrews is a HELL of a writer. That attic haunted my dreams. Those powdered donuts …. shivers ….) I still remember some sections word for word. I read the entire series – the 4 main books, anyway, there may be more.
What’s the URL of that Flowers blog? Would love to read along.
Have you been watching the recent TV mini-series? I haven’t. But Heather Graham seems perfect – she’s excellent as a narcissist. (Not saying anything about her personally – but she’s played those self-involved “the-entire-world-is-my-mirror” types of parts before, and she nails it).
If I recall correctly, once her children are locked up – the mother kind of “lives it up,” and slowly starts to even forget that her children are up there. So she pays lip service to how much she loves them – visiting them infrequently – overwhelming them with gifts and hugs and the words “I love you” – but it starts to seem increasingly hollow. She is “set free” by the “banishment” of her children – and I remember that scene you mention, when the kids call her on it, and she lashes out.
Sociopath.
//I don’t know if it’s a heretical thing to say in Supernatural world but I’m quite glad Dad snuffs it when he does, as he sucks the air out of everything, big, pompous, self-aggrandizing bully that he is. I’ve had enough of him by the beginning of Season 2.//
SO MUCH YES!!! He made me so uncomfortable. My first time through the series, I could not WAIT to get past the Dad episodes, and it was such a relief when it was just Dean and Sam again.
When Jessie said last week or whatever that JDM was only in 7 episodes total or something like that, I couldn’t believe it. He just LOOMS over that whole first season.
Those opening episodes of Season 2, where Sam and Dean start reeling in the aftermath, are awesome, just re-watched them recently, and they’re just as good as I remember.
Oh the other thing we find out this episode is that apparently that elevator shaft Sam and Dean cat-burgled their way up was seven stories tall. Suuuuure, ok.
May — Let’s talk about it some more!
Ok!! ha ha. Dean in dire straits is such a delicious flavour of Dean. Most of it is so inarticulable though. It’s like every episode JA does a thing that can only be described as “that one look on his face.” Hey remember that one look on his face in Point of No Return? Remember that one look on his face in Heart?
Can we also talk about how Jaredlaughs in that moment? Holy crap! What a choice!
Sheila — I expect moderation, no more apologies! I basically am a troll.
And this is the normal atmosphere for the Winchester boys. *shivers*
Yeah seeing this is so important to place the past season in context. It’s almost like a plot twist that reframes everything. We know Sam doesn’t even know Dean carried him out of the house — now we find out Sam didn’t even know how old he was? How fucking silent WAS that household? Who the fuck IS JW and what are the rest of his gospels? And it works in both directions, as you say: he knows at this stage that Something is Wrong With Sam. Frankly I am shocked he let Sam go off to battle the demon at all.
A quick scan. Very nice.
Yes — the function of a hunter, the function of the family’s Pontifical Swiss Guard. Whoever came up with that moment I tip my hat. Those little shades of competency are so attractive.
You may be wrong or right about Bitten! Who knows? What didn’t you like about it? One thing is for sure — it’s no Man’s Best Friend or Caged Heat. That former really reconfigured the scale. No more badmouthing Bugs in the face of that! Happy to see it meets such universal disdain.
it looks like ALL IS LOST between the brothers
NEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR don’t make me paint my face and do the Braveheart speech Helena.
John’s demented all caps scrawls
So funny! “Sleep ^unEasy.” WTF. It’s like the props guys are mocking him on our behalf. How’s your goddamn mystique looking NOW, Winchester?
Natalie, I know FITA only by reputation (I was a Clan of the Cave Bear kid ha ha) but it should probably be on Helena’s Supernatural reader.
It’s self-aggrandizing, yes, but the emotion there is still genuine.
I had the exact same reaction to this part of the John Winchester shell game. He does care. He nearly cries! He’s a hero right? Right? The use of the word abstract to describe his various attachments really clicks for me.
Jessie – “I basically am a troll.” hahaha
// It’s like every episode JA does a thing that can only be described as “that one look on his face.” //
Right? What he’s doing cannot be captured in a screen grab. It’s too fluid.
And totally: Jared laughing!! AWESOME. I love unexpected choices – there’s the “catharsis” – Sam experiences something along those lines and that laugh is the result of it. Great stuff.
// How fucking silent WAS that household? Who the fuck IS JW and what are the rest of his gospels? //
Ha. I know – it’s interesting to consider how much the boys just got through osmosis, growing up in that atmosphere. They wouldn’t even realize that their Dad was treating them in a “need to know” way until … they hit adolescence, maybe started hanging out with their peers a little bit … you know, Sam “playing footsie with brace-face” (Dean. So mean. So hilarious.) – and realizing how “real” families operate. So John had total control – in cult terms, total “milieu control.” He even has control over their own biographies.
// Frankly I am shocked he let Sam go off to battle the demon at all. //
Me too. Why do we think he does that? Is he hoping Sam dies in that confrontation? Is it that cynical?
// It’s like the props guys are mocking him on our behalf. //
HA. I like that interpretation. Nobody’s a “fan” of JW.
// He nearly cries! He’s a hero right? Right? //
Totally. If he were “harder,” the whole thing wouldn’t work. It took me a couple of viewings to even SEE the manipulation, damn him.
Another great re-cap, Sheila.
Just as mountains = Colorado in Dead Man’s Blood, flat farm land = Iowa as they’re driving in Salvation.
Meg’s “What are you looking at?” reminds me of this – at about 1:26 into the clip. Not quite the same words… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vBh2pT9KgQ
And I was glad to see that Meg was able to change out of that nasty blood-stained yellow top she had after her hench-demon shot her, into the clean forrest green top she had on when Dean called at the end of the episode. I guess she was changing clothes while John was being captured.
We’ve talked a lot about John as cult leader, but that was subverted a few times in this episode. When a cult leader decides to sacrifice himself, he’s usually looking for everyone else to drink the Kool-Aid as well. John didn’t drag Dean or Sam along to Lincoln. He also delegates the big objective of killing YED to Sam and Dean to pursue the lesser, but humane, goal of protecting other hunters and general family friends. As well as the self-aggrandizing but genuine grief that’s been mentioned above. This muddies the waters for me, in terms of understanding John.
Other things create confusion. John’s preparation with the holy water is a clever trick, as is his ability to hide from Meg behind the water tank as she enters the building. Demons usually don’t miss anything except devil’s traps chalked onto ceilings (but the fall for that one about as often as Charlie Brown falls for the pull-away football from Lucy). John is filmed as coming out of the steamy shadows from behind Meg when they first meet, it’s usually the human who has the demon come up behind. These things make him more bad-ass as presented, but they don’t overcome the lasts for about 3 seconds deception of the fake Colt.
As an aside, the fact that we learn in the next episode that the demon who shot Meg was her “brother” – both are offspring of YED – hints that demon families may also have their own dysfunction. Another way that Vampires Families Are Better.
Back to the important John-dissection. Is he breaking character (not in the actor sense, of course) as they get within the range of possibility of killing YED? Did the death of Pastor Jim, the upwelling of emotions in the “I want Dean to have a home” scene, the earlier defiance of his bulldog Dean, coupled with the complication of Meg knowing they have the Colt all discombobulate him? Is there some other game he’s playing when he hints that it’s a suicide mission to Lincoln, or is it a game when he says not to worry about handling Meg? And if he doubts that Sam could really kill YED (one possibility of a game), why would he give Sam the Colt? Or was John always this half-cocked (and so the big truck is compensating) and Wonder John was created by Dean as justification for all of the abandonment and sleazy pimping? I don’t recall stories from Sam about how kick-ass of a hunter dad was.
I agree with your comment that people (and therefore good characters) often do not act in ways that lend themselves to linear analysis, but for me during this episode, John is at the intersection of Complicated Character and Confusing Writing. On the other hand, I’ve just spent a few paragraphs writing about JW, as have most of the other commenters here, so it’s hard to say the writers have failed to make a compelling character. The proof is in the kvetching.
Mutecypher –
So much to think about here! I love that you noticed Meg’s change of clothes. Extremely important.
// John is filmed as coming out of the steamy shadows from behind Meg when they first meet, it’s usually the human who has the demon come up behind. //
Yes! I missed that, but you’re right – the “reveal” of John behind her is exactly how they ‘reveal” the monsters in too many episodes to count. Interesting, right? You’d think they’d start that scene on John, with Meg being revealed – but it’s the other way around. It seems to be a way to distance ourselves from John, maybe? To not identify with him? The POV there is CLEARLY Meg’s – which is bizarre and cool.
Okay, let me read the rest of what you wrote.
Mutecypher –
// Is he breaking character (not in the actor sense, of course) as they get within the range of possibility of killing YED? Did the death of Pastor Jim, the upwelling of emotions in the “I want Dean to have a home” scene, the earlier defiance of his bulldog Dean, coupled with the complication of Meg knowing they have the Colt all discombobulate him? Is there some other game he’s playing when he hints that it’s a suicide mission to Lincoln, or is it a game when he says not to worry about handling Meg? And if he doubts that Sam could really kill YED (one possibility of a game), why would he give Sam the Colt? Or was John always this half-cocked (and so the big truck is compensating) and Wonder John was created by Dean as justification for all of the abandonment and sleazy pimping? I don’t recall stories from Sam about how kick-ass of a hunter dad was. //
These kinds of questions are very important and it’s sometimes where I get lost. My sense is is that John is not as good a hunter as his sons – and this is sort of the “reveal” of that. We definitely get “Wonder John” (ha) only through Dean’s eyes – not Sam’s … and like we talked about last week with the whole cult thing – Those who are indoctrinated in cults, and who have a memory of “the time before,” are often MORE likely to defend said cult ferociously – and the more “bad things” they’ve done on behalf of the cult, the more they are aware that they turned off their brain somewhere along the line – the more “True-Believer” they become.
I think you’re right – that Dean was far more abused than Sam was – even though Sam was the rebel, and Dad yelled at him, and all that. Dean internalized, Dean was used as bait while Sam wasn’t – all that. And so Dean has even more of a vested interest in perpetuating the mythology of Dad as “awesome.” Because otherwise – like happens in that final fight scene with Sam – he falls apart.
But I’m not sure – I’m not sure of John’s thought process. I like that it is deliberately opaque, because, yes, here we are still talking about it.
//Another way that Vampires Families Are Better//
Laughing at this.
Helena –
//Like that scene at the end between Sam and Dean. Love that they deliberately loop back to the bridge scene in the pilot. Dean, rather than getting angry or bullying Sam into submission, admits his deepest fears, to refocus Sam on Dad, on rescue, on staying together – on family. //
I read your comments (and everyone else’s) and then re-watched the episode. Your comment got me to thinking that the spine for Dean that Sheila refers to had almost been changed in this episode from “Kill YED” to “let’s get the family out of this alive.” Perhaps that had been his spine all along, and it was just highlighted in this episode.
Yes, I definitely think Dean’s spine all along is “get the family together.” He may take different ACTIONS to work towards that spine – but that’s always where he’s operating from.
“Dead Man’s Blood” showed the hollow-ness at the heart of that wish – like, this is what you’re wishing for, Dean?? (no judgment – we all have those places where we fool ourselves) – and finally here we see it loud and clear, we see Dean choosing sides and stating how he feels about it.
It’s crazy – because the entire season has been about chasing “the thing that killed Mom” – and here we have our lead character saying, “I hope we NEVER find it.”
I love it – it’s one of those slow-burn reveals the show is so good at.
Sheila: I’m responding to this very, very late, so no response is needed or expected…
I JUST started watching Supernatural last week (despite having it on my ‘i should check this out sometime’ radar for years) and, as someone who loves good media criticism/literary analysis/technical know-how, I’ve been devouring your essays as I’ve been watching the show. Having been on the edge of fandom for years, I’ve picked up through osmosis some future stuff spoilers, and while I’ve treaded lightly through your essays and the comments section, I have picked up certain facts about upcoming stories that may color my impressions while watching the show… That being said, in response to your comments:
//Yes, I definitely think Dean’s spine all along is “get the family together.” He may take different ACTIONS to work towards that spine – but that’s always where he’s operating from. //
//It’s crazy – because the entire season has been about chasing “the thing that killed Mom” – and here we have our lead character saying, “I hope we NEVER find it.” //
I agree that Dean’s spine the entire time has been “get the family together”. I don’t think it’s that surprising to hear him express that he hopes they never find YED. Just from my impression of having seen season 1, I have never thought Dean was after YED at all. He has always been ‘i want my family together’ and ‘saving other people from monsters’. Finding and killing YED was all John and Sam. Dean will help them, mostly because he wants to keep them alive, but he’s not interested in hunting YED down himself. He doesn’t have interest in revenge, and certainly not at the expense of his father or brother’s life, so when it becomes clear just how dangerous YED is, and the fact that once they defeat YED, Sam is likely to leave him again (and thus ending the hopes of Dean’s wish, to have his family together again), I’m not surprised at all that Dean doesn’t want to find YED.
Anyway, back to lurking. Thanks for these incredibly thought-provoking commentaries <3
// I’ve been devouring your essays as I’ve been watching the show. //
Thank you so much! I love to hear that they have resonance and that new people keep finding them. It really means a lot!!
and yes – sorry about the spoilers!! I hope you come back and share some more thoughts, as you go through the series. Have fun!! (Sounds like you are already.)
//Your comment got me to thinking that the spine for Dean that Sheila refers to had almost been changed in this episode from “Kill YED” to “let’s get the family out of this alive.”//
Hmmm, thinking …
When I first watched this episode I was really surprised by Dean placing preserving his family over and above killing the YED. I’d have had him down as being down with revenge at any cost, just because he’s a Winchester and the YED destroyed his life, and also that’s what ‘heroes’ do – pursue their cause to the bitter, self-sacrificing end. Which mainly goes to show I’m not very observant about character, but perhaps also is joy of the ‘slow reveal’ of Dean’s character over Season 1, that when this is explicitly stated it has the power to surprise and cause conflict. It is a surprise, but also in totally in character. So much of what he says to Dad is about staying together for safety’s sake. When Sam reveals the same reckless tendencies (rushing back into a burning building? – sorry, nuts) he holds him back. There’s obviously lakes of ink spilled already about Dean’s ‘real’ motivations for this – but the bottom line in this episode seems to be that he would rather his family lived than died, no matter how ‘great’ the cause – same as at the end of Season 8. Destroying the demon is actually Dad’s thing, which Dean will go along with, despite massive qualms – he never seems excited about the prospect, not in ‘Shadow,’ not in this episode. His thing is holding together his dysfunctional family. Sam’s is separating himself from selfsame family, autonomy, agency, and I don’t think being on board for killing the YED at any price negates that totally – it’s more about putting a line through something so that he can move on.
Helena – I was responding to Mutecypher’s comment before I read this one – and we are saying similar things. That “I hope we never find it” reveal is pretty stunning – and I hadn’t thought of connecting it to the end of Season 8, but obviously you’re right. Dean is set up from the get-go as a total “mission” guy – he has given up all hope of a “normal” life to be a hunter, he’s totally gung-ho, but almost immediately after that pilot, we start to see other stuff, right? Conflict.
// Destroying the demon is actually Dad’s thing, which Dean will go along with, despite massive qualms – he never seems excited about the prospect, not in ‘Shadow,’ not in this episode. His thing is holding together his dysfunctional family. //
I know! I also love how … the two times that Sam starts to try to talk about what it will be like when it’s over, or even (like here in Salvation) acknowledging that it is about to be over … it just doesn’t go over well with Dean. Sam has always had one foot out, in many ways – but suddenly, with the “I hope we never find it” line – we see just how much Dean has compartmentalized, and how much he is keeping OUT of that primary objective. It’s rather incredible and it’s amazing that the entire character doesn’t collapse with its own contradictions. But JA makes it work. What does he say in Shadow – “It’s never gonna BE over. there will always be something to hunt.”
Dean doesn’t WANT to reach a final destination. For him there is no such thing. Because then Sam will take off, Dad will take off, and all he can hope for is “to have a home” apparently … everything will end for him if the hunt ends.
Lots of conflict there!
And there’s lots of fascinating rich stuff in those opening episodes of Season 2 … where we see Dean dealing with the aftermath, and with Sam, and how Sam is suddenly all gung ho (“It’s what Dad would have wanted”) and Dean just cannot. deal. He’s all “screw you, you got out, and NOW you’re all the loyal obedient son? It’s a bit late for that, ain’t it?” – but there’s also that other unspeakable level – guilt, shame – the fact that he probably feels relief that Dad is dead. And how can he admit to that?
I don’t have it all worked out, not really, but maybe that’s the point?
It seems to look different every time I re-visit it.
//Dean doesn’t WANT to reach a final destination. For him there is no such thing. Because then Sam will take off, Dad will take off, and all he can hope for is “to have a home” apparently … everything will end for him if the hunt ends.//
Yes, absolutely – it’s a lose-lose situation for Dean, despite seeming to offer everything in the way of release, resolution, catharsis, whatever. Kill YED, and everyone takes off. Or kill YED, and get your family killed in the process. Plus there’s this undercurrent of fear in confronting the ‘thing that killed mom.’ I think this may be part of the ‘barely holding it together’ thing – the prospect of confronting this again is frightening, awakens a lot of trauma. He’s very tamped down, won’t entertain Sam’s thank yous. Sam, on the other hand, – I was going to say ‘is just burning’, my bad – is completely gung ho.
//– but there’s also that other unspeakable level – guilt, shame – the fact that he probably feels relief that Dad is dead. And how can he admit to that?//
Ha! I never thought of that – Dean secretly relieved that Dad is dead. I thought the most unspeakable level is the bit that Dean is literally forbidden to speak about – the whole ‘kill Sam’ bit that underpins so much of the conflict in early Season 2. Whenever Sam launches into a ‘it’s what Dad would have wanted’ speech – Dean can’t say bring himself to say ‘actually, Dad wants me to kill you, if necessary’. As viewers we don’t even know this until Dean finally reveals this to Sam.
//it’s amazing that the entire character doesn’t collapse with its own contradictions.//
Dean just lives amid irreconcilable contradictions – we discussed this a while back, iirc. It’s the only way he can survive, resolutely not joining dots. So the contradictions post dad could be – My world has collapsed now he’s dead – it’s my fault he’s dead – I should be dead instead – the BASTARD forced me into this fucked up promise – the bastard forced me into this fucked up life – I’m glad he’s dead for reasons I can’t bring myself to identify.
Helena –
// Plus there’s this undercurrent of fear in confronting the ‘thing that killed mom.’ I think this may be part of the ‘barely holding it together’ thing – the prospect of confronting this again is frightening, awakens a lot of trauma. //
Yes! I mean, the look on his face in “Home” when Mom suddenly materializes. It’s something he’s alone with, Sam can’t get it, Sam doesn’t remember.
// Whenever Sam launches into a ‘it’s what Dad would have wanted’ speech – Dean can’t say bring himself to say ‘actually, Dad wants me to kill you, if necessary’. As viewers we don’t even know this until Dean finally reveals this to Sam. //
It was SO great to watch Season 2 for the second time, and watch JA play all of that – for damn near 13 episodes, was it? Some insane amount. You can SEE it – there’s one closeup in the first Gordon episode where it’s plain as day on his face. The thing Dad whispered to him. But of course first time around I wouldn’t have known what it was.
I love Season 2.
// My world has collapsed now he’s dead – it’s my fault he’s dead – I should be dead instead – the BASTARD forced me into this fucked up promise – the bastard forced me into this fucked up life – I’m glad he’s dead for reasons I can’t bring myself to identify. //
Aaaaand no wonder Dean drinks.
//I don’t have it all worked out, not really, but maybe that’s the point?//
Me neither! And it probably is!
Thank you for another great recap Sheila!
Am I the only one who’s really annoyed with Meg’s “brother”? He’s suppossed to be so menacing but I just wanna punch his stupid stupid face. Why introduce this character now, do we really need him? I agree that Meg is one that really grows on you, I think she’s brilliant but it took me a few rewatches. Almost everything in this show grows on rewatch. Ecxept Meg’s stupid brother.
I can’t remember being that offended by Friends With Benefits, I have to rewatch it. I just remember it wasn’t very good. Can someone remind what was offensive? I have to agree with Bitten being the worst of them. In my mind it doesn’t even have competition. But I also really hated Defending your life. It was so ridiculous. Worse than Blooodlines even.
Natalie –
//I have to wonder about Pastor Jim a little. Obviously, he was one of the few who didn’t cut John off, but he had to see what was going on with the boys, and he never called CPS on John? It couldn’t have been a confessional privilege thing, because I don’t get the impression that John was a good Catholic. I can understand Bobby not calling, because he had his own insecurities about fatherhood, but a priest who is made out to be a good guy? I don’t know…//
I like this. I don’t think he’s really made out to be a better guy than any other hunter. I think it’s cool that they play with our expectations of priests. He’s just another hunter really I think and is as dedicated to the cause as any of them and has no thought of calling CPS because this is their reality and he might be completely oblivious to the fact that how John treats them is in fact abuse. That the priest turned hunter in 99 Problems was “packing” shouldn’t really have thrown Dean considering they grew up with pastor Jim.
“resentful Nerd Boys” Ha!
Max – Hi!
// He’s suppossed to be so menacing but I just wanna punch his stupid stupid face. //
hahahahahaha I actually didn’t have that reaction but now I most certainly will. I do like the tone of his voice when he says, “It’s a fake.” I never really understood the “Meg is my daughter” thing – demons mate? How does that work? They have family units?
Pastor Jim reminds me of the priest played by Karl Malden in On the Waterfront. He was out in the rough with his congregation, drinking with them, fighting with them, and helping them out if they needed it. He couldn’t afford to be “pious” when amongst them – he had to be “one of them” or no way would he have lasted one day in that parish.
I don’t think anyone from inside the hunter circle would ever call CPS on anyone. They all have a wary relationship with cops, and authority figures – and nobody’s hands are clean. They all seem pretty suspicious of one another anyway.
How out of the ordinary was it to be a hunter dad with two small children? We know that Jo’s dad did the job at the same time that he had a small child – but Jo was kept at home with her mother, while John took the boys with him.
Are there examples of hunters who “grew up in the life” in the same way Sam and Dean did?
Well, Mary, of course.
The Campbells seemed to raise their children in the cult – Mary was a hunter when she was a teenager/kid too.
But anyone else?
I’m just asking because I wonder if the gossip in hunter circles was like, “You know, we all are crazy. That’s a given. But John is REALLY crazy subjecting his kids to all this.” Pastor Jim might have felt the same way, Bobby obviously did.
Just thinking out loud … I might be missing something.
RE: John’s skill as a hunter and Pastor Jim
I’ve gotten the impression from SPN that a lot of the hunters aren’t always the sharpest tools in the shed. Even before we learn of the Men of Letter’s prejudice against them. Most hunters we meet are motivated by revenge of some sort—much of them lost some family member or loved one to a monster. A lot of them seem like John. And with his military background, he might have appeared more…disciplined…than many of the other hunters. At least the ones who come into the life by way of tragedy.
I also get the impression that the hunters born into it, like the Campbells (maybe the Harvelles), Sam and Dean, are smarter about it.
As for why Pastor Jim hadn’t called CPS for the boys…I think people “in the life” wouldn’t do that to each other. These are people who work outside the law. They wouldn’t want attention from the authorities. I think it would take an extreme case of physical abuse to make them intervene, and even then, they would probably follow Bobby’s approach—shoot the bastard.
May – hmm, I replied to Max’s comment above before I read this one, and we seem to be circling the same thoughts.
Jessie?
//It’s like every episode JA does a thing that can only be described as “that one look on his face.” Hey remember that one look on his face in Point of No Return? Remember that one look on his face in Heart?//
YES. I think we should think up a catch-all phrase for that. Like “Fackles” or something.
//Natalie, I know FITA only by reputation (I was a Clan of the Cave Bear kid ha ha) but it should probably be on Helena’s Supernatural reader.//
I haven’t read either. I was more of an Anne Rice teen (less incest, more gay vampires).
Flowers in the Attic was NOTHING compared to the sequel, Petals on the Wind. I had zero business reading that book at age 13.
Sheila, the blank face seems like something Stanley Kubrick especially liked. As examples:
Jack in The Shining: http://avagacser.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/jack-nicholson-the-shining.jpg
Or Alex in Clockwork Orange: http://tristonrobinson.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/alex-1st-scene.png
Or Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey : http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2001-bowman-stargate.jpg
Or Full Metal Jacket : http://hopeliesat24framespersecond.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/36.jpg
Even Tom in Eyes Wide Shut , though he’s helped by the mask, http://filmhaze.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/eyes-wide-shut-1999.jpg
And in Dr. Strangelove:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FtLH3rAzUKQ/Tc8AR8deQgI/AAAAAAAABRg/A1a_h1lXENU/s1600/Ripper.jpg
(How you could keep a blank face with someone named Merkin Muffley in the room is beyond me).
I don’t recall any blank stares in Lolita.
Wow, that Full Metal Jacket one – had forgotten about that!!
Lots of good “blank faces” in Femme Fatales too – Barbara Stanwyck was a master at it.
Sheila, Great recap as usual. I’m really looking forward to your recap of the finale. I’m late to the game as usual, my current work schedule has kept me from putting in my two-cents worth in anything resembling a timely fashion. You guys have covered, and articulated better, many of my thoughts on this ep. I do need to talk about John’s TRUCK. Every prop, costume, or location in this show seems carefully and meticulously chosen to create atmosphere and backup the story/characters I think they were saying something very specific in the choice of that TRUCK. It certainly triggered a response with me. Think about the drivers of those kind of TRUCKS. Aren’t they usually some of the biggest assholes on the road? They couldn’t have painted a clearer picture for me it they had put up large signs that read in large letters and bold font – this guy is an aggressive, cocky asshole. I love this show! Such attention to detail. Very few shows are so meticulous.
Kim – I totally agree! And the attention to cars, too – cars are very important in SPN, obviously – the Impala being the main one – but it’s never random generic cars, and when those do show up, it’s made a point of, joked about, whatever.
And yes, that truck is insane and ridiculous.
Kind of goes along with what I was saying about Metallica (a band I love). Their music is so aggressive and so fast that it takes over the world when you’re listening to it – but the lyrics are about what it feels like to be weak and scared. The SOUND is almost a smoke-screen for the sentiment – which, of course, is why it resonates so powerfully with people.
John’s TRUCK didn’t seem quite that big to me in Shadow – but that one shot of him here, beside it … I mean, yes, just riDICulous. It screams “overcompensation.”
Sam has driven two types of Charger right? Wonder what they wanted to say with that?
Some demons probably hang out in units. Like a cult. And they were his children in that sense. I don’t think they can mate.
May – yeah they would probably take matters into their own hands but like you say it would have to be extreme if they did.
//Think about the drivers of those kind of TRUCKS. Aren’t they usually some of the biggest assholes on the road?//
Kim! I live in an area where A LOT of people drive trucks. A lot. As a result, a few of the people I know have developed a little motto: “Bigger truck, bigger asshole.”
I think that describes JW pretty well…
Reading all of the comments above, yeah, I guess calling CPS wouldn’t have happened (I’ve certainly seen that among friends/adult family members/neighbors/etc. of the kids that I worked with). I guess I’ve pretty much had the assumption for most of the show that a lot of the hunters that John ended up cutting off contact with or getting threatened by probably did object to how he was treating his sons, and the hunters that Sam and Dean didn’t know about were probably ones that John knew would either undermine his authority with the boys, or who would object to John’s parenting choices. I definitely think the reason that the boys never met Ellen before John’s death was that he knew she WOULD NOT stand for the way he abused them. Maybe she wouldn’t have called CPS, but I’m very confident she would have intervened somehow. Maybe Pastor Jim thought his influence on John could mitigate the abuse somehow. I don’t know.
Re: “I’m barely holding it together,” I agree with pretty much all of the above interpretations of this exchange, but I also kind of thought that, on a simpler level, this statement speaks to an experience that I THINK is pretty universal, of being in your mid-twenties and thinking “I should have my shit together by now. Everybody else has their shit together, and I’m just faking it. Can they tell I’m just faking it?” I know it was an experience that I had when I was about 23-28, and there were several movies and songs that came out around that time in my life that validated my sense that, oh, okay, it’s not just me. (Thank you, Garden State.)
//Flowers in the Attic was NOTHING compared to the sequel, Petals on the Wind. I had zero business reading that book age age 13.//
Hahahahaha!! Same here!! Here’s the link to the blog I mentioned: http://vcablogorama.blogspot.com/ I think it’s downright laugh-out-loud funny. And now that I’m thinking about it – I could draw even more parallels between the Dollangangers and the Winchesters. I’ll spare you all that twisted train of thought, though ;-)
I have not seen the Lifetime movies. I don’t have cable, and I just can’t bring myself to spend money to see them. That would just be – no. I am interested to see how Heather Graham plays the mom, although, honestly, though the 80’s movie was complete crap otherwise, Victoria Tennant as the mom was the best part of that trainwreck. She NAILED that character, as far as I was concerned. I’m not sure Heather Graham could top that. I do know that I wasn’t crazy about what I saw in the trailers of Ellen Burstyn’s portrayal of the grandmother. She didn’t seem scary enough.
May – Anne Rice had plenty of incest AND gay relationships (and sometimes gay incest) in the Mayfair witches books. No vampires, though. The incest in those books, though, makes VC Andrews incest look like small potatoes. (I swear I read books that are NOT about incest. I really do. In fact, the vast majority of the books I read have no incest whatsoever. I can’t believe I even need to point that out.)
Max – The issue that *I* had with Man’s Best Friend With Benefits (and that most other reactions I’ve read had) was the fact that it featured a woman of color wearing a dog collar and calling her boyfriend “Master.” It is a little hard to believe that NO ONE involved in the show looked at the script and said, “You know, maybe this is just a LITTLE racially insensitive?”
Natalie – Oh my word, that VC Andrews site. I am reading it from the beginning and I have actually just had to stop myself because I have some paying work I need to get done tonight – otherwise I would read it until 3 o’clock in the morning.
But WOW. I love her writing – her words on Chris!! Laughing out loud.
Fascinating – it’s been decades since I read those books.
// I definitely think the reason that the boys never met Ellen before John’s death was that he knew she WOULD NOT stand for the way he abused them. Maybe she wouldn’t have called CPS, but I’m very confident she would have intervened somehow. //
Most definitely. She would not have stood for that at all and I bet John was a little afraid of her – as most men seem to be. And rightly so!!
I can’t help but think that Missouri herself – not a hunter, but the first person to meet “the new John” – probably said to him something along the lines of, “You need to take care of your children, John.” Of course he took it another way and thought he WAS taking care of them – but there’s something there in how she mothers them, and heckles them … she’s relieved to see them strapping and tall and okay (at least alive).
People fall apart when a family member or spouse dies. Never mind monsters! That’s what that movie Hellion is all about – the wife dies and the father tailspins. Nobody can stop it. But there are children in the house … they need to be looked after. They’re just pip-squeaks, you need to pull it together. Very very very challenging. I found it “challenging” (to say the least) as an adult with no children.
// “I should have my shit together by now. Everybody else has their shit together, and I’m just faking it. Can they tell I’m just faking it?” //
I like that a lot, Natalie, I like that take. It’s very human and takes it out of the pathologizing realm. We could pathologize this poor guy to death – and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to start writing about the show, and him and JA’s crazy-good and versatile performance. That kind of pathologizing commentary just doesn’t explain everything. It’s reductive. But we’ve discussed that before. I just get frustrated with it – I understand the enormous hook – and I have honestly spent time thinking to myself, “Now. What can be done to make Dean feel better about life?”
haha I’m a busy woman and he is a fictional character. I mean, I’m sitting on the bus pondering his options. hahahahaha So I don’t mean to dismiss that type of commentary – it’s just not all there is.
I definitely felt, when I was 27, 28 … Wow, my parents had 3 kids at this point. I am nowhere NEAR that life stage. It was a bit head-trippy – and even more so as I moved into my 30s, and my life still didn’t look like what my peers’ lives looked like. I’ve found some peace with it. I now refer to myself as an “outlaw” and that makes me feel much better about everything. :)
But I like seeing that moment through that filter. Very relatable!!
Sheila I don’t know if the reply thing got fixed but this is responding to YOUR response to Jessie:
John…boy, I just wrote John and I don’t know how to continue.
I appreciate what you make of the closed nature of the family, the “cult” how John has run their life on “need to know.”
It is so difficult to watch this for me and I read your recaps to understand what it is I am seeing.
I am so glad I found your recaps; TNT began Season 1 again in a marathon of 11 episodes. I can now see that from the beginning Dean was filmed to be the beauty on the screen. It is so strange to be looking at him as a “femme fatale” or however you would express it. And now I see the vulnerability which is different from how Sam is filmed in Hell House (the towel scene just before the itching powder) and Dean is filmed (Dean and Cassie start to get it on and Dean is on the bottom, then rolls over and thrusts (!) a few times /I can’t think of the last time I saw thrusting on network television, you know?/ and then they sit up and continue). A lot of your shots show how attractive Jared Padalecki is, no question; but Jensen Ackles seems to exist on a whole slap-my-mouth level of beauty.
I LOVED Dean telling John that he had some nerve saying DEAN should’ve called about Sam’s visions, when John did not respond to Sam about Dean’s injury in Faith or when Dean called crying in Home, begging for help.
I also liked that Dean seemed to realize that his Dad’s plan was verkachkte (is that the right spelling?) but went along anyway to save baby Rosie’s family. And they did! I was surprised that Dean gave Sam the gun because Sam just never impressed me with his weapons-wisdom.
In this and the next episode I think Dean realized HIS OWN plans were better than his Dad’s.
I apologize if I am obtuse here, but I don’t see Dean 2014 in Season 9 Dean. He is CHANGING but still cares about the innocents of the world. I don’t see it. Dean 2014’s death at Sam’s hands (at least Zachariah’s version of the future) was hard for me to take.
Anyway, mutecypher has a note next, let’s hope this little comment gets put in the right space.
Evave – so sorry, no luck on the comments thing – it has stumped two of my coding friends. :(
Thanks for working with it!
I’m not talking about what Dean DOES in Season 9. I am talking about who he has become. The behavior, the look in the eyes, the posture, the gestures … it was full on “The End.” For me, the real tipping point was when he came back from Purgatory. Something seemed burned out of him after that. The resiliency gone. There does come a time when one cannot bounce back. You get tapped out.
Shrug.
I don’t make excuses for Dean, I guess. I find him an absolutely fascinating character, especially the “flaws”. As I explained in the re-cap, a lot of his flaws are my own, and I see a lot of myself in him – especially his survival techniques. So I don’t feel the need to “defend” him or whatever. His behavior makes perfect sense to me, even when it doesn’t. :)
And yes, Dean is filmed like he is a damsel in distress, a leading lady – rather than a leading man. The whole series treats him like that. I love it. The guy in the pilot is not the same guy we see in Wendigo – other shadings were coming in almost immediately. It’s kind of thrilling!
Sheila @ 2:36pm: WHEN was this Golden Age when it was the three of them fighting the good fight, the Family Business?
All I can imagine is once Sam hit his teens (like we saw in The Girl Next Door) he was NOT with the program and all The Family Business HAD was arguments between John and Sam.
I like that you talk about Dean as an Unreliable Narrator (I agree) but then Sam NEVER says, Dean it was not like that, at least on my end.
Yeah, Dean is the only one not in on The Revenge Business that John and Sam subscribe to. I really admire the character for taking the horror of his life and TRYING to do good by others.
It matters to him that others don’t suffer. John seems a little squirrely (I see now that he was heedless of others, and used others for bait in a heedless manner) and Sam really wants out like REALLY.
If John was dead, and Sam was out, would Dean keep hunting? I think so.
My real point was there WAS no Golden Age. It’s all in Dean’s head. Completely understandable, of course, and we see it sort of reveal itself slowly over Season 1, as we get more and more information about what it was really like. People make shit up all the time for many reasons – the “utopia” of childhood, or adolescence, rose-tinted glasses, etc.
Max @ 2:56 pm:
I looked up Azazel on wikipedia and it was reported there that he had a thing for corrupting human females. He COULD have been a biological father.
I am always confused if he was a demon or if he was an angel who fell with Lucifer because Lillith was the FIRST demon so why is Azazel the leader of hell as Sin City’s Casey said?
Anyway, it’s my head canon that Azazel fell with Lucifer and was the one angel he trusted (remember the conversation in Lucifer Rising when THAT bizarro Azazel murdered the nuns to reach Lucifer and find out HOW to bring him out of the Pit? Azazel was TRULY devoted to Lucifer it seemed to me.)
So Meg and Tom COULD have literally been brother and sister.
I’ve been thinking about the ‘was Dad a crap hunter?’ question. He was definitely a crap Dad, but are his hunting skills so lame? Meg thinks so , but she’s hardly a reliable commentator. So playing Demon’s advocate here …
Dad is clearly a dysfunctional, damaged, damaging, ornery bastard and a catastrophically poor father. These final three episodes of Season do a lot to puncture Dean’s POV of him as an awesome Dad and awesome person. Dad’s a mess. A bully. Bad news. But bad hunter? I think that’s mainly Meg.
True, much of ‘Dad’s a great hunter’ comes from Dean, not Sam, in Season 1 at least. John has clearly made some horrible mistakes (Jo’s Dad being one we learn about not long after this episode.) But so have Dean and Sam, so has Bobby, so has every hunter. The business with Meg and the Colt may well be a bit lame. But it buys time. This is clearly not John Winchester at his best. He’s sloppy, clutching at straws. But consider – he’s taken on a demon, at a point when noone has encountered them that much. Demons are still a mystery, and John Winchester has managed to track down one of the most powerful and elusive demons in existence. So there’s that.
Consider also the journal ( that line from Castiel about John having beautiful handwriting makes me laugh every time.) It IS the Bible. It stands Sam and Dean in good stead constantly. They use it for years, even as seasoned hunters, because they know they can rely on it. This is all John’s work.
Also, John’s ability to put together cases, gather evidence, identify patterns etc – I think we are being encouraged to recognise that this is good work, extraordinary work. Again, a lot of the praise for this comes from Dean. But Dean is himself a excellent hunter. He may well be better than Dad. But Dad trained Dean, trained him to be the good hunter he is. Dean recognises good work, despite the rose-tinted-Dad goggles he has on permanently in Season 1. He might not share his methods, values, or modus operandi – and that could be what might make him a better hunter and better man – but still. He might perform every sort of mental and emotional contortion to maintain the image of Dad as a good father, but there’s no point, ever, where anyone, even Sam at his most alienated, says, ‘Dad was plain wrong about this case’ or ‘this case of Dad’s is a crock.’ The opposite. Consider Ash’s reaction to John’s file of evidence in Season 2 Ep 2. He has no axe to grind re John or hunters in general. He’s first baffled, then impressed by John’s evidence gathering. Consider the lovely, steel-biceped Tara’s memories of John, professionally (and non-professionally.)
I’ll grant that Gordon’s admiration of JW is actually a very black mark in his disfavour, given Gordon’s own single mindedness. But single mindedness doesn’t necessarily make a bad hunter, per se, just a bad human being. Much of the driving conflict, teeth gnashing, garment rending in Supernatural springs directly from this question – can you be a good person , can you be a person at all, and a good hunter. Will being a good (or even bad) hunter lead to your destruction as a person? Bobby and Garth seem to be the evidence against this, John strongly for. Dean, not surprisingly given how intertwined he is with John and how damaged by him he is, seems doomed to follow John’s trajectory. But, who knows, it could all change in Season 10 – fingers crossed and magic wands at the ready!
Helena – yes, there is a lot of bathwater being tossed out with the (6-month-old) baby.
The ability to see patterns in chaos – which you clearly can see from that Wall of Madness that opens the episode – and the patience required to keep all of those “leads” in your mind – is a certain skill set – and I’m sure a lot of hunters are just “let me shoot evil shit” dudebros – but then there are the ones who are patient, waiting, coiling around all of these leads. Kind of like Jo’s “case” in Season 2 – and that one spanned 100 years and no one could see a pattern. But she could.
Back to Dad’s journal: there’s that Season 2 episode with the ghost who haunts that stretch of road once a year. (I’m horrible with titles.) I found that episode very touching for a lot of reasons – but one of the reasons I liked it was that Dad’s journal is still a guide. He did the legwork. Sam and Dean heading to that stretch of road at that time was “finishing” up what Dad started.
And that the journal continues to operate – continues to have a presence – sort of connecting him, looping him into the Men of Letters tradition – even though he didn’t even know it existed …
It’s that blending-together thing that the show does so well. It’s hard to pin anything down as either/or – which also works thematically. Like you said at the end of your comment: the long Arc of can you be a good hunter and a good person? Can you have a life outside of hunting? Can you have both? I think a lot of people in real life relate to that – whatever it may be – non-supernatural. Can I be devoted to my job and also be a hands-on parent? Can I have a relationship or do I have to put my career on hold? Maybe it’s just me. But I definitely have those struggles. It’s easier when you give up the “either/or” attitude and embrace the grey areas, let things get messy, have faith that things will work out, as long as you do your best and try to be kind to others.
In many ways, John is a cautionary tale. Here is what NOT to do. And yet on that analytical plain, the boys (men) are still learning from him.
I was re-watching the first episodes from Season 2 – post-Dad dying – and had forgotten a lot. But there’s a moment where Sam says to Dean, over the Impala, “Dad did his best.” It’s a total switcheroo. And Dean is kind of left swinging in the wind – codependent that he is – and all messed up as he is … as long as Sam was bitching about Dad and Dean was defending him, all was right with the world. But those things start to morph, blend together – once Dad dies. I loved that. It’s still happening!
The entire episode of Bad Boys re-visited it – and even there, Dean is like, “Sam, I know how you think, but Dad was right to be pissed.” That whole no-man’s-land of “Dad” is still operating.
I’m just so admiring of that. Jeez. The guy was barely in the damn show and look at his shadow.
and maybe you’re right, in re: the plan with the holy water.
I think if I look at it in terms of this is John presenting himself as bait – and that’s ALL – the Colt has nothing to do with it (MacGuffin) – the whole point of the scene is to offer himself up to the demons, to distract them from what is going on in Salvation, Iowa – … I mean, I got that he was stalling, and all that – but he’s such a black hole I find him completely opaque at times. I can’t “read” his face (and that’s fine – it’s great, actually!)
But this is the same side of the coin of the creepy Dean scene with the vampire in Dead Man’s Blood. If Dean could be “spared” in Salvation, then Dad might ask Dean to take the Colt and buy some time with the demons. Dean is good at bait. Dean is Bait Boy. But Dean can’t be spared, so John has to go.
I’m probably over-thinking it.
Natalie — I forgot to specify that I only read Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles (my bad!), but I can believe there was tons of incest in her other works. I mean, those vampire books get…weird. (After The Vampire Armand, and its pederasty, I was done.)
And I totally believe most of your reading material isn’t about incest!
Max — my issue with “Friend with Benefits” was the same as Natalie’s: a woman of colour, who is also a dog, wearing a collar and having a white male “master.” Really? Plus, it was just a terrible story.
//and maybe you’re right, in re: the plan with the holy water. //
Thing is, I have no frigging idea if the holy water thing/colt thing is a good idea or if there was a better alternative :-) I’m rubbish at that sort of thinking. But yes, yes, yes to the conflicted legacy of Dad – the analytical skills endure, the emotional legacy endures, the switcheroos continue, the black hole continues to exert its gravitational pull. Hats off.
I often wonder, structure-wise, if at these beginning stages the creators (Kripke et al) had any idea what they were unleashing.
They sure as hell cast Dad right. I think it’s BECAUSE of all of this ambiguity and opacity that he remains this shadowy dominant figure.
And yes, I love Castiel commenting on the handwriting. So funny. And Dean’s face in response!
Sheila @ 5:50pm: I think it would’ve worked much better if he had turned on the sprinklers (maybe built a little fire off scene and let the scene go until they got the gun and then the fire took off a little and set off the sprinklers?) so I think water was the way to go but not that kind of delivery system. He didn’t stop the demons at all, they just went around.
Of course, according to Bobby next episode there had only been four demonic possession the whole last year and this year (in May) there were already 26 Maybe nobody was really that experienced in demons? Also maybe that’s why the guys aren’t so much into exorcism anymore, there are just too many demons to confront that way.
Yeah, that’s a good point. Everyone’s new at the whole demon thing at this point. The biggest expert in the room is John.
Can’t wait til Bobby enters. I love him!
//May – hmm, I replied to Max’s comment above before I read this one, and we seem to be circling the same thoughts.//
Why is this the first thing I thought of?
//I’m just asking because I wonder if the gossip in hunter circles was like, “You know, we all are crazy. That’s a given. But John is REALLY crazy subjecting his kids to all this.” Pastor Jim might have felt the same way, Bobby obviously did. //
I always assumed John was a pretty good hunter, but that most hunters didn’t like him because he was too intense. And, if they knew Sam and Dean, had opinions on the way they were raised, as Bobby did.
//I never really understood the “Meg is my daughter” thing – demons mate? How does that work? They have family units? //
That has always been a bit confusing to me, too. Demons were humans once, so maybe that is how Meg and Azazel were related? Or, after Meg got to Hell, she fell under Azazel’s sway? Her “birth” as a demon came from him…and since Azazel was evidently a bit of a religious nut (worshiping Lucifer), they use language like “father” and “daughter” for their unit?
May – I don’t know what I was expecting to see when I opened that link, but it wasn’t that – and again I can’t stop laughing!!
Yes. That is what you and I are doing right now. hahahaha
May – I’m suddenly feeling the need to link to my goodreads account! That video – LOL.
Okay, okay, I acknowledge the possibility that John may not completely suck as a hunter. (I’m trying that passive-aggressive thing. How’m I doing?)
He does get unanimous praise for his notebook, though there’s something off-putting about having handwriting so good that it gets praise from an angel. Crap, now I sound like a Resentful Nerd Boy.
But all jokey irony momentarily set aside, John clearly is a master at pattern recognition and case-building. He just may not excel at the problem-solving aspects of hunting. Don’t know for certain, as I wrote, he may have just been overwhelmed by all the happenings on the night of Salvation.
Helena’s point about Gordon’s admiration being a black mark is a good one. I suspect
Gordon would admire John if this was his characteristic solution to monsters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a88Z7YOh_us
And maybe everyone else would not.
// Crap, now I sound like a Resentful Nerd Boy. //
hahahaha
Also, you people with your awesome links and gifs – so many good ones in this thread alone.
It is definitely difficult to imagine John having a partner, isn’t it? I mean, besides his sons, whom he can boss around. I imagine in this fictional world each hunter has his own style, his own way of doing things – and since it’s such a dangerous job, you’re going to stick to your own style. Why jinx it? Why let in an element that may throw you off your game? You need total trust. Which was what was so devastating about what happened with Ellen’s husband, as I remember it. John took a risk, and left the guy dangling in the wind. It’s funny – think of how Ellen reacts when Sam calls and tells her they’re working with Gordon. “Don’t do that. He’s dangerous.”
Obviously Gordon is brought in as a potential father figure – I think it’s even in the script – but why I love the Gordon Arc so much is that it really brings to the front and center of the story – the issue of the Grey Areas of life. It seems you must be black-and-white, and Dean can be very black-and-white. But I think I said somewhere else – he is actually a TOTAL grey area guy. Like, that’s what he’s all ABOUT. His conversation with Gordon at the bar, where he opens up about his Dad’s death, is all grey area. Gordon is totally black-and-white. I killed my sister. End of story. But Dean allows that uncertainty – the not “either/or” but both things being possible at the same time … and it’s one of his best qualities. But the hunting world keeps trying to crush it out of him.
That first Gordon episode really handles that, or at least introduces it. And it keeps coming up. It’s so hefty, so weighty, I love it.
John was obviously a black-and-white guy – which may come in handy when you are trying to recognize patterns or pick up a cold trail. You can filter out everything that isn’t essential. But that black-and-white thinking is also a huge Achilles heel – which we see with both Sam and Dean too.
I don’t know. Sometimes when I talk about this stuff for too long it starts to feel like a swirly psychedelic painting on some stoner’s wall. If you look at it while you’re standing on your head, you see a leaping tiger! And if you lie down, voila, pinwheels!
Hi All. So late to the party… but enjoying nonetheless.
Sheila
//I don’t know. Sometimes when I talk about this stuff for too long it starts to feel like a swirly psychedelic painting on some stoner’s wall. If you look at it while you’re standing on your head, you see a leaping tiger! And if you lie down, voila, pinwheels!//
Hahahahaha yup. Thats when I remember that wonderful image as Sam the Centaur or watch Dean’s shower scene on youtube. You know, for clarity.
Sheila, wonderful screen grabs, just beautiful. And I am so glad you brought up the blocking and how that works with the interpersonal dynamics because I love it when those details all work together. The brothers standing close to each other not to be told or measured, but for comfort and strength. I love how Dean doesn’t push Sam off of him at the end but just slowly dampens Sam’s fire with his open, shiny self. In another life Dean should have been a firefighter, right.
On the discussion of John I just want to add two things. One, maybe John lets the boys go after the YED with the colt and goes after Meg by himself because he doesn’t believe Sam’s visions. If this is the case, then this is the best way to keep the boys and the colt safe/out-of-the-way of the real lead (Meg). And two, maybe the reason John looks away when he says that what I want… “for Dean to have a home” line is because it is a lie. And it is hard to lie emotionally to a person’s face. This is what happens in my mind when he says that line.
“Kaboom! AHHHH! Then give him a home! You are the one person in the entire world who can give this to him at this moment in time. Stop hunting the demon and buy a garage. WTF!”
That should really be in all caps to be a more accurate depiction of my internal scream. So, when he says, “I want Mary to still be alive”, as Sheila you mentioned about the spine – to me that is his true want, and that alone. He can’t have that so fuck the world except his revenge.
Okay, ONE last thing on John. He totally reminds me of some of the action heroes of the 80’s. The classic overcompensation (my god the truck and the machete.. uh-huh) and the dumb way he insists on keeping people in the dark. I remember watching countless movies and t.v. shows when the hero simply didn’t tell his wife/girlfriend about the obvious danger and so she gets caught and held against him and blah, blah. I remember all those times as a kid thinking, ‘you know, if you had just told her that Bad Man was trying to exact revenge on you at this moment, she might not have gone out for donuts and gotten caught.’ Sometimes I think John is That Guy.
Jessie
//Fake baby in the pram when we first see her is the stuff of nightmares. Good thing the demon never got to it, it would probably be our evil overlord by now.//
Fucking Funny!
Heather – Hi!
// because it is a lie. //
Holy crap – see, I get so caught up in the stoner’s psychedelic painting that I miss the evidence right in front of me. Or I miss the simplest explanation and forget my Occam’s Razor. I don’t know why I never even considered the possibility that it was a lie – except that I too am under the sway of John Winchester and get all sucked up in his black hole of emotion. Damn him! I really like your thoughts here – they are simple and true. Turning away is eloquent – a way to hide his face – and yes, “I want Mary to be alive” – that’s really the only true thing for him.
The moment is so full of possibilities, but I like the “he’s lying” filter a lot. I’ll watch it again with that in mind.
// I love how Dean doesn’t push Sam off of him at the end but just slowly dampens Sam’s fire with his open, shiny self. In another life Dean should have been a firefighter, right. //
Lovely way of putting it.
and yes. Dean in the shower, Sam as centaur. Definitely clears the cobwebs.
I like to think of John as an extremely capable hunter, because in order to be a long slow deconstruction of Hunterism the show is engaging with myth quite sincerely. To have John (and Mary/Samuel C) be singular only makes Sam and Dean — both of whom are better hunters than John — even more singular. And they are singular, and the universe regularly trembles at the sight of them. Know what I mean? You need to buy into the romance before the deconstruction can really wallop you.
Plus, I’m a Silmarillion girl. I want a detailed ranking of the most direly powerful creatures and the most beautiful and the most evil and the most ancient and magical.
Me too. Why do we think he does that? Is he hoping Sam dies in that confrontation? Is it that cynical?
I think it’s half pure utilitarian division of forces, and half poking-the-bear. Whatever happens in that house with Sam and yet-to-be-revealed-Azazel there’s a good chance John will learn something more about What is Wrong With Sam. So Sam is bait too, I guess.
Oh no May, you have seen my true face!
Jessie –
// You need to buy into the romance before the deconstruction can really wallop you. //
That is totally right. I think we’ve discussed this before – and how it takes a couple of viewings (or at least it did for me) to even PERCEIVE John Winchester outside of his epic role, epic size, and placement in the boys’ heads. And I think that’s perfect. Not just his performance – but how he’s set up, and how he operates in the story.
it becomes much much bigger than just “Meanie Dad holding his sons back” which, bleh.
// I want a detailed ranking of the most direly powerful creatures and the most beautiful and the most evil and the most ancient and magical. //
Me too. I could definitely use a flow chart.
Something like Jack Black’s “history of rock” blackboard in School of Rock.
//I like to think of John as an extremely capable hunter, because in order to be a long slow deconstruction of Hunterism the show is engaging with myth quite sincerely. //
Jessie, with this you put what I was trying to say about John as hunter in a nutshell – thank you. I was struggling with this last night when brain and fingers gave up simultaneously. I was trying to say something on the lines that it is important to how the show works, to the story of Sam and Dean and how we understand what they are that John is a good hunter. It’s like in epic poetry: the hero must fight an opponent who is worthy of them – not always necessarily as noble/heroic (although in some circumstances that is really important) – but a worthy match.* John isn’t an opponent in that sense, I guess, more something between teacher/mentor, legator (an idea which gets more explicit when the whole men of letters thing kicks in) and Laius to Sam and Dean’s Oedipus.
(Hmm. If Dad had been a ‘good’ Dad he could have been Merlin to Dean’s Wart/Arthur. I don’t know any good examples of Evil Merlin figures, hmmm … maybe someone can help me out. Maleficent? Someone from Flowers in the Attic?)
*Which makes the Dean/Abaddon/Metatron confrontations interesting cases. Discuss.
When is it first mentioned that John’s dad walked out on him? When do we learn that? I’m not remembering. I remember it from the Henry Winchester entryway into the story but is it brought up before then?
I love that Flowers in the Attic is now being referenced repeatedly in this thread.
An Evil Merlin. Hmm. Maleficent would qualify. Crowley is kind of qualifying as well – at least in those sinister final scenes in Season 9.
The connections with myth is great and obviously something the show started exploring more and more, with freakin’ Zeus showing up, etc.
Dean as Oedipus! Of course! I love when he throws in an Oedipus reference and then is like, “I honestly have no idea what that means.” Ha.
And about your last point. We’ve had so many Big Bads on the show – Azazel, and Lilith, and Abaddon and Dick Roman. Who will be that now? We’re going into Season 10 without an explicit Big Bad – the Big Bad is within now.
Yes, John does genuinely feel those emotions–which is one of the things that makes him so damn hard to deal with. (His theme song oughta be that Kris Kristofferson song about Johnny Cash and others. “He’s a poet, he’s a picker–“. A walking contradiction indeed. )
I can’t really find it in me to condemn him totally, though, bad parenting and all. After the rawness of grief in Season 2 and Dean’s anger finally being expressed if only to his dream self in Season 3, Sam and Dean themselves begin to take turns reminding each other, “He did the best he could.” To be sure, this is what they have to do to preserve that link to John. I do think, though, that with this bit of emotional distance comes some forgiveness from both of them.
Barb – I love that Kris Kristofferson song! He had Harry Dean Stanton in mind too – the two of them are friends.
// I do think, though, that with this bit of emotional distance comes some forgiveness from both of them. //
Season 2 is so interesting to me, so rich that way. How immediately, upon Dad’s death, they start changing – in ways they can’t predict, understand, or even approve of. Grief is crazy like that. You can’t control it.
Hmmm, evil or at least improper Merlins. Willy Wonka? Roland Deschain? John certainly has some Roland to him.
It’s like in epic poetry
Exactly! There are rules! The show is tragic not nihilistic. Re Abbadon and Metatron, Dean was levelling up like a proper hero, but (and here is where myth sinks down into the muck of the particular) his psychology and circumstance could not support a boss battle of Metatron. In 1000 years when we tell this story we might begin with Hwaet! and it might look very different. But for now we are stuck with the mess and the contradiction.
// The show is tragic not nihilistic. //
Excellent distinction.
What I’m trying to say is, maybe Gilgamesh really loved pie.
hahahahahahaha
//What I’m trying to say is, maybe Gilgamesh really loved pie.//
Gilgamesh is the origin of ‘eat, drink and be merry’ – so yeah, he was ORDERED by Ishtar to go home and love Pie.
I translate the last tablet, roughly.
‘Gilgamesh, enough running around already
You can’t live forever
So go home to Lisa and Ben, have barbecues
And live a nice apple pie life.’
hahahaha
Kevin Tran clearly missed that section.
The end of Season 5 is basically the end of the epic of Gilgamesh.
Helena that is perfect! Ha ha. But I’m glad we didn’t end there. Those apples are poiiiiiiiiiisonnnnnnnnnnn. I need Enkidu to rock up and be creepy and queer the hell out of family time.
Oh God, can you imagine if it had ended there? Gag.
// In 1000 years when we tell this story we might begin with Hwaet! and it might look very different. //
And I refer you back to my contention that Dean = Beowulf + Scooby Doo.
Brill.
//I need Enkidu to rock up and be creepy and queer the hell out of family time.//
When I was art college (some time before the last flood) I did an animated version of Gilgamesh for my final show. It was animated with paper cutouts of figures made from tons of photographs. Trying to make monster sound effects was pretty hard.
Sam = Enkidu – I’m dying.
// I did an animated version of Gilgamesh for my final show. It was animated with paper cutouts of figures made from tons of photographs. //
Helena, that sounds incredible!
Helena, your sublime equation — how did you know?
Sheila we only find out about John’s childhood in the first Henry W episode.
That’s what I thought.
wow Helena, that animation sounds so cool.
Oh God, can you imagine if it had ended there? Gag.
Last shot of the series, Impala driving down the highway at night. Accept nothing less.
Goosebumps.
I’m with you. And Dean has his necklace back on. Non-negotiable.
Blackout.
You’re describing both the last cut of the series and the quantity of alcohol I will have ingested to cope with said cut.
Oh fuggedaboutit. I’m already a wreck.
Mutecypher 8:37 pm 6/17/14:
One other thing: Dean and Sam only heard about Dad’s successes,never any screw-ups that Dad walked away from (like the one where Bill Harvelle died).
They were a closed set, imagine how lonely it was for those kids never having anybody to really talk to.
John kept them away from other hunters so they would have nothing to judge by. It seems Daniel Elkins, Bobby Singer, and Rufus (forgot last name if ever given) were the guys to judge by.
So even if John could SEE these vast programs thru space and time did not mean he was the best hunter at fighting them. It seems to me when Sam and Dean grew up and got together to fight the monsters, THEY were clearing the way. How long was Dean hunting Azazel? Really about one year.
To get the job done he SOLD HIS SOUL (I know it was to save Sam, but I think you know what I mean here) because he at that time was willing to do whatever it took to get the job done.
Sheila, you have a note above about Dean losing his resiliency after Purgatory.
I think you’re right there, Jensen’s body is just so different. But I think Purgatory was like the final straw, he was never the same after Hell. Really.
I admit to resenting the way they took Dean’s torture and debasement in Hell and gave Sam a “worse” Hell. For some reason I don’t think Lucifer was into the same kind of torment Alastair was, Alastair was trying to break Dean and brought out the heavy guns, Lucifer would’ve just been trying to HURT Sam. Slightly different.
//I’m with you. And Dean has his necklace back on. Non-negotiable.//
Oops, another tablet has suddenly been discovered (translation, Seamus Heaney RIP)
‘Then Dean, complete with necklace
And Sam, with a new tattoo
Zoom off in the nightblack Impala
With a cry of, ‘We’ve got work to do!’
The End.
Picturing Heaney translating that is giving me so much pleasure.
“We’ve got work to do.” YES. Loop that shit back around, SPN, loop it around.
//I love that Flowers in the Attic is now being referenced repeatedly in this thread.//
You’re welcome. Or, possibly, my deepest apologies.
// The show is tragic not nihilistic. //
Am I the only one whose brain went here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_29yvYpf4w ?
Seriously, though, that is, as Sheila said, an excellent distinction.
// Or, possibly, my deepest apologies. //
hahahahaha
Her discussions of Flowers in the Attic are soooo funny and so insightful. Thank you for that link – I love her! She keeps asking: What is wrong with these people?. And I love how much she hates Chris. It’s making me roar.
That whole nihilist thing in Big Lebowski is so hilarious.
//Thank you for that link – I love her!//
Glad you’re enjoying it!! I won’t spoil it for you if you’re not there yet, but there’s a line about Chris near the end of her Petals on the Wind recap (it’s when he sees the grandmother again when he goes to get Cathy from the Christmas party) that seriously made me roar with laughter. It was one of the times that I was really glad I live alone!
I’m at the point in the re-caps when grandmother (Trunchbull – so funny) pours tar in Cathy’s hair, and she (the writer) is just having NONE of Cathy’s vanity.
Ha ha! So perfect. Say what you want about the tenets of crossroads deals. At least it’s an ethos.
“We’ve got work to do.”
Shall we swoon or shall we despair? (but I love the translation).
//Say what you want about the tenets of crossroads deals. At least it’s an ethos.//
Hilarious!
//Shall we swoon or shall we despair?//
Both!
We will stare at the screen, filled with overwhelming feeling.
Fingers crossed for that, anyway.
Sheila – the whole Trunchbull thing – if Lifetime had managed to cast Pam Ferris as the grandmother, I probably WOULD have paid to watch the movies. I love Ellen Burstyn, but the Trunchbull would have truly been perfect in that role!
I know, right? I haven’t read the books since I was a kid – but it’s all coming back to me through her posts. I had forgotten about the tar in the hair totally. They are such weird books – also I know nothing about VC Andrews personally althuogh I did know about the ghost writer who continued writing books in her name after she passed. So it’s very interesting to learn a little bit about this author.
//Shall we swoon or shall we despair?//
I’m just in complete denial. In my mind, I will still be watching Dean and Sam hunt when I’m in my 80’s.
//I know nothing about VC Andrews personally//
Apologies in advance for this digression, but I actually went through this brief period in during my undergrad years of trying to find out about her life after I found a cheap used copy of FITA and re-read it, because I have this hypothesis that some parts of those books were autobiographical. I didn’t find much, except what I read through the lines in her official bio, but I still think some of the kids’ behaviors (especially in Petals on the Wind) are a little TOO realistic (Cathy hoarding food comes to mind). Also, she dedicated FITA to her MOTHER. If I wrote a book like that and dedicated it to my mom, I’m pretty sure she would disown me (with good reason). Even when I was 12, that seemed more like an indictment than an honor to me. Though it’s certainly possible that I’m reading too much into it, as usual ;-)
// she dedicated FITA to her MOTHER. //
Nuts.
Wasn’t she house-bound in some way? Or is that a rumor?
//Wasn’t she house-bound in some way?//
Yeah, she had a back injury when she was a teenager that left her pretty much wheelchair-bound, and she lived with her mother for her entire life. I got the impression from some stuff that I read that her mother was pretty controlling and kept her isolated from almost everyone but family members (sound like anyone else we know of?) but I don’t know how reliable that source was.
I really appreciated you pointing out the parallels between “The End” and our current Dean. The cyclical nature of the storytelling on this show is really amazing if you think about it, and plays into the whole theme of free will vs. fate. Not only did Dean grow colder over the course of the last half of S. 9, we also had Sam possessed by an angel (although not Lucifer) and Castiel becoming human (though he got his grace back). As Lucifer himself said through Sam–“We will always end up, here.” The fact that their situations are still mutable even in the face of their destinies is pretty much the only thing giving me hope for Dean at this point.
The development of 2014 Dean to me has been slow, and quite a bit of “one step up, two steps back.” After he settled down and backed off of his fairly vicious post-Purgatory mindset, he was becoming a more open version of himself during Sam’s trials. I feel like we got a glimpse of who he could be, then. A leader, a father figure to Kevin, and a brother to people like Charlie, Garth, and even Krissy. So when it all comes crashing down on him mid-season 9, it’s painful to watch.
Barb – so sorry, in the flurry yesterday I missed your beautiful comment. My bad!!
// The fact that their situations are still mutable even in the face of their destinies //
That’s it, exactly. It’s a huge hook. I love how it keeps looping around over the same ground – and yet it looks slightly different each time.
//Oh no May, you have seen my true face!//
. . .
Jessie, I think I hurt myself trying not to bust out laughing at work.
(P.S. If you are watching me—I’m on my lunch IT department!)
sorry to interject these thoughts here. I was trying to comment on your reply to evave2, upthread.
//Oops, another tablet has suddenly been discovered (translation, Seamus Heaney RIP)
‘Then Dean, complete with necklace
And Sam, with a new tattoo
Zoom off in the nightblack Impala
With a cry of, ‘We’ve got work to do!’
The End.//
The tablet does not lie. FOLLOW THE TABLET!
//“Bigger truck, bigger asshole.”// Oh May, that truck was such a trigger! I’m just west enough of DC that there’s a lot of those TRUCK guys around here. They frequently have obnoxious bumper stickers, some even drive around with big American and Confederate flags flying from the back. (do they not understand those things are mutually exclusive lol) But I do love SPN’s cars. Sheila could probably write an entire essay devoted to SPN cars and what they say about our heroes lol
Kim – I wonder if any car nuts have really delved into the Car Motif of SPN. It’s definitely worth examining.
I know that when I walk through Elvis’ car museum in Graceland I feel I am in the presence of Sheer Sexual Energy.
The Stutz Blackhawk, in particular.
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=61181
Holy shitballs.
//I like to think of John as an extremely capable hunter, because in order to be a long slow deconstruction of Hunterism the show is engaging with myth quite sincerely . . . You need to buy into the romance before the deconstruction can really wallop you.//
Agreed! Whether we think John was a good hunter or not, I think in the world of the show, he is supposed to be representative of a good hunter. At the very least, I think the writers started SPN with that intention…
I always felt SPN started very much as Sam=Luke Skywalker, Dean=Han Solo, with the show leaning to be more about Sam and his hero journey. But after they actually started making it, saw the talent they had at their disposal, it evolved into something else.
So, John was a great hunter. Dean and Sam (our protagonists) become the best hunters. That was always there. But they later developed the theme of the human cost of being a great hunter.
Good thing I already know Beowulf and Scooby-doo, and Anne Rice, I only need to read V.C. Andrews to keep up with the thread.
You know, I just noticed that my copy of Seamus’s translation of Beowulf beings
So. The Spear-Deans in days gone by
and the Hot Queens with Guns Drawn who ruled them had courage and greatness.
per Barb’s //The fact that their situations are still mutable even in the face of their destinies is pretty much the only thing giving me hope for Dean at this point.//
As the wise woman said to Prince Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, “You cannot alter your fate, my prince. However you can rise to meet it if you choose.”
Dean’s the Hero With a Thousand Faces. (one of which is a cartoon dog).
//I only need to read V.C. Andrews to keep up with the thread.//
I THINK you’re joking, but on the off chance that you’re not – honestly? You’re better off for not having read any of it. I’m pretty sure that way madness lies.
Natalie, I go along with the saying, “I’m not sick, I’m twisted. ‘Sick’ makes it sound like there’s a cure.”
Or to quote Marius from The Vampire Lestat, “None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”
But posturing aside, there’s a long queue ahead of any VC and who knows?
I still laugh at the mini-van from season 7 and of course Cas’s hooptie in this last season
All right I love you guys! Natalie thank you for your invaluable perspective. I so enjoy your ideas. Discombobbled and verkackte. My new favorite words. I’m getting quite an education here. I don’t think I get the full implications of the slavery-issue. Being swedish and all. About the incest, when are we going to talk about the more-than-brothers-feelings. I don’t mean that in a fanfic kind of way. I mean what about what we can see when Sam pushes Dean up against the wall. When Zachariah says “erotically co-dependent” and when Crowley says ” And my, the things I’ve heard!” and Lisa says your “crazy tangled up” thing. And Ash saying they’re soulmates and all.
//I could draw even more parallels between the Dollangangers and the Winchesters. ‘I’ll spare you all that twisted train of thought, though ;-)//
No for christ sake don’t spare us anything!
Sheila – I would be so happy to hear your own Hollywood-experience. Whatever it may be.
Thank you all for your responses to my AA comment. I love the link. It’s my sentiment exactly. Especially that you’re back to zero if you “slip”- Whatever – I was totally oversharing but the responses were great.
I love this site!
Max –
There was a lot of sharing going on in that thread – I really appreciated your thoughts and do, in general. SPN brings up personal things. There’s no way it would have lasted 10 seasons without that identification factor.
Oh, and despite the fact that half of my family is in “the business”, I really don’t have any Hollywood experience. My time as an actress was strictly stage – well, I did a couple independent films – and I was deeply involved in the Actors Studio here in New York. It’s still my background.
I’m now sort of dealing with Hollywood inadvertently or peripherally because of the script I’ve written and the totally swanky agent that signed me after they read the script. So I’ve had “meetings” and stuff like that, with producers and directors who are interested. So far no bites, and it’s a frustrating time for me, professionally. But I know the script I’ve written is good – it has “played well” with audiences thus far – and so this is the year where hopefully something will break. Or – I declare it: 2014 will be the year something will break. I’ve got PLANS, I tell ya.
Having a swanky agent helps get you through the door and helps you get to people you otherwise would have no access to.
And all it will take will be some major name – some big actor or actress – to say: “This. I want to do THIS.” and then it will happen. So that’s basically where we’re at now.
I’ve got my Dream Cast in mind. Of course I will be totally willing to go with a plan B or plan C … but I know who I REALLY want and it helps keep me focused.
Anyway. That’s my background. And the O’Malleys are everywhere in Hollywood. It’s insane. My cousins are everywhere, my aunts/uncles are everywhere, I grew up in this business – it always seemed like a valid job to have, rather than a weird pipe-dream. Strange.
//So. The Spear-Deans in days gone by//
This is quite the Hunter’s Funeral:
“The Geat people built a pyre for Beowulf
stacked and decked it until it stood foursquare
hung with helmets, heavy war-shields
one or two pies, just to be on the safe side
and a shining Impala, just as he had ordered.
Then his warriors laid him in the middle of it,
mourning for a lord far-famed and beloved.
‘Better than Game of Thrones’ mourned the Geats,
‘even if not quite so many people watched it.’
This is one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever read. Game of Thrones!!
//one or two pies, just to be on the safe side
and a shining Impala, just as he had ordered.//
LOL. Truly. Helena, you rock.
//About the incest, when are we going to talk about the more-than-brothers-feelings. I don’t mean that in a fanfic kind of way. I mean what about what we can see when Sam pushes Dean up against the wall. When Zachariah says “erotically co-dependent” and when Crowley says ” And my, the things I’ve heard!” and Lisa says your “crazy tangled up” thing. And Ash saying they’re soulmates and all.//
Brace yourselves. I have a lot to say about this. Just not in any particular order.
(Before I start I just want to say that this isn’t a personal attack on anyone or any segment of the fandom, or an interpretation of the show. I don’t want to offend anyone. I just have discussed it A LOT over the years as it is a topic that is forever tied to SPN. I’ve spent more time thinking about this than is healthy. This is just my interpretation.)
1. Like people assuming they are a gay couple, I always took these comments about their relationship as meta-jokes, calling out to that aspect of the fandom. SPN acknowledges its fandom often. They address wincest directly in “The Monster at the End of this Book.”
2. A lot of the remarks that sexualize the relationship between Dean and Sam come from people trying to insult them, ridicule them, diminish them in the eyes of others. Like Dean calling monsters “Bitch.” Zack is trying to turn Adam against them. Crowley… is Crowley.
3. Soulmates. The whole idea is pretty vague to me. Though it can be inferred in the exchange, Ash didn’t directly call them soulmates:
DEAN: So everybody gets a little slice of paradise.
ASH: Pretty much. A few people share—special cases. What not.
DEAN: What do you mean ‘special’?
ASH: Aw, you know. Like, uh, soulmates.
I have trouble with the idea that they are soulmates simply because of the nature of the Heavens we see for each of them in that episode. I’m also not convinced they shared a Heaven. They died together, but ended up in separate memories. Dean lands in a memory of a parental moment: him setting up fireworks for kid!Sam. Sam’s in one of escape, being away from his family and doing something “normal.” To me it would make more sense, if they were soulmates, to have both landed in the same place in the same memory (like the fireworks). When I first saw that episode, I thought they landed in separate areas, and Dean was following the Axis Mundi—a path through Heaven—to find Sam (and found him because they were recent arrivals).
Basically, I do think that they love each other “more than bothers,” just not in a sexual way. Dean loves Sam as a younger brother and as a son. Sam loves Dean as an older brother and as a parent (mother). They are also, basically, best friends (I’m sure through childhood, only friend). It’s messed up. But not everything is about sex.
P.S. I will also admit to a bias in my theory/personal soapbox: slash sometimes makes me sad. I find it limiting, for men, that their emotional connections are often assumed to be through sex and sex only. As if they can’t form deep, meaningful relationships with men or women without sex being involved. I think it harmful for women, too. Our culture has elevated romantic love to such a level that it has stripped value and meaning from other relationships.
Hmm. I don’t think my link worked: http://youtu.be/FaIk_NlzXKw
All that essaying, ruined by my html typo! WOE IS ME.
May –
//P.S. I will also admit to a bias in my theory/personal soapbox: slash sometimes makes me sad. I find it limiting, for men, that their emotional connections are often assumed to be through sex and sex only. As if they can’t form deep, meaningful relationships with men or women without sex being involved. I think it harmful for women, too. Our culture has elevated romantic love to such a level that it has stripped value and meaning from other relationships.//
That’s a good soapbox. Preach it!
May –
I don’t think we’re supposed to infer that they’re getting it on while we’re not looking. But UST? Definitely. They would never act on it, like someone said many posts ago, they have qualms up the wazoo. It feels a little wrong raising this question in this classy forum. But even more wrong not to mention it considering it entered canon long ago. I think this is all about a deep meaningful relationship without sex actually. And I personally think it goes way beyond playing with the idea of romantic love. But I also think it’s radical in acknowledging that such a relationship as Dean and Sam has it’s weird implications. I mean why
What I’m interested in is to what extent it is weirder than any sibling relationship would be under the same circumstances.
// I’m also not convinced they shared a Heaven. They died together, but ended up in separate memories. //
But the only way you could find someone else in heaven was with some crazy quantum physics string theory application thingy that Ash the redneck-genius put together. So I think we were supposed to think that they shared a heaven.
‘even if not quite so many people watched it.’
Oh my god Helena, you blow me…..away.
Let’s talk about SEX.
I don’t mean that in a fanfic kind of way…..such a relationship as Dean and Sam has it’s weird implications
I agree, there are readings of the show full of all sorts of implications that exist on all sorts of continuums. I may be our resident fanfiction aficionado and our resident person who thinks about Sam and Dean banging a lot. So for me the most natural way of expressing or working through those implications — all those moments and weirdnesses you identify — is in a fanfic kind of way, a reading kind of way. So if we’re going to talk about incest, it’s not about finding the proofs in the text as to whether Sam and Dean might be having sex or want to have sex, it’s about exploring how the text might activate those meanings.
I said once in one of Sheila’s early posts that one of the great the pleasures of this show is how extensively it activates the reading centres of the brain. Indeed as we’ve struggled with the last few episodes, we break it down to its component molecules, but it still resists certainty. Like any work of art there’s no true access to it, and it pushes that. To put it another way — the gaps and extent to which so much of the show is, hmm, unutterable, means that we can hold many simultaneous readings in our brains at once.
Marry that with the characterisation, the structure, the photography, the foxhole desperation, the lack of women, the complete queering of any conception of traditional nuclear family, and perhaps most significantly the romance tropes the show plays with, and the way it resonates through with other stories. The immediate antecedent to Supernatural is The X Files, right? We all know what happened there. We’re trained to read things in certain ways. I find all those multiple and contradictory echoes and resonances really invigorating.
Our culture has elevated romantic love to such a level that it has stripped value and meaning from other relationships.
I agree, that’s definitely a problem. I especially resent it with opposite-sex characters in TV. Every time a new show comes it’s like you can immediately clock what the producers intend down the line (Brooklyn Nine Nine I’m looking at you). Gag me with a spoon. Give these characters space to breathe please. On the other hand….when things aren’t explicit — because it rarely is with same-sex characters — there’re all sorts of potentialities. And it’s nice to see queer desire, and it’s nice to make the potential explicit.
And I’m not going to pretend them being super hot has nothing to do with it.
to what extent it is weirder than any sibling relationship would be under the same circumstances.
And what are those circumstances? Another way of working through the implications is in a forum like this, of course, and what we have all been doing here –all our speculation, all our backstory parsing, all our screencap analysis, all our poetry — serves much the same function as fanfiction. So I’d say there are a thousand different answers to that question!
Jessie –
// one of the great the pleasures of this show is how extensively it activates the reading centres of the brain. Indeed as we’ve struggled with the last few episodes, we break it down to its component molecules, but it still resists certainty. Like any work of art there’s no true access to it, and it pushes that. To put it another way — the gaps and extent to which so much of the show is, hmm, unutterable, means that we can hold many simultaneous readings in our brains at once. //
This is one of the absolutely divine pleasures of the show. Like, literally – it feels almost divine.
The resisting of certainty is key, and something more literal fans have a huge problem with. But it’s really WHY the thing is such a powerhouse.
And it can’t be denied that how the show presents Sam and Dean is often in a romantic way – staring longingly at the cell phone, waiting for the other to call … This is not to say that literally they are thinking, “I want to bang my brother” – but that the CLICHES of the art form (the sad sentimental music, the glances at the cell phones, the starts/stops/pauses, the deep glances) come from the romantic cliche “playbook”.
The writers/creators are extremely deliberate in this respect.
You can see it in a lot of films from the 30s and 40s – where censorship was in effect and they couldn’t be as blatant as they wanted to be. But you still get the message. There’s a character in The Big Sleep who is a drug addict and a nymphomaniac of the old-school kind – she works in porn – and she is literally fucked into submission by dealers and pornographers – it’s horrifying. And of course you can’t SEE any of that, and the script has to skirt around what’s going on – and it ends up being even MORE explicit beCAUSE it doesn’t “come right out and say it.”
There are a million examples.
And then there’s portraying the “love that dares not speak its name” – entire documentaries and books have been written about obvious queer relationships in cinema in the 30s and 40s, and how such things were handled, or telegraphed – with a wink-wink to the audience who would “get it”. Yes, there was some homophobic hostility – the character in Adam’s Rib being one of the most vicious examples – but I’m talking more about subtextual stuff. How, with modern eyes, you can look at certain films and go: “Hmmm. They were obviously playing around with gay themes there.”
Even the final moment of Casablanca could be read in a queer context.
It doesn’t HAVE to be, but it sure as hell CAN be.
The final moment of Some Like it Hot. Totally gay. Openly gay.
So I’m not as interested in nailing it down as some fans seem to be – or “defending” interpretation one way or the other – I like to let it all swim about at the same time.
Much of this is cinematic in nature: how they are filmed, how they are presented. And yes: because they are both so hot.
//But the only way you could find someone else in heaven was with some crazy quantum physics string theory application thingy that Ash the redneck-genius put together. So I think we were supposed to think that they shared a heaven.//
I can certainly see that, especially on rewatch. I’m just thrown by the Axis Mundi—if only Ash can enter another person’s Heaven, but there is a clear path through Heaven that anyone can use…shouldn’t more people be able to move around? Ugh. I try not to dwell on these nitpicky details. I can get too wrapped up in thinking about how things work.
// I especially resent it with opposite-sex characters in TV. Every time a new show comes it’s like you can immediately clock what the producers intend down the line (Brooklyn Nine Nine I’m looking at you). Gag me with a spoon. Give these characters space to breathe please. //
Agreed!
//On the other hand….when things aren’t explicit — because it rarely is with same-sex characters — there’re all sorts of potentialities. And it’s nice to see queer desire, and it’s nice to make the potential explicit.//
Agreed again!
If people want to interpret Sam and Dean that way, fine. Just don’t tell me that is the ONLY interpretation (hypothetical tinhat fangirl) of their relationship.
Now, Dean and Cas…I can see that. I don’t ship it. But I can see that. If Castiel had been cast as a woman (in a pure gender-swap, everything the same but the biological sex of the host body) they would have had sex by now.
//And I’m not going to pretend them being super hot has nothing to do with it.//
This is the thing, right? Would the sexual interpretation of their relationship be there if the actors weren’t physically attractive?
Or if everything about Dean didn’t scream “SEX”?
I wonder how much of this comes down to Dean, and Dean alone. I just don’t get these vibes from Sam. Ever. Maybe I’m just dense when it comes to this. I don’t see Sam loving Dean as intensely or needily as Dean loves Sam. Once I saw their relationship in terms of parent and child, I could never unsee it.
// Or if everything about Dean didn’t scream “SEX”? //
I think that is definitely a factor in ALL of this. It is highly suggestive, highly erotic and also disturbing because of all of the suggestions of abuse that we’ve discussed before … so we are somehow implicated. You know? We treat him like Abaddon treats him – like a piece of meat, basically. :)
The sexuality on the show is so messed up and evocative – I love it – there’s a reason I keep thinking of pre-1960s cinema when I watch the show. Before you could be explicit, you had to “get around” things – but then you watch Marlon Brando in Streetcar, and you literally want to faint from his sexual persona. It’s so powerful and palpable that … well. It is designed to make you think dirty thoughts about him – and he knows it – and plays with it – he is aware of it, Elia Kazan was aware of it … everyone was aware of the near SMUT that they were putting out there. That was part of the whole point.
mutecypher — //That’s a good soapbox. Preach it!//
Thanks! I carry it around in a bag with me at all times. Sometimes I use it to reach things on high shelves.
If Castiel had been cast as a woman they would have had sex by now.
Ha ha, yes! There’s a lot of repression that has to happen in order for these relationships to function as we see on screen. Sam/Dean is my kind of repression.
Would the sexual interpretation of their relationship be there if the actors weren’t physically attractive?
Yes? People ship all kinds of actors. Course the industry limits possibilities. The show wouldn’t be the show it is if the guys didn’t look the way they do, though. It would be something else. It would have different undercurrents, charges. The intensity might flow down different rivers.
I just don’t get these vibes from Sam.
And now I stray a little from “let’s justify slash” here but the thing about Sam is, as much as Dean’s masculinity is super feminine, and let’s please talk about that until the cows come home — it’s Sam who occupies the place of the Other. It’s Sam who, through Dean’s eyes, we constantly question. It’s Sam who subverts the picket fence. Sam, with his blood-borne disease, and his Something Wrong, and his yearning for the normal life, and eventual rejection of it: structurally he’s queer as hell.
// It’s Sam who subverts the picket fence. //
Very very important.
Max @ 4:11 pm 6/18/14:
I agree, I also have an odd feeling about the brothers’ relationship. I can actually SEE them being involved just because of the way they were raised. I think Sam gets really jealous of every relationship Dean has (I watched Blood Brother one day and Sam was railing bitterly about Dean vampire “friend” and the next day the episode in which Sam sics crazy Martin onto Benny to watch him RIGHT after he gets out of the mental hospital just blows me away.
A fanfic writer I was emailing back and forth about the amonitrate article on Parentification and Emotional Incest told me that she felt a lot of Sam’s misbehavior in the family in his teen years sprang from Dean’s pulling away from their binary relationship when Dean became interested in girls. I never thought about it the way she did, but Dean was the only thing that Sam had ever had in his whole life, the person who was HIS; of course he was going to rebel. But not to Dean — to DAD.
Such a screwed up family dynamic.
I do not think at all that they are going for anything like that, but I don’t think they thought about Dean as the Parent (I think Mother) to Sam and (emotional wife) whatever to John. So weird.
The others here seem to have such a better grip on the issue than I do, I can see that something is OFF but I can’t explain it in my own words.
So, I saw Max’s comment right before I had to leave for class, and I didn’t have time to respond, and then May responded and said pretty much everything I wanted to, probably better than I would have, right down to referencing the exchange in Monster at the End of This Book. (Were we separated at birth, May? My birthday is actually the same as Jensen Ackles’, just one year younger. Yours?)
I do have a few things to add, though. For all my apparent preoccupation with incest (haha), given my line of work and the fact that I have worked with a number of incest victims, I am actually usually pretty sensitive about this topic. When incest happens in real life, it is almost invariably devastating and traumatizing. So I’m pretty uncomfortable with the Wincest stuff that I see, for that reason.
I also am not a huge fan of slash in general, once again, pretty much for the same reasons that May mentioned above. (That said, nobody’s forcing me to read it, so if it’s your thing, have at it.) I think it’s also partly, for me, that I want to be able to imagine myself in the role of partner to the hot male characters, even if it’s through the eyes of a female character surrogate. I don’t have a problem with it if the character is gay in the actual text of the show (although it may be a grudging acceptance, only because then I have to accept that I definitely wouldn’t be the character’s type. I’ve also had to grudgingly accept that I’m not John Barrowman’s type, and that he and his husband are adorable together.)
But I also think the point that a need to define a close emotional connection between two men as gay results in trivializing close emotional connections without sex between two men is worth exploring. (I’m not sure trivializing is the right word, but I’m not coming up with anything better.) We don’t typically do this with women’s relationships. Women can be emotionally and physically close, they can hug and kiss, and even say they’re closer to their girlfriends than their husbands, and usually nobody will say, “Ooh, there’s gay subtext there.” But if two men have a really close relationship, we automatically assume that there’s a sexual undercurrent to it. I have to wonder if this attitude doesn’t actually end up fueling homophobia to some degree. I definitely think that it results in straight men avoiding close relationships with other men, for fear that they will be perceived as gay. I would go so far as to say that the love that dare not speak its name is not so much gay love as it is guy love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7hjdC8-jbw
Re: heaven and soulmates, first of all, I would fall on the side of arguing that Dean and Sam did NOT end up in the same heaven – remember that Cas had to direct Dean to find Sam when he got there. That said, it might be a moot point, because I think it’s worth pointing out that Ash specifically said special relationships LIKE soulmates. As in, that’s one example of why people ended up in the same heaven. Personally, I would not want to go to any heaven if my niece would not eventually join me there. I definitely have no sexual feelings towards my niece, but she is probably the most important person in my life. But, again, I think May made the point I want to make quite eloquently here: //Basically, I do think that they love each other “more than bothers,” just not in a sexual way. Dean loves Sam as a younger brother and as a son. Sam loves Dean as an older brother and as a parent (mother). They are also, basically, best friends (I’m sure through childhood, only friend). It’s messed up. But not everything is about sex.//
And about Crowley – I would add that Crowley just absolutely relishes sexualizing everything, and using that as a way to keep everyone around him uncomfortable and off-balance. Remember the kiss with Bobby (and the photo proof on his iphone)?
//Indeed as we’ve struggled with the last few episodes, we break it down to its component molecules, but it still resists certainty. Like any work of art there’s no true access to it, and it pushes that.//
Beautifully said, Jessie.
None of our interpretations are absolute – this is all just the way that I see it, and other interpretations are certainly just as valid.
About close male relationships:
I know Cas and Dean get more “press” but I thought the intimacy between Benny and Dean was far more intense and twisty subtextually than anything that ever happened with Castiel, who seems asexual to me. Not a potent sexual being at all.
but Benny? I’m just talking subtext now. That, for me, was the most intimate Dean has ever been with anyone. It doesn’t look like any other relationship on the show. And of course Charlie kind of clocks it: “Did you break up with someone too?”
I want to be clear that I don’t think it is explicitly sexual or explicitly romantic – Most of the pleasure for me drains out of the whole thing when I start to see it in literal terms – one of the other weird things about the show.
I like to have all of this just kind of floating around out there, interpretations that have fluidity, that ebb and flow.
BUT I have to cop to the fact that I find Benny so hot and so yummy that he could potentially rule my fantasy-world. Like if someone actually sculpted my “type” of man, he would look like Benny. The mere sight of his barrel-chest makes me go weak in the knees.
Therefore I am far more likely to feel the romantic potential there (subtextually), because it basically PLEASES me to do so.
Castiel doesn’t “do” anything for me, sexually.
So.
I’m being silly, but also kind of not. Sex is personal. We all bring different stuff to the table and SPN seems to know that, play with that, tease us, torment us.
OK I feel like I have to go all the way now that I brought it up.
Jessie –
I definitely get into the fanfic now and again. It’s just kind of hard to steer through the cringeworthy stuff to get the gems. But I have a definite need to see those ideas play out.
//not about finding the proofs in the text as to whether Sam and Dean might be having sex or want to have sex, it’s about exploring how the text might activate those meanings.//
To me that’s still pretty interesting though. Isn’t the proof of intent in how they consciously activate those ideas? They’re not just “screwing” with us. They’re saying something. I think that’s pretty cool. But the most interesting to pick apart is how it existed before the show was aware of what it was doing. This was absolutely not their intention. I mean they picked up on what the fans were thinking pretty quick and incorporated it in the show, but in a very naive and light way. Now the shout-outs are heavy-handed and SOO weird. (Thinman anyone? Loved that ep by the way but it’s so self-conscious). At first I truly fucking resented the show for planting those ideas in my head. Like why am I getting so invested in a gay incestous relationship? It’s crazy. But then I realized I had done it before, with Bogart-Bacall and X-Files, it was the chemistry, I wanted more of it. I AM NOT AT FAULT is what I’m trying to say of course :)
May-
Even if one can explain every individual moment where it’s referenced to be something other than this I think they’re painting a picture for us that to me is obviously supposed to be romantic love fulfilled in every sense other than sexual. And to loop back to what Jessie said, I DO want to know if they want to fuck. If we’re talking about hooks that’s a huge one for me. Sorry to be so crude but yeah.. :)
// obviously supposed to be romantic love fulfilled in every sense other than sexual. //
I think of that moment in Rock and a Hard Place where Sheriff Mills gets gaga about Sam and Dean’s relationship. “You two have found something really special …”
and then I think of Sam’s face.
He’s so disturbed by it. He finds it almost distasteful.
That moment can work on multiple levels, multiple interpretations.
To me, his face looks like: “Are you kidding me? That’s my brother. Is my brother supposed to fulfill all of my needs? Me and Dean is going to be as good as it gets for me? That’s HORRIBLE and why doesn’t anyone else see how WEIRD our lives are?”
Like, he’s reaching the “I’m totally tapped out” point – which was what those mid-season Season 9 episodes were all about.
// I AM NOT AT FAULT is what I’m trying to say of course :) //
hahahaha
//Now, Dean and Cas…I can see that. I don’t ship it. But I can see that. If Castiel had been cast as a woman (in a pure gender-swap, everything the same but the biological sex of the host body) they would have had sex by now.//
I definitely agree with this, too.
Complete change of subject, but since I brought up John Barrowman, and gun porn is a common theme here, I’ll wish everyone sweet dreams with this clip ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdZE-sOC0CM
Woah. That was hot. I need to watch Torchwood! Damn!
//Women can be emotionally and physically close, they can hug and kiss, and even say they’re closer to their girlfriends than their husbands, and usually nobody will say, “Ooh, there’s gay subtext there.” //
Sorry I see that A LOT Natalie :) But I see your point.
May – I don’t mean that it’s really the only interpretation and I don’t want to impose this on anyone so sorry if it sounds like that, but I can’t unsee it now so to me the UST is always a part of their relationship, a relationship that is so many OTHER things as well.
//But if two men have a really close relationship, we automatically assume that there’s a sexual undercurrent to it. //
It seems Hollywood is pretty preoccupied with this but I gotta tell you, that is not what I see in my environment at all. I think it’s something to do with repression. Wonder what that says about me though :) I don’t feel too repressed so I might be way off on that.
Wow I might have to start watching Torchwood! Nice looking guy all hot with a gun in his hand.
Max –
// that is not what I see in my environment at all. I think it’s something to do with repression. //
Most definitely!
And it seems to act in a weird feedback loop. When something like The Hangover makes as much money as it does (and I loved The Hangover) – then of course there will be a scurry to imitate, to try to “cash in” on whatever that was. The Hangover was almost a burlesque of the Judd Apatow universe – where men just want to be dudebros and women are seen as either sex objects or no fun at ALL – and where men literally have to sneak out of the house to participate in a fantasy football league because their bitch-nag wife won’t understand it.
In Knocked Up – the desire to have a male friendship is treated suspiciously by the wife – who follows her husband, assuming he is having an affair – and then BUSTS in on him … and there he sits, with his fantasy football league. He is basically sneaking out of the house in order to hang out with his friends.
I am hard on Judd Apatow, but it is only because I am sick of how influential his particular “vision” has become, and how limiting it is, for both men and women. It’s soooo dominant right now.
Supernatural is totally outside of that influence and it’s one of the reasons I find it refreshing.
It allows men to be operatic, emotional, sexual, soft, seething, tormented, connected, messed up, holding back tears, being silly, brooding, shooting guns ….
I mean, it’s damn near pornographic when I write it all out like that! Ha!!
Natalie, now with Dean and Cas they WROTE it in so early.
I was watching the episodes with Anna in them; Cas and Uriel are trying to blackmail Dean into giving up Anna, threaten Sam.
Anna says she understands, he sold his soul to protect Sam in the first place.
He says sorry, they kiss. Castiel LOOKS at them turns away LOOKS at them out of his side eye. I had not seen this before and first thought he was upset about Anna kissing Dean. Then I saw right before me, he was LOOKING AT Dean.
The writers put that stuff in there (“I’m not the angel who’s in love with you.” Balthazar or Meg “He was your boyfriend first.”) and then act all surprised that the audience thinks something is going on off-scene.
For Sam and Dean, I can’t think of a season in which somebody did not assume they were gay for each other. It started in Season 1 for heaven’s sake in Something Wicked.
A lot of the time I don’t think the writers really understand how things look/ sound, but in this case I do.
I don’t feel gay-baited here, I just feel like they should stop with the Dean/Sam stuff. PERIOD. Because it is a bridge too far, it would never “go” with the audience. Dean/Cas, eh — Castiel is an alien being who has no interest in gender (I don’t think).
So I don’t think Max is seeing things, but I don’t know why they are writing this stuff (except that people like me write about it).
// I don’t know why they are writing this stuff //
Because it’s entertaining, intriguing, ambiguous, and it gets people’s imaginations going. It has launched a million fanfics – and if you have written a show that inspires that, you have succeeded. It’s there if you want to see it, it’s not there if you don’t want to see it, to some people it doesn’t exist at all.
It’s SUBTEXT. And subtext, unlike text, is up for interpretation.
That’s why they “write this stuff”. The writers are completely aware of how ALL of this “comes off.”
// Because it is a bridge too far, it would never “go” with the audience. //
I don’t think it’s meant to “go” with an audience. It’s subtext, it’s inference, it’s playing with romantic tropes, it’s acknowledging the undercurrents.
I think a lot of people think of subtext as something that is just DYING to “become text” – but that’s not how subtext operates.
Yeah I don’t know, a lot of people obviously think it’s intriguing as hell :) I certainly do. Everything that’s intriguing is a little fucked up isn’t it? But I get the “ew” reaction, I totally do. I felt that way too. But it drew me in pretty quick. I don’t think it reduces their relationship, just the opposite in fact. They are not just one thing to one another. They are EVERYTHING to each other. That’s what’s interesting to me.
Okay, so I lied. I’m not going to sleep yet ;-)
evave2 – Like I said, my comment was my interpretation only, and I definitely don’t mean to say that anyone else’s interpretation is not valid. With Cas, I can see your point, although my personal interpretation is that Cas and Dean’s relationship is something beyond friendship but not necessarily sexual. I also still don’t really see the quotes from Balthazar or Meg – or the ones from Crowley or Zachariah that Max referenced above about Sam and Dean’s relationship – as proof that there’s something more to it. I think all of those comments could just as easily be seen as a way of insulting Dean, or putting him in his place. And I agree with May that a lot of this kind of stuff is probably some meta-commentary on the fandom from the writers. I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on these points – I don’t think we’re likely to sway each other’s way of seeing this, but I certainly respect your opinions.
Max –
//It seems Hollywood is pretty preoccupied with this but I gotta tell you, that is not what I see in my environment at all.//
Maybe it’s an American thing? I know it’s something I’ve seen a LOT among my male friends and men I’ve dated. I will definitely say that America has a complicated relationship with male sexuality and gender roles. Women, at least in the US, get a lot more leeway in how they can express their sexual and gender identity.
//Sorry I see that A LOT Natalie//
Okay, so I read your comment, and immediately googled “sex and the city slash fiction,” and came up with hundreds of hits on Carrie/Samantha fanfic, so I will concede that this is probably something that I just didn’t see because I wasn’t looking for it. Although, that said, I reference my point just above regarding American male and female sexual/gender identity expression. In my own relationships with female friends, there are frequent physical displays of affection that are not even remotely sexual in nature, and that, to my knowledge, have not resulted in anyone assuming that we’re gay. (Or, at least, if they do assume that we’re gay, I’m pretty sure it’s nothing to do with seeing us kiss each other, it’s more to do with the general level of emotional intimacy in those relationships, which, again, is not remotely sexual in nature.)
Torchwood is definitely worth watching! (John Barrowman – swoon.) I haven’t watched anything beyond the 3rd season (Children of Earth), though, because the way that ended pretty much ripped me to shreds. Not to mention that the entire plot of the Children of Earth series was one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen.
Oh boy. Go to bed, wake up and woah!
Jessie, your point about this forum being a kind of fan-fic … the penny dropped for me a while back, probably when the topic of vegan art historian baristas came up. Any time I put forward an argument for a reading of Supernatural, or posit how the show might end, that’s my fan fic. Becky is a salutatory figure here – there’s a bit of Becky in me, because, in my own way, I care about my reading of the show just as much as Becky. Which is completely fucking nuts. (Sorry, Sheila’s mum.) Ok, not to the extent of roofying, abduction and rape, obvs(- phew, glad that’s clear.)
My own readings tend to be very heteronormative, and I welcome (most) comments and readings which challenge that, which insist on recognising the Queerness and Otherness of Supernatural, if you like. Supernatural – Hot Queens with Guns aside – is ALL about otherness – sexually, ontological, philosophical, political, moral – whatever – and how we place boundaries between us and the other in order to exist, and try and separate ourselves from the things we most fear. And why we fear these things in the first place.
I don’t want to class up the joint again, but maybe the most unutterable thing for me about the show is how to situate it morally and politically. I get the jeebs at the militarisation of Dean, for instance, the Purgatory/Afghanistan parallel (more than) hinted at with Dean and Amelia’s husband. I see the introduction of soldier characters as highly morally ambiguous, to say the least – am I meant to see them as heroes who reflect that heroism on Sam and Dean, or what? I get the jeebs as Sam gradually ditches all the soul-searching and boohooing about killing. And what about the presentation of evil in the world, and within humans – is that really something external that can be destroyed through killing or shutting a gate on it, or what?
I have to stop there. I really have to go to work.
So many questions, so little time.
// probably when the topic of vegan art historian baristas came up. //
dying laughing …
I know we’ve discussed before how well the show “gets” PTSD, shell-shock, soldiers/special ops mentality … in a way that other shows that may even address those things head-on do not get.
Dean and Sam are both so apolitical – nobody votes – and it seems that their only political values would be along the lines of “Don’t be a dick”, which is certainly attractive and sensible.
I think definitely the presentation of so-called black-and-white issues (like: don’t kill civilians, for example) is intriguing and disturbing – and everybody sort of switches back and forth. I had forgotten the couple of times in Season 1 when Dean suggests they kill a human being and Sam has to remind him “we don’t do that.” Dean out in the wild with Dad too long? But then eventually they switch … and it’s Dean who has to remind Sam that they don’t kill PEOPLE.
All kinds of interesting implications there, about active warfare and the psychology behind it, and how you try to maintain your sanity in the middle of total insanity (which Joseph Heller expressed best in Catch-22 – the entire world is insane, so if you ARE sane – then, by definition, you are actually the insane one. Good luck sorting it out, especially in the middle of a war. There’s that great moment in Catch-22 where a character – I think it’s Yossarian – is like, “They’re SHOOTING at me.” The response: “They’re not just shooting at YOU. This is a war. Don’t take it personally. They’re shooting at all of us.” “SCREW THAT. They are shooting at ME. WHY are they doing that??” Yossarian, amazed and hurt that people are “shooting at him” is actually the sane one there – that’s a very sane reaction – but in the context of war and its rules, he seems INsane.)
Holy mackerel! I go to a movie and look what happens!
This is awesome!! You people are amazing.
I think the show is, in many respects, about masculinity. How it is interpreted, and how it is experienced by men themselves. Especially by men who were raised to be tough. I’ve written about that before in other posts.
I felt very validated when I read that recent NY Times article and Misha Collins said a similar thing – there’s all this testosterone and then there’s all this feeling, emotional stuff that is seen as stereotypically female.
So the show constantly pokes holes in what we expect, what we want … it plays around with gender in ways I find fascinating, and totally sexy – and it asks some serious questions about what it means to “be a man” – and also – what we DO to men in this culture. We put them in a little box, and then blame them if they try to break out of it. This is what I see in both brothers.
I like what Jessie said up above about Sam totally representing “the Other” – totally right. Those early seasons are really all about that. And then there’s Dean, sexual feminine tough-guy Dean – inhabiting all of these heroic archetypes (from myth, legend, cinema, it’s crazy how much he’s tapping into). Because the characters themselves are so far outside mainstream culture, it gives them a little bit of strange freedom from the tropes that dominate … and it gives their creators a lot of space to comment on the things they want to comment on.
I can’t remember which re-cap I addressed this in – probably more than one – but what Supernatural does is it actually creates a little bit of breathing space around the very IDEAS of masculinity. It actually creates some ROOM where maybe … maybe … it could be talked about just a little bit differently, where men themselves have a bit more ROOM.
But for me – when I look at everything else that is out there right now – when I consider how Judd Apatow’s version of male friendship has completely taken out ALL of the oxygen in how we can even THINK about male friendship … Supernatural acts as a corrective. That was what Misha Collins was getting at with his quote.
Or – not even “male friendship” – it doesn’t even have to be friendship. It can be how males interact with females, how males interact with ANYONE … The whole “dudebro” thing and “bromance” thing is a totally recent phenomenon and, in my opinion, represents a lot of anxiety.
The “buddy film” goes way back, to the beginning of cinema – but there’s something else going on now, a seething hostility underneath that wasn’t present before. Talk about being fearful of “the Other” – that’s what Apatow’s films are all about. (He is my punching bag right now. Sorry if any of you out there love his films. I don’t mind them – what I mind is their INFLUENCE.)
And thank you – everyone – for the comments and also the overall civility going on here. It’s really important to me!!
Carry on!
// SPN seems to know that, play with that, tease us, torment us.//
Oh God, yes.
Oh man. There is so much good stuff here! I don’t have a lot of time, gotta start work soon! I’ll probably come back and respond to more specifics later.
I just want to say that I think most interpretations of SPN are valid! In terms of interpreting art, I lean much more towards the idea that, once the it leaves the artists hands it is open to any interpretation. Even though that doesn’t always mesh with my “I MUST KNOW ALL THE FACTS SO I CAN BE AS ACCURATE AS POSSIBLE” compulsion!
I quoted Simon Pegg, about Bromance and his friendship with Nick Frost, in the comments section before. It is an idea that I agree with. I also think the issues with male friendship and emotion are very “Western” (probably more North American) and recent, and rooted in homophobia (and a devaluing of “feminine” qualities and interests—women are weak objects to be won, so men being objectified means being feminized means being devalued and weak, etc etc). Male friendships were celebrated in art, in the past, all the damn time.
In many ways North American (English) culture is very repressive about sex and obsessed with it. We couldn’t talk about it openly before, were so repressed and scared by it, we see it everywhere.
// and a devaluing of “feminine” qualities and interests—women are weak objects to be won, so men being objectified means being feminized means being devalued and weak, etc etc //
Yes. And SPN plays with that too.
And there’s an unwillingness (in general) for men to admit that they may be turned on by another man. And that that doesn’t have to “mean” they’re gay or whatever.
In all of the male commentary about Elvis from straight writers – the only one who straight up told the truth (in my opinion) was Lester Bangs in his obituary for Elvis – he wrote – “he is the only male performer I ever responded to sexually.” He admitted he got hard when he first saw Elvis walk onstage – “I went mad with desire, self-projection, envy …”
Now. I think a LOT of male writers have the same response – Elvis was a Pansexual God who was practically Pagan in what he was projecting. Women always “got it”, and many men did too – and then someone like John Waters who said he first realized he was gay when he was a kid and he saw Elvis gyrating on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. But it’s harder for straight male writers – it’s one of the huge “gaps” in Elvis commentary and why I have been working so hard to try to correct that.
I got a really angry comment from a guy once – who railed at how Elvis WASN’T “just about sex” and he was mad at how Elvis was treated – it made his object of obsession seem “less serious” – that women were gaga over him. This is very very common in commentary about Elvis – the fact that Elvis “used himself” in a sexual way is so obvious that you’d have to be a Moron to not see it – and yet still – STILL – people attempt to dismiss it, negate it, or shame the women for being so un-serious.
When the women, who were literally coming in their bloomers at the sight of the man, understood what Elvis was up to. Understood it and loved it. He made it okay for them to admit their own sexuality. He made it seem fun. “We all know we all feel this way, right?”
Men were PISSED about this at first. PISSED at Elvis, and there are many stories of angry guys punching Elvis in the face when he would emerge from various backstage doors. Crazy! But it happened!
That tension in men – of being afraid to be intimate with other men – because it might make them seem weak ….
Well. That’s the entire tension of SPN, in many ways. It’s not just about sex – it’s about intimacy, identity, openness, vulnerability.
Wow, awesome commentary folks. I agree with so much that has been mentioned.
Hurrah to the show for daring to ‘have so much space’ around masculinity, as you put it Sheila. Absolutely I think that the boxes of masculinity and femininity have become more rigid recently and there is tremendous anxiety there. I also feel that because there is so much constant scrutiny recently, there is tremendous anxiety everywhere. So good for the brave shows that resist becoming too literal and definitive. Who needs that, who even lives that.
//I don’t mind them – what I mind is their INFLUENCE.)//
I know what you mean. It is like, fine, be reductive if you want but let’s not have that be the loudest voice in the room. Yet it seems like it is.
Fanfic/fan art/fan vids I haven’t done any myself, but man do the fans impress me. So good for them. I don’t want to be part of limiting peoples fantasies, whatever inspires you. I can’t really get into the incest stuff for the same reason as Natalie (I work with people who have had this part of their childhoods) but seeing the possibilities with Dean and Castiel or Benny- I can’t help but go there. Maybe part of the pull of the Sam/Dean thing is people trying to figure out what they do with their sexual energy, particularly Sam. Obviously he sublimates that energy into working out, but really come on. Talk about virile men on the bench! Considering the way masculinity is seen as the sexually active gender this goes against type. Even Dean, sometimes seems sexually active but then sometimes seems more sexually receptive or open (which is more passive). But we have already explored his beautiful contradictions.
I love that the show plays with the traditional conventions and tropes. Having the leads be such complete outlaws/deviants allows us to project so many wonderful possibilities onto them; they certainly aren’t bound to the same lines convention would dictate. But I would like them to play out some of these relationships further because it would be a sign of development for the characters.
evave2 you mentioned how weird Sam was around the Benny relationship and I agree. It was a bit much. Sometimes it reminded me of the way families sometimes treat their child/sibling’s queerness with resentment. After all Sam loves normal. So that put an added spin on things to me. Sometimes I just thought Sam hated Benny because Benny had been there for Dean when Sam hadn’t.
So much fun and so many other ideas you all brought up that deserve further examination but there is work to be done. Of the boring, definitely not super kind.
// Considering the way masculinity is seen as the sexually active gender this goes against type. //
Yes!
And I definitely actively worry about how neither of them have enough actual sex. Ha. That tells you where I’m coming from. The whole sublimation thing – and where all that energy goes – and what it can do to you – it’s kind of fascinating.
To complicate matters further in a beautiful way: These guys are tough alpha dogs. They sew up their own wounds, they drink whiskey from the bottle, they know how to handle guns, they are tough.
I wrote somewhere else that this particular “type” has died out for the most part in American cinema – killed off by Alan Alda. (Kidding. But not really.)
As the women’s movement destabilized people’s ideas about roles – those changes were reflected in cinema. Suddenly in the 70s, mainstream leading ladies were totally unpredictable wild-card types with wild eyes and awkward behavior – women like Karen Black, Ellen Burstyn, Diane Keaton … It reflected a lot of the anxiety at the time, but it also reflected progress.
But what about The Men?
The leading men in the 70s were gritty down-and-dirty guys – like Jack Nicholson, or Robert DeNiro or Gene Hackman – who were still influenced by how men were “supposed” to be – having grown up with Bogart movies and Wayne movies – but the world had changed. There is a TON of anxiety about that in films like Five Easy Pieces, Taxi Driver, Annie Hall – all those great 70s pictures.
In the 70s, there was a lot of questioning going on about men and women, and that is totally reflected in those movies.
So basically:
Sam and Dean Winchester are throwbacks to a type of masculinity that is no longer prioritized in cinema. And so you can sense many fans trying to domesticate them, make them softer, more P.C., “liberal”, whatever you want to call it. The whole “let’s have Dean Winchester work as a barista and going for his art history degree” brand of fanfic.
Dean Winchester is not an anti-hero. He is a hero, straight up – and so he is out of step with the times, out of step with the current cultural trends. It’s one of the reasons I love him.
Natalie! // (Were we separated at birth, May? My birthday is actually the same as Jensen Ackles’, just one year younger. Yours?)//
Mine is in September (two years younger than JA—I had to look that up. I’m a terrible SPN fan). So, not separated at birth…but soulmates? Because I agree with everything you said!
Natalie, I do not watch Torchwood since they killed off Ianto in Children of Earth. Ianto/Jack was one of the healthiest relationships EVER. And Ianto dying telling immortal Jack he would forget him soon enough — just slayed me.
I hated that.
Sometimes shows do something that break my bond with them. I cannot say the last time this happened (usually I get bored or they move times or I miss a few episodes). The relationship between Jack and Ianto was special to me, two people who were really there for each other.
Also I agree about Dean/Castiel, that the writers are trying to intrigue us. But I don’t think Balthazar OR Meg were just saying things to insult Dean, because I don’t think they were in either case (Balthazar was stating what he saw as backstory, Castiel being too solicitous of Dean’s needs/approval and Meg because she could not deal with Crazy Castiel anymore and knew Dean could bring him out, and he did). The actors are directed to stand a little too close, to look at each others’ eyes and mouths — the list goes on and on.
Castiel was created to love and serve. God disappeared, he found Dean. It isn’t that simple, but it does not have to be sexual. This is Castiel’s primary relationship. Heck, even Metatron had to rag about it.
What ticks me off is that NOW they appear to be keeping the characters separated to tamp down on the speculation and I don’t like it. This season the two-three times they had Dean and Castiel interact were really heartfelt and I miss those scenes (which used to occur more often of course).
// What ticks me off is that NOW they appear to be keeping the characters separated to tamp down on the speculation and I don’t like it. //
I don’t see it that way at all. The Arc of Season 9 was totally different than other Arcs.
I like Castiel best in his interactions with Sam, and that episode featuring just him and Sam in the bunker was great. But other than that, I was pretty bored with Castiel in general in Season 9. And the angels. Metatron spiced things up a bit, and I did like Gadreel, but the plot itself? Ehmagerd, bored.
oh my goodness.
Sheila–
This is one of the absolutely divine pleasures of the show. Like, literally – it feels almost divine.
We would not be here revelling in the embarrassing riches of your deconstructions if the show did not have this capacity! Off the top of my head I cannot think another TV show that is the same.
Even the final moment of Casablanca could be read in a queer context.
Don’t mind if I do!
So I’m not as interested in nailing it down as some fans seem to be… I like to let it all swim about at the same time…. just kind of floating around out there, interpretations that have fluidity, that ebb and flow.
Me too! What really thrills me is stuff like Sam’s inability to answer Dr Ellicott (Jr)’s question “Your brother. Tell me how you feel about him.”
Castiel doesn’t “do” anything for me, sexually.
Me neither! Total non-event. Then again most days my sexual orientation is “Sam’s hair,” so Cas probably doesn’t have a chance.
Natalie —
I was thinking of you while typing my response actually, sure you’d be sensitive to sexualising a situation we’ve all just thoroughly agreed is traumatic. Undoubtedly my ability to enjoy it comes from my privileged lack of experience with such things.
a need to define a close emotional connection between two men as gay results in trivializing close emotional connections without sex between two men
I agree! I find so frustrating the “bromance” thing, which manages to trivialise male friendships and gay sexuality by being all coy and cute about how homosociality can look like homoeroticism. Yeah, it can. Now are we gonna do something with that observation or are we gonna titter about men having feelings for another generation of movies? Sheila drags Apatow into it below, ha ha.
Max–
Isn’t the proof of intent in how they consciously activate those ideas?
In terms of my reading, I’m not so interested in intent, to be honest — because the magic of communication is in the inseparable divide between the speaker’s intent and the listener’s interpretation. The activation for me exists in the way dying-in-each-others-arms, for instance, not only resonates with romance stories but also war-buddy stories, and then pow, look at all these amazing things that are happening between everything!
Not to imply I am some pure high queen shtriga who feeds off story soul — fucking is a hook! Like you say the chemistry — you want more — you are denied. Supernatural gets off on withholding.
But it is still fun and important to talk about intent and my feeling on the way they engage with shipping in their meta references is 90% playful/ly mocking and 10% making the spectre explicit in order to banish it — to shoot it with rock salt. I agree the shoutouts are clumsy these days :-(
// Then again most days my sexual orientation is “Sam’s hair,” so Cas probably doesn’t have a chance. //
hahahahahaha
// I find so frustrating the “bromance” thing, which manages to trivialise male friendships and gay sexuality by being all coy and cute about how homosociality can look like homoeroticism. Yeah, it can. Now are we gonna do something with that observation or are we gonna titter about men having feelings for another generation of movies? //
YES.
And here’s another annoying way that manifests:
So those who are totally invested in Dean as being gay or bi: These are also the same people who shriek on Tumblr about oppression and tolerance and fighting against heterosexual norms – and yet at the same time they’re like, “OMG he has a pink iPod HE’S GAY” “OMG he cooks and cleans HE’S GAY.” They are completely aligning themselves with 1950s gender norms in their commentaries.
It’s yet another box.
People can’t resist putting men in these little boxes. Straight, gay, otherwise.
I realize many of these people are probably 12 years old.
SPN is not interested in coming down on one side or the other. It is interested in keeping that tension and ambiguity going – and in so doing, they are creating SPACE around the conversation about masculinity. And I love the show for that.
Sheila, I agree with you about Benny — he’s what I used to call a Big Huggy, one of those guys who are barrel-chested and when you hug them your arms are FULL.
I remember the one scene in Purgatory where Castiel and Benny were ragging on each other about SOMETHING SOMETHING about the portal and Dean was standing between them and I got a real John/Sam vibe because Dean just said Shaddup! I am the man with the plan and the guy with the mojo. It brought me back to Blood Brothers, in which Dean stands there, John and Sam argue inappropriately (vampires all over the place) and Dean just says, Get in the car, tough guy. ALWAYS the arbiter.
You know, Sheila, you talk about how John/Sam are in their own little drama here, but it ALWAYS seemed to me that the argument was about Dean, about getting Dean on whichever side he’d come down on (usually Dad, but then Sam — what we saw in the show). They was a-courtin’ — and now when I think about John saying “Dean will have a HOME, Sam.” (Yucka-pucka like Dean wants a home, jackass.) it’s like getting the little woman back in the kitchen. Boy, does that creep me out.
I guess what I’m saying here is that I do agree that the sexual/role dynamics going on between all the other characters and Dean (what with his “delicate” beauty and enticing personality /what Crowley says, EVERYBODY gets sucked in by Dean/) gets my mind going. Here, I am now leaning to this all being mapped out by the writers and I never thought so before. Sheila, you pull me in.
BUT considering some of the dog scripts out there (and I have about half a dozen episodes that make me want to stab somebody, not many, but enough) I find it hard to believe the writing crews knew that they were doing this sexual outlaw stuff.
Oh and Sheila — I love what you said about the guys’ political view (don’t be a dick).
Yesterday the news was FULL of Dick Cheney all over the press arguing for TROOPS TO IRAQ and I was outraged. After about three hours of MSNBC I could not take it, went for a bath. That guy enrages me.
Don’t be a dick (remember Crowley saying Cheney was one of his best investments EVER!).
Natalie, I’ve never read any of the VC Andrews books but I like a good takedown so I’ve had look at the blog. It’s hilarious. But Jeez. Those books. Sound. The Product. Of . A Deranged. Mind.
Oh Helena.
They are. They truly are.
And they were marketed to 12 year olds.
just working my way down….
Sheila–
re: Benny. If I love season 8 for anything at all other than Sam’s hair or Nazis vs Golems, it’s that I got to spend a whole year talking about how the Winchester boys each got a new girlfriend and it didn’t work out well. I can’t say it now even without cacking myself.
Helena —
I care about my reading of the show just as much as Becky.
Oh no Sam! Run for your life!
Supernatural is ALL about otherness – sexually, ontological, philosophical, political, moral
Oh yes, completely! Storywise it’s drawing from horror, from the gothic, from myth, from tragedy, from the surreal, from journey stories, from family melodrama, from Flowers in the Attic apparently — and more. All of those modes of storytelling have something to say about the Other and how it interrupts “normalcy” or “truth” or “right”. The unrepressable unsurpressable Other lurking in the shadows of your home because of the sins of your past — that’s every episode of the show!
Politically I have less to work with — I can engage with your classy question a little more when it comes to ethics and the question of evil. It comes back around to bodies again. How does what’s bad get in you? Are you culpable for its origin or only your actions? I’d say the show has pretty thoroughly critiqued intentionalism. It doesn’t care why you did what you did. There are gonna be consequences, and those consequences will probably look like a monster in your home and/or body, or that of someone you love, and you will cry rivers of blood.
//And they were marketed to 12 year olds.//
How in god’s earth-? Because anyone older would recognise them for the pernicious tripe they were? (Actually, I wish that were true, but …) Kind of reminds me of the ‘dirty books’ that would very occasionally be brought, nay, secreted, into school. Usually these were just copies of someone’s dad’s thrillers in which some of the characters had sex. Or mentioned breasts. But that would be enough to turn them into the equivalent of Strontium 90.
I remember being 12 years old and telling my mother the plot of Flowers in the Attic and her comment was: “Gross.”
hahaha
It’s insane – EVERYONE was devouring them back then. Petals on the Wind (the sequel) actually goes even further down the Sick Path – with an older man who sexually preys on our teenage heroine – and yet he’s treated like a romantic love interest unironically. I was devouring this shit at age 13.
As an adult, though, thinking about it – it is so completely skeevy I just … can’t even, basically.
I did read the entire series – 5 books in total, I think – but those first two take the cake. Boy oh boy.
That woman’s chapter-by-chapter takedown is so entertaining I have been crying with laughter.
Sheila @ 10:17 am 6/19/14: Your comments about Elvis here were so ON for me.
I felt the same way about Marilyn Monroe (whom you have also discussed): when I see her in Gentlemen Prefer Blonds I absolutely KNOW what men saw, if I was a guy I would’ve pursued her myself.
I discussed that with my husband because I don’t think I ever had that response to a woman before. He discussed how patterns of beauty changed. (God I love my husband because he sees things differently from me and we can discuss this stuff.) For him Marilyn Monroe was not athletic at all and he did not find her attractive, but he KNEW how hot she was. We can both see the POWER she had (even if she was not his preferred type).
I KNOW how Elvis caused people to respond. In Marilyn Monroe’s case she had acting to draw on to create that person, but Elvis did not have acting to pull on. He seemed so conventional in most ways, I wonder where it came from.
Interesting!!
In re: Elvis: remember, though: Elvis was the #1 movie star and box office draw for 10 years straight. The highest paid actor in Hollywood during the 60s and virtually the only guaranteed money-maker in a decade where the entire industry flailed like a dinosaur in a tar pit. At a time when the studio system collapsed around its own ears – Elvis survived. Made money. Drew audiences in.
He made 30 movies in 10 years. Insane. And many of them are fantastic, something very few people remember. I’ve written a lot about it under the Elvis tag.
It is also important to keep in mind:
Virtually any star who makes it to that level is androgynous to some degree. There are no exceptions. John Wayne was the ultimate in masculinity, and he was also one of the most vulnerable actors ever onscreen. Joan Crawford’s shoulder pads were as big as a quarterbacks and she was so strong onscreen, so CERTAIN, that her male co-stars were often in the position of trying to win HER over (a gender swap) – her partnership with Clark Gable is a perfect example. In those films, HE is in the position of being a fluttery love interest trying to win her over, and she stalks around totally in charge. Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich are icons of androgyny. James Dean. Brando. Elvis.
And Monroe, too!! She was seen as the epitome of sex, and yet her REAL persona had to do with innocence. She also could be pretty tough, and when she was allowed to be angry (see the marvelous Don’t Bother to Knock) – she is terrifying.
Any star worth his or her salt will never be just “one thing”, easily boiled down. That’s why these people last.
JA is certainly in that realm, which I wrote about in my first post about the guy. I mean, this is what he is all about.
It comes back around to bodies again.
And just to respond to myself in order to fully tackle Helena’s question, when we come back around to bodies, this is where Supernatural’s ethics live and die by context. Because bodies are context, and each individual one is supposed to matter. When the show is on point about this in its main characters and/or cases of the week — when it cares about bodies and by extension the existence of a life other than your own — there’s a real compassion and baseline commitment to recognition, which is to say, bringing the other into the fold.
When the show is careless, you get stuff like knife rape filmed titillatingly, and Man’s Best Friend With Benefits, and the problematic endless queue of dead demon vessels.
Jessie –
// When the show is on point about this in its main characters and/or cases of the week — when it cares about bodies and by extension the existence of a life other than your own — there’s a real compassion and baseline commitment to recognition, which is to say, bringing the other into the fold. //
Very very good point. When it misses the boat, it misses it by a MILE. The show is weird that way. It’s “on” more than it is “off” which is why those episodes (Caged Heat) really really stand out. I guess if you’re going to push the envelope, as the show does, there are going to be those moments when you go too far.
The whole “normalcy” conversation – the desire to be normal – and how normalcy is experienced as an actual physical thing, it comes from within – it’s not a destination – is really powerful for me and is one of the major hooks for me.
It also loops us back to the Wizard of Oz landscape, and clicking-your-heels three times, and you could go “home” all along if you wanted to.
But the sense that there actually IS a “normal” – that a normal life exists for others – and what it feels like to be so far outside of that that you could never hope to enter it – because even if you did enter it, you’d still have memories of your life “before” – you’ve been tainted forever.
I mean, this is really personal stuff for me.
There was something about Dean stalking around Lisa’s house after-hours, bare feet, locking the doors …
Ugh. I over-identify. I am not ashamed about that. I think that’s the metaphorical/emotional landscape of the show. And it’s different for everyone. And so I wonder: “Jeez, if I get into a relationship now – if I settle down with one guy – considering where I’ve been … chances are I will always be like Dean … with a gun under my bed, and pacing around restlessly waiting for the shoe to drop … ”
I love the show because it leaves space for me to project like that, and actually … deal with some shit I’ve got going on, if that makes sense.
I think if the show were clearer or more literal – there would be no space at all for us out there in the audience. I mean, that was what Bloodlines felt like. No subtext whatsoever, ALL text.
So those who are totally invested in Dean as being gay or bi: These are also the same people…
That’s not really my experience, but I don’t have a wide-ranging tumblr knowledge. What did surprise me was seeing several times someone on my feed attacked for asserting that she simultaneously loved Dean/Cas AND didn’t expect it to be ever shown on the show. The assumption that you’re not a real shipper unless you believe the show is actually intending to go there is such a fuuuuuundamental turn-around from the entirety of my fannish life that my head spins! What a way to foreclose on your own pleasure! And a dickish way to express it…
SPN is not interested in coming down on one side or the other.
And with 9 seasons of contradictions and all those delicious gaps under its belt, it probably couldn’t even if it wanted to!
// The assumption that you’re not a real shipper unless you believe the show is actually intending to go there is such a fuuuuuundamental turn-around from the entirety of my fannish life that my head spins! //
I know, right?
I’ve been a fangirl since I was a kid. I believe I have mentioned to you the screenplay I wrote when I was a kid featuring Han Solo’s spunky 12-year-old sister. And make no mistake: I had sexual feelings for Han Solo. He was the first character I responded to in a sheerly sexual way – but I was only 12, and I didn’t understand the feelings and it was all still scary, and I didn’t imagine myself having sex with him because I barely understood how it all worked – it was just easier to put “myself” in that story as a younger sister – a way to let off steam in a way that was familiar and comfortable. It made sense to me at the time.
Another major fangirl moment for me was an episode of Eight is Enough, Ralph Macchio’s performance in particular, that I believe literally saved my life when I was a suicidal 12 year old. I wrote about it (link below). I actually got a nice email from Mr. Macchio recently – who found that post – and wrote to tell me how touched he was by it. I couldn’t help but almost fall apart!! What??? If my 12-year-old self could have seen into the future!!
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=43650
In terms of fan response to stuff:
My fangirl stuff has always been really private. Well, until I started a blog, and decided to write openly about my obsessions.
I guess, growing up before there was the Internet – that’s a common experience. I wrote stories, I play-acted stuff in my head, I had (and still have) a seriously twisted and super-fun fantasy life – and that’s how I interact with stuff I love. I’ve got my kinks, I get my rocks off, nobody’s hurt, Halleluia.
And it’s totally separate, in many cases, from what I need/want from the ACTUAL show in question.
I just don’t see a contradiction there – because I’ve been worming my way into stories I love since before I can even remember.
I would never ever judge someone else’s fantasy life and what gets them off or turns them on – but also – I would never ever need permission or validation from others about whether or not my fantasy is … true or not, or valid, or “works”. Are you kidding me? It’s my FANTASY life. It doesn’t HAVE to “work”. Jeez.
// What a way to foreclose on your own pleasure! //
That’s what I sense, too.
As I think I told you it was that element of the fandom that first got my attention, before I had even seen an episode. And I was curious. I watched them harass the writers of certain episodes on Twitter and wondered what the hell was going on!!
So I decided to watch a couple of episodes of Supernatural, just as an investigative thing – in case I wanted to write something about the fandom – and then, oh God, forget it, two episodes in, I became a fan forever. Ha!!
In a way, I owe my discovery of this show to the badly behaved SPN fans on Twitter shrieking the most awful things at each other, so thanks, kids!
And now for my unordered, responding to specifics comment. Sometimes I just feel the need to agree!
Jessie— //It’s Sam who subverts the picket fence. Sam, with his blood-borne disease, and his Something Wrong, and his yearning for the normal life, and eventual rejection of it: structurally he’s queer as hell.//
Oh, definitely.
My vibe comment was directed more at the Sam/Dean pairing specifically. Even taking away my dislike of the pairing, I just don’t think Sam is into him. Sam wants and needs Dean in his life, but at a distance. He wants a life away from/separate from Dean.
Natalie—//my personal interpretation is that Cas and Dean’s relationship is something beyond friendship but not necessarily sexual.//
This is my interpretation as well. Given the tropes of fiction, had Cas been a woman, they would be a couple. There is something there, particularly on Castiel’s side. But, I also think Cas is essentially an asexual character. As he becomes more human, the show has provided him with sexual partners…but it doesn’t work.
Sheila—//I think the show is, in many respects, about masculinity. How it is interpreted, and how it is experienced by men themselves. Especially by men who were raised to be tough.//
Yes. Strip away the genre tropes and SPN is about masculinity in modern society. And family.
Sheila and Jessie—
//Castiel doesn’t “do” anything for me, sexually.//
// Then again most days my sexual orientation is “Sam’s hair,” so Cas probably doesn’t have a chance. //
I thought “Sam’s hair” was a universal orientation? (Seriously though, sometimes his hair…I’m like Dean: “just gimme some clippers.”)
//BUT I have to cop to the fact that I find Benny so hot and so yummy that he could potentially rule my fantasy-world. Like if someone actually sculpted my “type” of man, he would look like Benny. . . Therefore I am far more likely to feel the romantic potential there (subtextually), because it basically PLEASES me to do so.//
Since we are admitting to our biases here…Dean is it for me. He is just so damn fascinating. This always sounds terribly pretentious when I say it, so I apologize in advance for this statement, but I’m generally only attracted to specific individuals (their actions, personality, humour, etc), and not specific physical types or looks. I’d seen JA in other things before I saw SPN, and he did nothing for me. Objectively, I found him/his characters physically attractive, but I need to find someone interesting to be attracted to them. If someone asks me to describe a look I’m attracted to, I draw a blank (“Uh…a person shape? I think I prefer hair on their head?”). So, the idea of two hot guys together does nothing for me and I won’t pick up on that subtext as quickly/automatically.
Late to the party this week.
I agree that Dean and Benny had a much different relationship than Dean and Cas. I thought there was some pretty compelling sexual overtones to their interactions. I put that down to Dean being a highly sexual person and not having exercised that sexuality AFAIK since the Amazon debacle. Benny is a vampire, who are almost always shown to be extremely erotic creatures. I fully believe that Ty and Jensen were playing around with the aspect a little bit. I mean good gods the opening sequence in “We Need to Talk about Kevin” could not have been more homoerotic, in this viewer’s opinion. To me, Benny was Dean’s foxhole partner and lover (maybe they consummated in Purgatory, maybe not but in my head, yup).
//but I’m generally only attracted to specific individuals (their actions, personality, humour, etc), and not specific physical types or looks. //
I really should have specified that as sexual attraction. I find plenty of men aesthetically pleasing—I’m a very visual person—but that alone does little for me in terms of sexual desire.
Gah! I so want to respond to all of this, and I probably won’t have time until sometime later tonight. I am reading everyone’s comments on my phone every chance I get and am loving the discussion. I will weigh in fully as soon as I can!
Jessie
//It comes back around to bodies again. And just to respond to myself in order to fully tackle Helena’s question, when we come back around to bodies, this is where Supernatural’s ethics live and die by context. Because bodies are context, and each individual one is supposed to matter. When the show is on point about this in its main characters and/or cases of the week — when it cares about bodies and by extension the existence of a life other than your own — there’s a real compassion and baseline commitment to recognition, which is to say, bringing the other into the fold.//
This is really interesting to me, the body as site of morality and the significance of context. Especially with this being a road story. I love road, river, long walk through the desert, etc. stories because of the emphasis on self and context.
One of the questions that I love to play with, and so does the show, is the question of personal identity: what makes you you over time; continuous? The show plays with all sorts of possibilities and problems: what happens if you lose your memories? Or you are on another plane of existence? Or you lose your soul? Fun questions. This is of course more important when everything in your life is so transitory which their lives are. Life of the road, so much loss, their metaphysical reality is different from so many other people that they meet and then even shifts and changes (there are faeries now!) so where is the continuity? Because personal identity and morality are linked, are you responsible for the mistakes or bad actions of the past/of the soulless/of the possessed? Can’t you only be responsible for your actions? In their fluctuating lives the context becomes even more significant. Who are you and what are you going to do in this moment of time and place, is the question. And bodies exist in a particular time and place- well human bodies do at least.
Another note: because their lives are so fluid and transitory, their identity needs to be tied to something continuous and I think the show has two answers, the soul (although I guess Dean’s just got changed so we shall see) and relational identity. In other words, you are you because other people recognize you as you. But because their lives are constantly in transition, they move in and out of people’s lives all the time, they lose almost everyone close to them, so what that leaves is family. You are part of your family before you are birthed and even after you die, Sam will always be Dean’s younger brother etc. I love these loops.
Heather – sorry, just backtracking to this now.
// what makes you you over time; continuous? //
HUGE. That was why “soul-less Sam” was so satisfying to me, philosophically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. I’m so fascinated by psychopaths/sociopaths – the criminal mind – the work of Robert Hare – all of that stuff – so Soul-Less Sam was me basically in a candy store. I was almost sorry when he got his soul back I found the inquiry so damn interesting, and so RELEVANT.
And – how can one do this job without it “getting inside you”? You basically can’t. But everyone tries, in their own way.
I love the road aspect of it too – how they float, unconnected, careening by settled towns in the Impala, touching down, moving on.
It’s possible I’m the only one here who watches the cartoon Adventure Time, but they do a wonderful job of exploring the development of an admirable, heteronormative, adolescent male. Finn goes out looking for monsters (like a hunter!), falls in love, gets his feelings hurt, mopes, looks for his father (!), apologizes when he screws up… all the stuff you’d expect a sensitive, decent boy to do (in a post-apocalyptic world with candy creatures and a nearly infinite number of princesses). And that you almost never see on television. It’s truly a wonderful series. And since the cartoons are only 12 minutes long and they’ve just completed their 5th season, its only about the same time investment as a single season of SPN.
… in case anyone is looking for another compelling exploration of maleness.
I’m not trying to counteract any of the slash or gender discussions, I was just thinking about other shows that do a good job of depicting masculinity in something other than a hot doctor/lawyer, hard-ass cop, or incompetent dad slot. And Adventure Time does that for me. Being an 8th grade teacher, I like to think that it’s actually a good thing for some of the kids in my class to see a boy being sad and hurt, talking to a friend, maybe doing something a little overboard to re-gain affection – all without the implication that it’s weak or laughable.
// I like to think that it’s actually a good thing for some of the kids in my class to see a boy being sad and hurt, talking to a friend, maybe doing something a little overboard to re-gain affection – all without the implication that it’s weak or laughable. //
Oh God, yes.
I have nephews and they are sensitive beautiful kids, as well as totally into “boy things” like robots and monster trucks and baseball … and I want them to not be embarrassed by their emotions or ashamed of their vulnerability and I don’t want them to be shamed because of their gender. They are awesome people. I want them to have SPACE. My teenage nephew has a great group of friends, and they make zombie movies and gangster movies on the weekends, and apparently they talk about stuff and care about each other and like the same things, and it’s great to see.
I grew up in a family that didn’t shame me or limit me because I was a girl – I did not grow up in a “daddy’s little princess” kind of household, and I am very grateful for that. I would like to be married, but I was never shamed or belittled because I was the only one of my siblings who has never “done that”. Thank God. The culture is vicious enough towards my particular demographic – at least I wasn’t getting it from the family.
I don’t know Adventure Time, but it sounds lovely and like something I would love. I wonder if my nephews know about it.
Hmm. Maybe we should do a list of Top 5 Hottest Monsters in SPN.
In no particular order.
I’m with Sheila on Benny. He doesn’t conform to my physical type. (Actually, I find none of the men I fancy ever do.) However. Lovely accent. Lovely hair. Fabulous teeth. I’d buy him a drink.
Abaddon. Obvs. Would have loved another fightin’ the brothers episode like the one in Episode 2 of Season 9 before she gets offed.
The crossroads demon who buys Dean’s soul, Season 2. Where did they get her? Why isn’t she everywhere?
I like that hot lady demon in Sin City. She put forward a very persuasive … argument.
The Golem. I miss him.
Helena – that hot lady demon in Sin City is awesome, I love her teeth – and that entire scene with Dean when they’re both trapped is one of my favorite scenes in Season 2. I’d almost call it a masterpiece. Love it every time I see it – and sometimes I just pop the episode in to just watch that scene. It’s beautifully written and played, has all kinds of sexual stuff swirling around, but it’s also thematically deep.
Also, have I mentioned I love her teeth??
Hot Monsters:
Benny. Definitely. The “barrel-chested man” is out of style now – which makes me wish I had lived in 1940. The Robert Mitchum type. Yowza. And yes, Benny’s accent is great.
Lucifer. Mark Pellegrino. Help me. Someone send help. J’adore. 100%.
Abaddon. This woman is amazing. She has four children. How much FUN does she have with this role? I love her laugh. She was a very convincing villain and I actually wish she was still around.
And agreed on the crossroads demon you mention, Helena. She’s awesome and their scene has real heat because of what she’s bringing to it – she meets the Sexpot Dean Energy on its own level.
Madison. I have a soft spot for the tiny mole beneath her eye, and basically her entire performance. It’s a fully three-dimensional person.
The first Ruby. Her hair. Her teeth. Her kind of Valley Girl looks but her bad-ass-ery and her strong-as-hell line readings.
I was thinking about Cashel when I wrote this. I don’t recall if he’s a young teen or an older one. He’s probably aware of the show, but older teens may have “grown out of it.”
Oh, I hope your nephews (and nieces) are into robots. One of the very few good things introduced in education over the last decade is robotics, beginning with the Lego Mindstorms kits inspired by some of the Seymour Papert’s work at MIT in the 70’s and 80’s. And expanded by competitive leagues fostered by Dean Kamen (the guy who invented the Segway, and a ton of medical stuff). I’ll resist the urge to say more, but your “robots” comment hit me in a happy place.
Cashel’s a mid-teenager – I can’t believe it!! He’s such a great kid, miss him a lot – but will see him next month on our yearly family vacation.
We had a great conversation about Super 8 last year – its vision of friendship, of boys doing their thing, really resonated with him – especially because he and his pals are movie-makers in training.
And he’s very open about his emotions. I’m super proud of him!
And robots!! Everyone is basically into robots! My siblings can’t keep up with their own children, it’s awesome.
//The culture is vicious enough towards my particular demographic – at least I wasn’t getting it from the family.//
It’s good to have family that’s a shelter, and not the storm. You mentioned in the 49th and 7th post that yesterday was an anxious day. I hope things are okay.
Oh you’re sweet. Yes, just anxious about money and my various pot-boiling plans that have yet to come to fruition. Nothing major. Seeing the Beatles leaping around in the air is always a good pick-me-up!
Okay everyone. Just watched a 1-minute long horror film that is a mini-masterpiece and it kind of addresses a lot of what we have been talking about here. So well done –
check it out here.
It’s one minute long. EFFECTIVE.
//that hot lady demon in Sin City is awesome, I love her teeth – and that entire scene with Dean when they’re both trapped is one of my favorite scenes in Season 2. I//
Really? I love that scene too – it really stands out as this great, roiling mix of the erotic and philosophical. I listen to her and think, you know, you’ve got a real point there, young lady. And it is (by SPN standards) a long, in depth conversation of the type which is quite rare in SPN, where points of view between antagonists are calmly put forward, weighed up and assessed peer to peer. There’s mutual sympathy and respect in the exchange, no ‘skank’ or ‘bitch’ here. I’m very sorry when she gets shot. Well played, that demon.
yes, the scene goes on … and on … and they cut away from it and come back to it! That’s how long it is!! The energy changes multiple times. Dean asks her what hell is like. She actually has information to impart. There’s a strange wary stalemate between them – and in that strange space, truth can be told, shared. The hostility seeps away, leaving something else. It’s a great scene.
It’s so well written, so satisfying! She’s terrific.
//It’s so well written, so satisfying! She’s terrific.//
Yes. It’s interesting because she is interesting. In a way, what she’s doing is pure exposition. ‘This is what’s going to happen. This is what’s going to happen to you.’ But it there this extra quality. Her presence allows things to go from hot to cool.
She is has thought things out, she is logical, knowledgeable, and if anything, rather detached. She thinks well, and she listens well. In that space she creates by listening, that fantastic exchange can emerge. I haven’t watched that episode as much as I have others, but she’s a gem. Wish there were more like her.
Also, yes, great teeth. This almost-lisp she has.
I think it’s a real hat-tip to the writers, too. They felt that they could spare the space in the episode to have Dean and the demon basically rap for about 3 separate little scenes … really bold, I keep expecting the scene to end – but it doesn’t. And all along you can feel her coming onto him in this oozing sexual way, I mean she basically sits there and opens her legs to him. And he’s drawn to it – because, of course, hot girl with little almost-lisp opening her legs right in his face – so there’s also that weird thing where he knows he’s actually attracted to one of these “evil things”, and he shouldn’t be, and what is wrong with him for finding a demon hot, and etc.
But instead of him getting sexually aggressive – as normally happens with him in these moments – something shifts. He even relaxes a little bit.
It’s all really rather amazing, I never get sick of its twists and turns.
mutecypher
Holla to the teacher!
Sheila: that video, WTF! Now I’m going to be thinking about that all day/forever…
I know, right??
I needed to share it so I wouldn’t be alone with my terror.
This is a different kind of scary. Especially in our context.
http://youtu.be/5AuLkMBAFZg
I hope the link works.
Holy crap.
Retro Winnipeg is the link – is that a Winnipeg children’s show? One of my really good friends is a filmmaker from Winnipeg. I wonder if she knows this.
Sheila – I hope the dad in that video doesn’t employ the same solution to doubles that Hugh Jackman’s character did in The Prestige. Ew.
re: Casey in Sin City, doesn’t Sam say something to the effect “well, you didn’t want to kill Casey” when Dean starts in on him about trusting Ruby later in season 3? It is easy to picture the writers with a Sistine Chapel’s ceiling filled in with relationships to refer back to. Though I hope they keep it on a wall to minimize neck strain.
//She thinks well, and she listens well.// Isn’t that an attractive feature in anyone? And far rarer than it should be.
Heather //Holla to the teacher!// Well, I’m taking the next school year off. The State of Hawaii has instituted such an insulting system for evaluating teachers that I decided I’m not going to work for those bastards. I plan to move back to the mainland next year when my daughter leaves the island for college, so I’ll teach then – preferably in a private school where someone has hire/fire responsibilities and a more appropriate “did the students learn what they were supposed to” rubric.
Oh man. My sister is a teacher, I know her frustration with the situation you speak of. Amazing changes for you, huh?? Good luck, seriously. I have such admiration for teachers, my family’s full of them.
and I forgot about Sam taunting Dean with Casey – yes, I too need a Sistine Chapel or School of Rock blackboard to keep track of all of these interconnections.
It would have made total sense, in the context of that scene with Casey, if Dean and Casey had ended up banging. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest.
Beets. Why did it have to be beets?
//It is easy to picture the writers with a Sistine Chapel’s ceiling filled in with relationships to refer back to. Though I hope they keep it on a wall to minimize neck strain.//
Hmm. This image might produce another kind of strain if it ended up on the Winchesters’ wall of hoodoo. Can’t work which one of the brothers post-bathtime snapshot this is – you can all decide for yourselves.
ha. Post-bathtime.
Humorously, just yesterday I compared my cat’s summertime “I’m hot” poses to that image.
//The first Ruby. Her hair. Her teeth. Her kind of Valley Girl looks but her bad-ass-ery and her strong-as-hell line readings.//
I like her a lot also, though I think JP preferred the second one.
I watched the episodes I Know What You Did Last Summer and Heaven And Hell last night. I got a kick out of the scene were Sam is describing how he came to trust (and bone) Ruby, when Dean just shakes his head and says “Dude, TMI” after we have gotten to watch Sam and Ruby undress each other. In our discussions here it’s usually Dean sharing TMI, so that scene stood out.
// though I think JP preferred the second one. //
Ha. Yup! “Fake Ruby!”
I know, I love Dean’s sudden prudishness on occasion. It’s very charming and very siblings-ish and big brother-ish.
Meanwhile, Season 3 opens with him blatantly giving Sam a thumbs up out the window before he leaps into bed with the Doublemint Twins. Sam is basically waiting in the car. So great.
//Amazing changes for you, huh?? Good luck, seriously. //
Thanks. I seem to switch careers roughly every 7 years, so there are only a couple years left for me in teaching if I keep to that pattern. We put the house up for sale a couple of weeks ago (title of that arc The Divorce Proceeds) and had the realtor caravan come through yesterday. New vistas for mutie, change is coming.
Wow!!
Good luck!
//Humorously, just yesterday I compared my cat’s summertime “I’m hot” poses to that image.//
No way!
She sprawls out on the floor, her arms reaching out every which way, and it is totally God/Adam.
//This is a different kind of scary. Especially in our context.
http://youtu.be/5AuLkMBAFZg//
HA! I don’t know what it was like for people in other countries in terms of PSAs, but in Canada we’ve had some real gems.
My favourite non-traumatic-but-relevant-to-our-discussions, Canadian PSAs: “The House Hippo” and “The Chase.”
//Okay everyone. Just watched a 1-minute long horror film that is a mini-masterpiece and it kind of addresses a lot of what we have been talking about here. So well done //
CREEPY. I’m going to force everyone I know to watch it.
Hahahaha The House Hippo! I so wanted one of those.
I have friends who are Pastafarians, so I have to confess there’s some bleed over of the Flying Spaghetti Monster whenever I think of the Sistine Chapel.
mutecypher — my sister is also a teacher (she frequently teaches special needs classes). I get the impression that teachers are treated better here in Canada, but it still isn’t something I think I could handle! Hats off to you! And good luck with your move (may the FSM touch you with His Noodly Appendage).
Sheila – Way off topic, but saw this about Jeanette Winterson and thought of you.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jeanette-winterson-eats-the-rabbit-that-ate-her-parsley-and-causes-twitter-row-9545636.html
Oh God, I love her. She is such a badass. Now I need to follow her on Twitter. Thank you!!
Thanks May. I wonder if the FSM leaves sauce stains when it touches someone. If so, what believer would wash it out?
Per Helena’s //Hmm. Maybe we should do a list of Top 5 Hottest Monsters in SPN.//
Not a monster, but I’ll put Pamela Barnes on my hot list. Though, a guy had to be careful around her. Even blind, she knew when Sam was eyeing her rack.
About sexy villans: yes to Casey (smokin’ hot) and beautiful scene, I also wouldn’t mind spending some time in the supply closet with the sexy surveillance demon who has the hots for winged Castiel in Road Trip. Benny is a hunk, but I was actually more attracted to him as the vampire bartender in Bloodlust. I know he wasn’t Benny then, but still, Ty Olsson is just gorgeous. And, is it weird that I think Death is gorgeous?
mutecypher: that is a lot of change to deal with. I’m sending you positive thoughts.
I adore Death.
I love his eyes and I love how his lips move. I think he is just fabulous in every way. Wonderful actor. Great conception of the character too.
And we’ve discussed before elsewhere: Death’s entrance is probably the greatest thing the show has ever done.
High watermark.
Re the Sin City discussion:
I love that scene from Sin City. I had been really aggravated with how Dean was portrayed through the first 3 episodes of s3 because he was just kind of a dick and never thought Dean was a dick before. But then after we see him just flat out lie about not being afraid, all his behavior made sense. He was terrified of going to Hell and IMO was projecting all over the place. And my gosh, what beautiful work from Jensen. His face and words were in complete opposition and it was amazing. I really liked Casey too. Beautiful woman and terrific actress IMO.
//I’m sending you positive thoughts.//
Thanks Heather! Life is good.
Sheila–
Your discussion of normalcy is great, how it has that glamour of the external when really it comes from within. That desire — that yearning to reach across the gap — that is the stuff of Supernatural. When your TV show is 50% projection you know you are creating some potent investments! Even if it does lead to to shriek on Twitter.
That Ralph Macchio essay is amazing. I love you for the passion in it! Even when the passion and feeling is too much at least there’s FIRE there. You’re nothing without the fire. You got the absolute RIGHT lessons from that episode. The exact kind of lessons I am trying to teach my cousins (and my partner!). But you can’t be didactic. That’s why the media can be so useful!
That band I linked to in the other post — those three guys had been part of my media consumption for a while — but around 13/14 something CLICKED in me and all of a sudden I was OBSESSED. Not a very comprehensible obsession for most of my friends — luckily I had one or two who were also primed. There’s a clip of them singing Heard it Through the Grapevine and the camera cuts to someone in the audience just riveted, crying. I would rewind that clip 1000 times. She was ME. You never forget your first!
May–
I’m like Dean: “just gimme some clippers.”
STEP AWAY FROM THE HAIR, MAY
Heather–
Love your comment so much! Relational identity is a huge part of it. And well I have a commitment to the idea that the relation is ultimately all there is. It’s often an unsettling way of approaching things and Supernatural regularly exposes all its minor discomforts and major traumas. Thanks Supernatural! Complicit again!
Mutecypher–
I love Adventure Time! The value that Adventure Time and Spongebob Squarepants place on unbridled enthusiasm is right up my alley. I just love that such unembarrassed co-operative eagerness is a part of kids programming. And they’re funny as hell of course.
Helena–
Ruby2! Ruby2! Ruby2 forever! Oh lord. GP blows my mind. In season 4 when Ruby and Anna were on screen at the same time…with their huge wide-set eyes, and overbig mouths….truly those were the days of wine and roses. Jared you lucky asshole.
// In season 4 when Ruby and Anna were on screen at the same time…with their huge wide-set eyes, and overbig mouths….truly those were the days of wine and roses. //
Seriously, any time they were in the same scene it was almost too much.
Ruby 2 is awesome, I love her grubby junkie vibe, the way she walks into a room, pouting, and slings her bag onto the table. Also, talk about a Long Arc of a Big Fat Lie … she had to play all that for an entire season. And her last scene in the crypt? She was amazing.
And thanks for reading the Ralph Macchio essay – it was longer than I remembered!! But yes, one of those moments – a hand held through the darkness – that’s how powerful this stuff can be to open sensitive people – a therapist could have said the same thing to me and I would have rolled my eyes. But that story-line?
Eight is Enough is such a dumb show and I don’t believe it has been released on DVD at all – but I live in hope – because I would lOVE to see that episode again. SPECIAL. Profound!
Mutecypher—//I wonder if the FSM leaves sauce stains when it touches someone. If so, what believer would wash it out?//
The stains are a blessing. RAmen.
Also, I have seen some Adventure Time! But haven’t had the time to really sit down and watch it all of it. I’ve really liked what I’ve seen so far, though.
Jessie—//STEP AWAY FROM THE HAIR, MAY//
Oh, yes. Yes. Of course. Ha. I was only joking. *cough*
Supernatural, Adventure Time, Anne Rice, Jeanette Winterson, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The House Hippo, robots..
I’ve… I’ve come home.
This really is one of the best threads ever.
//This really is one of the best threads ever.//
It’s up there with the Great Teapot Debate.
With apologies to Paul Muldoon. And Everyone.
The Impala parked in the gap,
But gently ticking over.
You wonder if it’s lovers
And not two Hot Queens hurrying back to Baby
Across fields and a river,
Having just decapitated a vampire.
// And not two Hot Queens hurrying back to Baby //
hahahahahaha
Helena
Hwæt – Hwæt!
Sheila @ 11:03 am 6/19/14
But Elvis did it from the beginning, I am remembering his first real step up to the plate on the national stage. He already WAS Elvis.
I know he learned how to project himself in a movie, but my memory is from the very beginning. Like how they had to film him from the waist up on Ed Sullivan. That was very raw.
Oh, I see what you were saying! Totally!
Yes, he was fully-formed, he needed no learning curve. I wrote a post about that, called Full Bloom From the Start: http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=45706
One of his most extraordinary qualities.
I love talking about Elvis. :)
//a need to define a close emotional connection between two men as gay results in trivializing close emotional connections without sex between two men//
But when do we ever see this play out in tv except in very expected setting where the sexuality becomes a gimming or something the show revolves around? it’s all just the fans doing that. Maybe if we had that represented more often fans wouldn’t have the need to read everything that way. But when in comes to this show fans don’t really have to dig very deep to make it fit. It is trivializing if it’s just thrown in there and it feel inorganic. But to say that adding a sexual component to Sam an Dean EPIC vortex of weirdness is to trivialize or reduce it to something less than it would be without it. I just don’t understand that at all.
I like the show for not putting a label on him, and I don’t want to do that myself. I don’t see his romancing ways as cover for another desire (as we’ve discussed before) we’ve all basically agreed that he’s fucked and been fucked my men to get the job done. It was probably hell. Maybe sometimes it wasn’t. He fall in love with women, he wanna fuck them and let them hold him. And he probably has the hots for his brother. He does girly stuff if he enjoys it, and he does all that super old school macho-macho stuff too. Sheila talked about men coming bck from war and just being totally over that “you’re such girl-teasing”. I think basically Dean just doesn’t give a fuck any more. But still he does sometimes. He’s a clusterfuck of contradictions. Dean wants “possess” Sam, maybe mostly so he can protect him, that if aything goes wrong it will be nobodys fault but Deans. And for me, just as everthing I say is my interpretation and not a true/false statement, he also has that “goddammit I wanna fuck my brother” rattling around up there. Does he feel guilty about it? sometimes But Dean does what all of us do, we wallow a little, deny a little, say, fuck it whatever and do something to take our minds off it. I don’t think he would be that hard on himself. Dean is kinky. He has no judgement about that stuff. He watches hentai for fucks sake. Think about that.
I haven’t even been able to read all the comments yet. But i’ll come back a little later, cause I want to TALK about it. :)
“It’s called anime. And it’s an art form.”
Ka-POW.
I’ve seen my share of hentai and I have to agree with Dean.
If there’s something we all can agree on, it is that Dean is kinky as hell. He would even consider sticking it in “Bela’s ear”, even though, as he tells Rufus, “that sounds uncomfortable.” Ha. But I love how he actually thinks about it.
Yours is not my interpretation, but I certainly don’t mind it being “out there” like some fans seem to – I don’t mind it in the slightest. The show absoLUTELY encourages it.
And I prefer my characters to be a clusterfuck of contradictions – I mean look how long this thread is. It’s awesome!! :)
The Prism thing: it all depends on where you’re standing and where he’s standing. It’s difficult to get that across, and it’s difficult to be successful at it – you need killer writing and a masterful actor. Otherwise it would feel tricky and manipulative.
But in Dean: the contradictions co-exist, they swirl about simultaneously, they bump up against each other – no one moment is just one thing.
There’s a moment in the next episode, “Devil’s Trap”, which is a perfect example of that and it’s why Dean Winchester is such a fascinating character study and so interesting.
I’d be bored stiff if he was drawn in a clear-cut way. That’s just not his gig. At all.
oh i see. we’e moved on have we… well not for long. I’ll be back.
we talked about it ad nauseum upthread!
I wasted so much time yesterday looking up video clips to link I forgot to respond to some stuff. I love my soapboxes, but I’m a slave to a bad joke.
//So those who are totally invested in Dean as being gay or bi: These are also the same people who shriek on Tumblr about oppression and tolerance and fighting against heterosexual norms… //
I’ve seen this element as well. I became involved in the fandom, for a brief period, a few years ago through some of my friends (they were Dean/Cas shippers). I LOVED SPN, but I had purposely avoided the fandom before that point because of the negative things I had heard. I had been involved in other fandoms before this point—mostly some X-Men stuff while I was in university, and the Internet was a shiny new toy (to me)—and it was a fun, positive experience. But not SPN fandom. I found the group I stumbled into toxic.
There is slash shipping in all fandoms. Always has been. I remember reading detailed posts on why X-Men’s Iceman was secretly gay (one reason: he didn’t hit on Jean). And of course, there is the father of them all, Kirk/Spock. It is fun, like our discussions here. I think the advantage they have is being decades old and huge. SPN is a cult show. It has a relatively small, cultish fandom. Things become concentrated. Emotions heightened. People are invested. It is intense.
// People can’t resist putting men in these little boxes. Straight, gay, otherwise.//
// //a need to define a close emotional connection between two men as gay results in trivializing close emotional connections without sex between two men//
But when do we ever see this play out in tv except in very expected setting where the sexuality becomes a gimming or something the show revolves around?//
I’d need days to get my thought together exactly how I want to respond to this, as it has been something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m just trying to explain my view of slash, why I interpret things as I do, and not attack anyone else or their interpretation. Please forgive me if the next bit is disjointed!
I think some of this may have to do with North American/American culture. Like Natalie, I see this defining emotional connection as gay as trivializing, stereotyping and limiting. Not because I think there is anything trivial about being gay, but because our culture still does. In hyper-masculine environments being called “gay” is an insult: to be gay is to be a girl, to be weak. And emotional expression is the domain of girls. For me it is also more about generalities/ patterns than specific examples— this isn’t just about Sam/Dean or Dean/Cas. It is about Iceman. Kirk/Spock. Bromance. Judd Apatow “no-homo” buddy flicks. Why are emotionally close male relationships so frequently framed in sexual terms? When the answer seems to be because that sex is the only way our culture allows male emotional expression (outside of anger)…well, that is limiting. That is a problem.
So…yes. I think there needs to be more openly gay relationships in our stories. We need more women in our stories. And I don’t think looking for sexual subtexts in character relationships is bad. I just find it worrisome how frequently it is applied to male relationships (worrisome in so called “serious” interpretations, not in fun fanfic ways).
Oh boo. I’ve got to stop copy and pasting my comments out of word documents. My typos are bad enough. I don’t need to add bad formatting to it!
I’ve had a hectic couple of days, so I haven’t had a chance to catch up until now. I was dying to weigh in yesterday, but now I think it’s been pretty well hashed out, and I’m a little too scattered right now to pull all my thoughts together coherently and respond to everyone that I want to respond to. Once again, I have to say that I love, love, love the insights and interpretations and debate. (Do I still have things to say? Of course I still have things to say!)
May – we are pretty much on the same wavelength about everything but Sam’s hair. I’m definitely a Dean girl, but I love long hair on a man. (My personal orientation? Two words: Braveheart Dean.) Re: JA’s birthday – don’t feel bad, the only reason I know it is because I share it (and learned it from a copy of Soap Opera Digest when I was, like, 17). I couldn’t tell you the birthdays of any other member of the cast, but I could name two other celebs who also have the same birthday as me, just off the top of my head. Lol. So, since we weren’t separated at birth, I will go with the soulmate theory. Makes sense to me! :-)
//I’m just trying to explain my view of slash, why I interpret things as I do, and not attack anyone else or their interpretation.//
Same here. Verbatim :-)
I will pretty much never be on board with the Sam/Dean stuff, and Jessie, I loved the point you made about being able to enjoy that pairing coming from a “privileged lack of experience” with the topic. I do agree with those who pointed out that Dean has probably had sex with men before, but my personal read on it is that if he did experience any pleasure from those encounters, he probably felt sick about it afterwards. (I really wish I could share more information about the boy I’ve talked about before, because some of the experiences he had are relevant here, but I’ve probably pushed the boundaries of confidentiality too far as it is.)
Slash as a whole just ultimately doesn’t interest me, so unless SPN goes text with that (which I would not object to so long as it wasn’t Sam/Dean), that’s just probably not going to be the read I put on what I’m seeing in the show. Personally, I hope they don’t go text with any of it – I love that it’s so open to interpretation.
Torchwood is actually a good example of not compartmentalizing sexual/gender orientation and identity. It’s established early on that some of the characters (although mostly Jack – the guy in the gun practice scene) take a fluid approach to sexuality, so it’s completely organic and believable that there is blatant sexual tension with the female character he was teaching to shoot, and it’s equally organic and believable when he and another male character start a romantic relationship. (evave2 – between Ianto and the choice Jack had to make in the last episode, I was an absolute wreck when that was over. And the whole government plot was just chilling.)
Seriously, though. That gun scene – not even going to admit to how many times I have watched that scene. “Hold it firmly – don’t grip it – squeeze gently” . . . We’re not talking about the gun anymore, are we?
Helena and Sheila –
The VC Andrews blog – I know, right? (Helena, the books are seriously, seriously twisted. I can’t explain the appeal, because it’s something beyond the appeal of the taboo, and they really are terribly written books, and yet I just never could put them down, and obviously I was not alone in that. Even now, if you put one of the books from the first four series in front of me – although all the books after the first two series were ghostwritten – I would probably re-read the whole thing.)
Re: MILFs (the M standing for monster, of course), did no one mention Crowley? Did I just miss it? I love to hate him, but I’m a sucker for anyone who can make me laugh, and he fits that bill. And I totally get the appeal of Death, too. He’s so refined. And Benny – not really my physical “type” (which is, if I have one, as previously specified – Braveheart Dean), but if he were to proposition me, I wouldn’t say no. Good God, that ACCENT.
Sheila – I’ve seen a different version of that one-minute horror film, with a little girl instead of a little boy. The one you linked to is the better of the two. The look on the boy on top of the bed’s face at the end had me not wanting to turn out the lights.
The fact that I cannot actually have a house hippo is possibly even more disappointing than the fact that I cannot have a petite lap giraffe.
I have just had the most marvelous time reading your review and all of the comments. I can’t really add anything new to the discussion but I can play with and contribute to the sexiest characters other than Sam and Dean.
My favorite is Benny, I loved his kind eyes, his big comfortable looking body and his lovely voice. I think his chemistry with Dean was phenomenal.
Abbadon, wow, I was all sorts of happy with her scenes with Dean. I could watch whole episodes where she manhandles him.
Casey for all the reasons already put forth by previous posters.
Pamela, I loved her character. She was so confident and straight forward. Very sexy.
Sarah, she was just so beautiful, at least she was to me. I thought she was perfect for Sam.
Ellen, maternal, take charge kind of woman. The kind of woman that you would find pioneering in the past. She was a beautifully mature human. Something you hardly ever see in females on television.
I just realized that my list was almost exclusively female. LOL, and I am a very hetero female who unashamedly started watching the show because of the two hot leads.
This episode as a lead in to the season finale was full of John. He of course can’t show up without messing up the boys. I always felt so badly for them when their Dad was around. I truly think John was seriously disturbed. I believe that between Nam and Mary’s death he just lost it. I also think there was something not quite right with his relationship with Dean, I am not saying he molested him but he certainly had a messed up sexual thing about his eldest.
I do think he was a good Hunter, I also think Sam and Dean are and were better.
So many things going on in this discussion I can’t keep track of it all.
The whole fandom thing, I have to agree with you Sheila that it is a story and open to interpretation. I do take issue with fans shipping so hard that they confuse it all with reality.
All in all a fascinating episode.
Thanks once again for your reviews and this forum where people can have a civil discussion.
Grean, I like your list.
And I’ve finally looked up MILF. (I was in the right ball park, though I think my original guess was actually ruder.)
//Re: MILFs (the M standing for monster, of course), did no one mention Crowley? Did I just miss it? I love to hate him, but I’m a sucker for anyone who can make me laugh, and he fits that bill. And I totally get the appeal of Death, too.
For me Crowley and Death are in categories of their own ;-) Please, can we have an episode where they sit down and have a chat about … dunno, anything, The World Cup, pizza, the Meaning of Life.
More lovely monsters –
Sam and Dean as Leviathan. They were awesome – the exchange about haircuts was priceless.
Bela – a monster, of a sort.
I think The Trickster falls into this category too.
Natalie –
//Braveheart Dean//
Not Tarzan Dean in a loin cloth? Do you order a diet soda with your banana split?
Grean –
Welcome to the party!
All –
We beat the heck out of the gender and role stuff above, but I have to confess, I just got into Lana Del Rey in the last couple of days (yes, snigger about the guy being late to the party) and reading about all the backlash around her lyrics makes the point that submissive females get a lot of crap, in some ways similar to receptive/open/objectified guys. And negative in other ways. I can’t tell how much of what she says in interviews is playing her persona, and how much is really her. I’m hoping she’s actually a happier person than her persona. At any rate, reading about her has been illuminated by the discussions here.
Morning,
//For me Crowley and Death are in categories of their own ;-) Please, can we have an episode where they sit down and have a chat about … dunno, anything, The World Cup, pizza, the Meaning of Life.//
Totally. Can you imagine a SPN a la Muppet Show with Death and Crowley as Statler and Waldorf. Or maybe an epic fight scene with Death and Crowley as commentators. Awesome.
Grean, I’m with you about Ellen- just gorgeous.
Oh Lana Del Rey…I get a kick out of her stuff. Sometimes her stuff makes me laugh and I am never sure if I am laughing with or at her. I hope she is happier too.
//Not Tarzan Dean in a loin cloth? Do you order a diet soda with your banana split?//
Ha!
Natalie
//I’ve had a hectic couple of days, so I haven’t had a chance to catch up until now. I was dying to weigh in yesterday, but now I think it’s been pretty well hashed out, and I’m a little too scattered right now to pull all my thoughts together coherently and respond to everyone that I want to respond to.//
I so know that feeling. Sometimes it is like everything happened here when I’m not looking and then it feels too late because the moment has past. Speaking for myself though, I’m always up for new thoughts on the matter. (We have to get through Hellatus somehow.)
I’m just catching up.
//I see the introduction of soldier characters as highly morally ambiguous, to say the least – am I meant to see them as heroes who reflect that heroism on Sam and Dean, or what? I get the jeebs as Sam gradually ditches all the soul-searching and boohooing about killing. And what about the presentation of evil in the world, and within humans – is that really something external that can be destroyed through killing or shutting a gate on it, or what? //
//I’d say the show has pretty thoroughly critiqued intentionalism.//
I think about this a lot Jessie. I’m not sure I agree, they’ve certainly discussed it a lot. I don’t think they’re really coming down on either side of this, just acknowledging that it’s a very difficult question. There will be consequences, yes, but it also MATTERS why you’re doing what you’re doing. People in the show are usually very hard on Dean for his “good intentions” but I think the show itself is actually very forgiving of having “good intentions”. Maybe that’s just Dean being so sympathetic or the way I want to see it as it is my own view that good intentions are really the ONLY thing that matters.
evave-2 –
I really liked how you say that John and Sams arguments are always about Dean. But they’re completely unaware of it. But I always like readings that make it all about Dean. This is very much The Dean Show to me :)
Sheila I’m so curious about your script! Can you talk about it? Give us something!
//When it misses the boat, it misses it by a MILE. The show is weird that way. It’s “on” more than it is “off” which is why those episodes (Caged Heat) really really stand out. //
Ah yes, knife rape. That was weird. Absolutely awful, but I don’t know if I think it was done poorly. I love the way Rachel Miner plays it. Am I being thick about this stuff?
Helena you’re amazing!
Max–
But when do we ever see this play out in tv except in very expected setting where the sexuality becomes a gimming or something the show revolves around?
I agree! I get frustrated by a definitive push in either direction — homosociality isn’t gay, homosociality is gay. There needs to be space for both operating simultaneously. Desire is more complex than “I want to bone you” and we carry it even into non-sexual situations — I think Sheila has proved this definitely with Dean ha ha. When I’m out with my partner and people assume we’re sisters (ie all the time) I have this weird double feeling of anger at being invisible by default and pleasure at subversion & being something that like doesn’t fit in your rules, man! I like the way slash forces us to hold multiple and contradictory readings at the same time.
I think the show itself is actually very forgiving of having “good intentions”
Hmm, it’s interesting. I was actually thinking less along the lines of Dean this season and more along the lines of our friends from the cases of the week — the chick from Hookman — the Bloody Mary girls — Bela — the Hell House prankster — kids playing with witchcraft and spells — as well as stuff like Sam and Dean each breaking seals and Cas’s well-intentioned disasters. The in-show universe doesn’t care about your intentions. But the way it’s presented to us in context and compassionately at times, yeah definitely there’s nuance there.
Ah yes, knife rape….I don’t know if I think it was done poorly
For me, this was about a particular kind of sexual violence filmed titillatingly and it was the second time the show had done it (Ruby2 the first time), and I haaaaated it, and I hated the Meg-Cas-Pizza Man thing, and it was followed up by some awful comment by Dean about giving Cas an hour with her post-torture body and to be honest I’ve never rewatched it. But it also hooked into some of the problems I was having with the way the show cast female characters and filmed female bodies, which I have found to be frustratingly limited over the years (like most television).
Loving all the comments. God knows what’ll be left to talk about next time. We’ve done morality, poetry and sex, I guess next time it’s religion and taxes.
//I was actually thinking less along the lines of Dean this season and more along the lines of our friends from the cases of the week//
Just confirms that it’s The Dean Show to me, I read everything that way :)
//and it was followed up by some awful comment by Dean about giving Cas an hour with her post-torture body//
Yeah that felt pretty wrong. But I think I’m ok with Knife-Rape-Scene for two reasons mainly. She is being victimized but refuses to be a victim, to play that role, she is ridiculing HIM. She is just like Dean in that regard. The other is the guy playing Christian, he’s great. I love that scene when Dean comes out of Samuel’s office. They are both so terrific there. They had a great hate for each other.
//But it also hooked into some of the problems I was having with the way the show cast female characters and filmed female bodies, which I have found to be frustratingly limited over the years (like most television).//
I mean it’s a very objectifying show at the same time as it’s commenting on that objectifying. I’ve always liked that basically all the people on this show are assholes. There are no pedestals. And even if there are at first it always gets deconstructed (even with Jessie and Mom, even though they weren’t themselves when that happened the show still was saying something about that). What do you mean about how it’s cast?
//Meanwhile, Season 3 opens with him blatantly giving Sam a thumbs up out the window before he leaps into bed with the Doublemint Twins. Sam is basically waiting in the car. So great.//
Ha that was so weird! Classic Kripke-writing. It’s very specific. A bit akward always, and naive in a charming way. The only one I don’t like is The Magnificent Seven. Such a clumsy clumsy episode.
Max –
Jessie covered some of my issues with that scene. I love Rachel Miner – and love her Meg portrayal – it’s not about that. Yes, it is an objectifying show – but not really, actually, not like that scene. That scene totally stands out. Most of the objectification is done in a subverted way of inference – you know, we don’t see the guys lolling around in their briefs. And women show up, in general, in three-dimensional characterizations, even the chicks in the teasers are pretty well-drawn.
Here’s my issue, and it’s going to sound like I’m a fan of torture porn – and I’m actually not – although if it floats someone’s boat, that’s okay by me.
If you are going to spend almost a whole season inferring and suggesting that Dean has been raped repeatedly in hell – which they did – and then NOT show ANY of it – well, that’s fine. That’s good storytelling. You get a lot from the crap that happens in your mind. But we never see him totally naked, in the process of getting his ass fucked against his will.
We were somehow protected from having to see that, and Dean was protected, too. The images were placed in our minds … but showing it? Oh ho no, that’s not what we allow our HEROES to look like.
So I found that Meg scene completely hypocritical – and disappointing.
It goes along with the general idea that women’s bodies are disposable, up for grabs, nobody cares if we denigrate them, humiliate them, expose them, do things to them – and yet male bodies are still somehow sacred. They just don’t carry the same meaning – and they are still “protected” somewhat in cinema – for all kinds of reasons, cultural, critical, whatever. There isn’t just one reason for that. Although of course now we have plenty of men walking around showing off their cocks in mainstream film (I could pick Ewan McGregor’s and Michael Fassbender’s cocks out of a lineup – and I’m not complaining about it!!). But the cultural baggage around women’s bodies is much heavier, and dirtier, and more painful historically, and so the power dynamic is off in the presentation.
Now I am NOT saying that you can’t show rape onscreen or that women have to be “protected” onscreen or that you can’t show gross awful things happening to women if it serves your story. I wrote a whole piece about Wolf of Wall Street where I railed at the critics complaining that the film itself was misogynist. Oh for god’s SAKE. Art isn’t supposed to be a Sunday School lesson. This is Martin Scorsese we’re talking about. I have HAD it with those clowns.
I may not be being totally clear. I don’t think SPN was being “coy” about Dean being raped in Hell – I honestly don’t think you could seriously argue that he WASN’T raped. Or, I wouldn’t take someone seriously if they tried to tell me that no, he was just tortured, and I was reading rape into it. Uhm, no, it’s called inference and subtext and suggestion and it was Clear as Day.
But you can’t get around the fact that women as objects and violent rape being used as a turn-on for audiences has a far more vicious and horrible history than the history of men in that position – and the creators need to be aware of that – and usually (in my opinion) they are. That one went WAY over the line.
And it takes a lot for something to go over the line for me.
I mean, I love Eminem. Okay? :)
I think it was the fact that they were perfectly fine merely suggesting all that stuff that happened to Dean, and then they threw a naked woman’s body to the leering wolves, having zero problem with showing EVERYTHING that happened to her.
I also didn’t like the Castiel-Meg thing – and felt that those scenes were written directly for his fan base – and I feel that when the writers do that, the character of Castiel suffers. Ironically. Like the pop culture stuff in Season 9. I’m sure it went over like gangbusters with the Cas crowd, but I found it insufferable. And cutesy. And I can’t STAND it when Castiel is cutesy. I like him best when he is mysterious, ferocious, and totally bizarre. The deadpan line readings. The humorlessness. The blank face. The ferocious protective quality. That’s when Castiel works for me.
So throwing the Cas fans a bone (so to speak), with a grope in a hallway – I don’t know. Just didn’t work for me!
I do think it’s funny that Dean notices that Castiel has a boner, and mentions it to Sam, which is the clearest example I can think of – literally you cannot be clearer – that these guys have no boundaries and are so used to living in one damn room that they don’t even notice how weird and funny that is.
And Max – I agree that those early scenes with Samuel were awesome, and I love any time Sam and Dean interacted with Samuel in that particular season. It was so seething with unspoken stuff and hostility and uncertainty – he is a phenomenal actor (his name escapes me).
Okay, gotta run – now that I have basically given my treatise on torture porn … I will be back for more comments later!!
Response to Grean @ 2:02 am 6/21/14 (happy first day of summer!)
A while back I was watching Mommy Dearest, the scene in the diner when Eve turns from college student into Mary. I suddenly realized that Mary and Dean have the same mouth!
It’s always commented on that Sam and Dean and John don’t look anything alike, but once I saw the mouth as the same on Dean and Mary I really looked and Dean looks so much like the actress who plays Mary I could not believe it. Delicate features but long muscled body. I never saw it before.
I think back on amonitrate’s essays and how this site led me to them: Emotional Incest; that is what I think John was doing with Dean. I totally truly believe that (as John said at the end of In My Time of Dying) John used Dean to fill up the emotional part of his life. Mary the Caretaker. Dean the Caretaker. And he had a LOT of time to think about that by the end of the episode and realized what he had done to his son.
About Sam and John: I don’t know if they were playing that at any point, but I read that early on Kripke was planning to have Sam as Azazel’s son (like that was the deal Mary had made when she saved John’s life In The Beginning) and that John knew about it. that Sam was full half-demon. THAT would create distance, even if John loved Sam, he might believe that Sam would never be able to stop from becoming a “hell-spawn” (I love that word, thank you, Jo.) and it was MORE than likely he would have to kill him.
Sheila, do you get any of that from the performances, or was Kripke just talking talking talking (like when he told Castiel he was going to be God)? I think that John became more and more remote emotionally from Sam when he got more and more argumentative, unsure if it was “Sam” doing a teenager or if it was “hell-spawn Sam” who would one day turn no matter what. But at the same time he was become more remote emotionally he kept TRYING to connect Sam with “the job” in the hope that he would someday be a willing participant. Of course The Family Business was Dean’s creation, not John’s; the only way to make sense and have purpose in his life.
I love when Dean is PROUD of his criminal expertise, wish they had more of it.
Oh that business of “Dean can have a home” made me think about how DEAN really gets all nested into the Bunker in Season 8. He is SO HAPPY. So maybe John was right about A HOME but wrong that Dean would keep on hunting.
mutecypher — //I’ve… I’ve come home.//
Truly, this is the greatest of comment threads. We have found our people.
Natalie — I hope you get some down time! Mine is now going to be stolen by the VC Andrews blog. I’ve never read the books and now I won’t have to! (I did the same thing with a 50 Shades of Grey recap blog. I forced myself to read all the Twilight books—because a friend loved them and I’m a good friend—but not those.)
//Personally, I hope they don’t go text with any of it – I love that it’s so open to interpretation.//
Same here! It is part of what makes SPN so great. There is room for all of us.
Sheila — //I don’t think SPN was being “coy” about Dean being raped in Hell – I honestly don’t think you could seriously argue that he WASN’T raped.//
Not with the way demons and monsters treat him on Earth. Also got the impression from Sam’s hallucinations after coming back from Hell that he was, too.
//So throwing the Cas fans a bone (so to speak), with a grope in a hallway – I don’t know.//
My experience with Cas fans makes me think that that scene would tick them off more than please them (most of them were Dean/Cas shippers on some level). So I don’t know what the point of that whole thing was.
RE: the knife-rape. //It goes along with the general idea that women’s bodies are disposable, up for grabs, nobody cares if we denigrate them, humiliate them, expose them, do things to them – and yet male bodies are still somehow sacred.//
Yeah. This is similar to what I was trying to say about slash above. Individual examples aren’t the problem so much as how frequently the situations are used and found throughout our culture.
Also, disposable, up for grabs, denigrated, humiliated…sounds a lot like how Dean is treated.
Jessie — //God knows what’ll be left to talk about next time. We’ve done morality, poetry and sex, I guess next time it’s religion and taxes.//
*takes out a bible and a calculator* I’m ready.
// Also, disposable, up for grabs, denigrated, humiliated…sounds a lot like how Dean is treated. //
I wonder if the episode had been bold enough to make that connection – or to feel like it was acknowledging that connection (outside of the look Dean gave Meg when he unstrapped her – like Heather mentioned below) – it might have worked for me.
As it was, it felt like, “All righty, let’s strip her down and do horrible shit to her, shit we would NEVER show happening to ‘our boys.'”
Boo.
I really appreciate all of the texture in these comments.
RE: the knife rape in “Caged Heat”.
So I remember thinking that that scene and the torture straps were so gross when I first watched it and then I let it go in my mind as I tend to do with anything torture related. But based on your discussions I went back and watched the episode again because I couldn’t get over the title. (Also, I am clearly procrastinating instead of doing my work). “Caged Heat” is a really fucked up title for this episode. So after watching it again I think that the whole episode is about degradation. There is degradation of a variety of kinds throughout: Demon to Dean, “I don’t speak little bitch”, Dean saying he felt he needed to take “rape showers”, the pointing out the boner thing (I remember that happening to boys in junior high and it was not good times for them), the female djinn with the neck collar chain, the cells filled with bodily fluids, Dean being tossed to monsters to be eaten, Sam in the corner of his cell chewing open his vein with blood in his teeth, Cas making out with Meg, Meg’s nudity and brutalization… a lot of degradation. And when Dean kills the demon torturing/raping Meg the knife somehow goes through him and sticks out like 6-8 inches which seems bigger than normal- erect perhaps. So lots of gross in this episode. And then there is a moment when Dean is unstrapping Meg and he gives her this grim look, not exactly of sympathy but knowing maybe, because he can’t help but extend himself to her position. It is a darkly beautiful look and reinforces the understanding that Dean knows all about degradation and brutalization. But it does seem that even if the whole episode is about degradation it is shocking how far they go with the female body, all the other degradations are so subtle it took a re-watch to see them all.
May:
//Also, disposable, up for grabs, denigrated, humiliated…sounds a lot like how Dean is treated.//
Yup, another way he is feminized.
Heather –
Thanks so much. Degradation is a great way to talk about it – and I think it is definitely part and parcel of the SPN universe, but for whatever reason, that Meg scene did not sit well with me for the reasons I just stated. I think the connection between Dean being treated like that – how he is feminized – is so important and so a part of the show – but the episode was just all over the place, and it felt like a Boys Club episode, just so not the style of the show for the most part.
TOTALLY agree about the look on Dean’s face when he approaches Meg to un-strap her.
May, you’re telling me there’s a
//50 Shades of Grey recap blog. //!!
There was a time about 18 months ago that whenever I sat next to a woman with a kindle on the tube, she’d be reading ’50 Shades.’ I could just tell by the teeny tiny sentences and one word paragraphs. Never noticed anyone holding an actual paper copy, for some reason.
// I could just tell by the teeny tiny sentences and one word paragraphs. //
hahahaha
I think people flat out could not wait for it to come out in paperback. I remember that with Harry Potter too, people lugging around these 800 page hard-backs.
May @ 10:48 pm 6/21/14:
I have always thought it was pretty explicit too that Dean was raped in hell, it was all the demons beforehand saying they could not wait to get Dean into hell and what they were going to do (always left to the imagination); also Dean has never been in sleepwear again (I fondly remember him sleeping in Season 1 Phantom Traveler and Scarecrow and hubba hubba). Now he sleeps in his clothes, like many rape victims.
Alastair’s tone of voice with Dean was “owning” and “possessive” and while I have seen rapists portrayed more often than torturers (ha, that tells you about MY viewing pleasure, genre all the way, baby) it seemed there was such a strong sexual component into what Alastair was doing at all times that I cringed “knowing” he was Dean’s rapist. Since they are always aiming for a youth audience I can understand not being open about it, but hey, we ARE looking for textual here.
I can’t envision the tortures Sam endured in the Cage, but for some reason I cannot see either Michael or Lucifer committing rape. BOTH of them would view humans as so far below them, it would be like having sexual relations with a human-sized cockroach. I can’t see it. Neither would befoul themselves that way. Now I can’t imagine the tortures, as I said, but I always thought Hell was despair caused by the absence of hope (that souls would turn into demons anyway even without torture because of the nature of hell itself, sort of like radiation poisoning) but I don’t know.
Where Sam’s tortures were concerned it just looked like burning and flaying, but I don’t know, and I appreciate my willing ignorance here.
Helena — //May, you’re telling me there’s a //50 Shades of Grey recap blog. //!!//
Yes. It is glorious.
//Never noticed anyone holding an actual paper copy, for some reason.//
I work in a public library, so…they can’t hide it from me. HA HA HA HA HAAA!
evave2 — //I can’t envision the tortures Sam endured in the Cage, but for some reason I cannot see either Michael or Lucifer committing rape.//
Aside from the fact that rape isn’t always about sex…I sort of agree with this. I wouldn’t have thought this is something Michael or Lucifer would do. BUT. I think the SPN shows otherwise.
When Sam is hallucinated Lucifer in season 7, he says some things that indicate rape. The line that stands out to me is in “Hello, Cruel World”:
LUCIFER: You’re still in my cell. You’re my bunkmate, buddy. You’re my little bitch, in every sense of the term.
So. Yeah. Ick.
I just finished the entire VC Andrews recap blog – thank you Natalie!! – I laughed so hard I cried!! But 50 Shades of Grey too??
I haven’t read that book – but I think I might love the recaps.
The script is explicit that the torture included rape – those comments from Lucifer as explicit as it gets. But as we’ve discussed – Dean’s boundaries are already so wrecked that it’s somehow more shattering for him, a confirmation of his own feelings of worthlessness. He already feels that way, he’s already lived it. He’s been bait since he hit puberty. He is presented from the get go as sexualized and permeable. Everyone senses it. His Hell is being stretched out over the abyss, bound, available. Sam’s is being submerged in the flames. Huge difference in mood and feel.
This goes back to how we’ve talked about their bodies – and how their bodies are handled in the show and presented. It’s just not how men are normally treated cinematically, and it’s not meant to be literal – it’s just a feeling, an undercurrent, hard to pin down, but there nonetheless. The one moment of Sam as Centaur. Then we get Dean, cuddly and soft in bed. Totally different subtext for the characters’ bodies, totally different feeling. That is deliberate. Dean doesn’t come stalking out of the shower in a manly pride of his torso – he is seen peeking around the bathroom door with a towel over his head. And even when Sam is in bed with a woman, there’s something so powerful about him, his arms, and the veins in the damn muscles … it’s just completely different from mush-ball Dean in similar circumstances.
I don’t think it’s meant to be nailed down or too “textual”- it’s just kind of in the air, giving off a scent, an afterimage … and it’s subverted and perverted and gender-bendy and all the rest. I think the fact that it isn’t entirely textual is why it is so disturbing.
Like I keep saying – if it were too textual, then we wouldn’t have all the SPACE that we do to actually discuss all of these things, the space being created around the very idea of masculinity – which is mainly coming from Ackles – but really it’s the whole show.
And it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
Sheila,
//but for whatever reason, that Meg scene did not sit well with me for the reasons I just stated… the episode was just all over the place, and it felt like a Boys Club episode, just so not the style of the show for the most part.//
Yes, I agree. I don’t think I explained my thoughts well. The Boys Club is apt and really uncomfortable to watch, the male-bonding over the degradation of women, which is sadly a part of cultural tradition; and Meg becomes the centre of this in the episode. This is made especially clear when she finally gets her moment of revenge and it takes Crowley all of two seconds to disarm her and knock her down. The creepy line about giving Cas an hour with her… sounded wrong and degrading. I just wondered if given the thematic thread of degradation in the episode (and how off beat it was from the rest of the show) if this wasn’t on purpose- a meta thing- that they were including the exclusionary Boys Club as part of the degradation of women into the episode. I am probably giving them too much credit.
After all, now we have this:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/rocksaltmerch/works/8941999-touched-by-an-angel-he-learned-it-from-the-pizza-man?p=t-shirt
So clearly people feel differently about this episode than those of us creeped out.
Have to respond to a few things even though the thread is dead.
About Sam and Deans respective hell:
Thinking about it now it seems like Sams hell is all about guilt. He’s seen burning, being purified. It’s pain, and it seems to be in atonement he is put through that. Like a Christ character of sorts. Deans hell is in a dirty nothingness, strung up, exposed, like his worst punishment would be the total lack of cover. It’s pain, but more so it is exposure, nowhere to hide, abandonment. It’s shame, right? That’s the difference.
Sam’s hell = guilt
Dean’s hell = shame
Isn’t that how it works though? Guilt can be atoned for. You expose it, you can burn it away, by redeeming actions or in biblical ideas of self-flagellations. But shame, what happens when you expose that and make it visible, you bulk up, cover yourself up more and more.
This really goes with how we see Sam and Dean. With Sam it’s explicit, demon-blood, actions of betrayal. But his self is intact, he knows where his borders are. What he consists of, what makes him an entity. Dean doesn’t have borders to reign in his personality, he is fluid, without boundaries, without self. There’s nothing to atone for, it’s inherent. Like he’s missing something from the start, while Sam’s pain is something that is added.
Sorry if I sound a little one toke over the line, it’s late, I’m tired :)
I agree with how you all feel about the fact that Meg’s torture is seen while Dean’s is not. It’s not really ok. But I think it’s what they can do, they’re not allowed to show mens bodys like that on the CW probably, so Meg is set up as the mirror so as to show us Dean right? I love movies like that. Thriller, Freeway, Baise-Moi, Anti-Christ, Hard Candy. Of course, the point of all that torture and humiliation is that they get their sweet revenge, but Meg gets dominated by Crowley as soon as she’s about to. It adds to her tragedy, it’s the same thing that happens with Dean again and again. I find Meg, especially in Rachel Miners form to be so very fascinating and sympathetic. I really love her. She’s truly a tragic figure and still so strong and brave holding on to her dignity.
The Boys Club. I sort of agree with that. But I mean are these guys really immune to sinking down into that kind of behavior. Their nature is to be sweet and kind to women but even guys that are can totally make mistakes like that that they are blind to if it isn’t pointed out to them. They haven’t taken genderstudies you know?
And yes that look he gives Meg after he kills Christian really says it all doesn’t it. There is so much there. Jensen Ackles is fucking brilliant.