“We’re not who we are”: 13x17 and X-Files (spec)
TRUST NO ONE – Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) continue to collect the pieces necessary to open a rift to the other world in order to save their family. Their latest quest leads them to a Men of Letters bunker from the 1920s and a hungry God from another dimension. Meanwhile, Ketch (guest star David Hayden-Jones) makes a shocking decision about Gabriel (guest star Richard Speight Jr.) after an unruly encounter with Asmodeus (guest star Jeffrey Vincent Parise). John Showalter directed the episode written by Davy Perez (#1316). Original airdate 4/5/2018.
Supernatural Spoilers: “The Thing” Description (via justanotheridijiton)
Now is not the time for me to begin speculating like mad <waves at tomorrow’s writing deadline...then slinks away> but I’m SO HERE FOR the X-Files references that have happened so far with 13x17. Most obvious is the “Trust No One” in the official description. Yes, it’s applicable to the direction that this season is taking but it’s no accident that it was a classic TXF catchphrase that was once used as the tagline in place of the usual “The Truth is Out There.”
The episode where the tagline appeared is 01x23 “The Erlenmeyer Flask”; the season 1 finale in which (spoilers? idk not really since the mythology is pretty known at this point) Mulder and Scully break into a government lab with the help of Mulder’s inside informant, Deep Throat, and steal a substance called “Purity Control” that contains hard evidence of extraterrestrial bacteria that the government was experimenting with and using to make alien-human hybrids. Unfortunately, Mulder gets himself kidnapped (goshdangit Mulder!) and Scully has to trade the evidence for his life. Meantime ally Deep Throat is shot to death for double crossing the shadowy government conspiracy.
How is this remotely related? Well, for one thing we’re already deep into crosses and double crosses so the assassination of an unlikely ally (Ketch? It’s got to be Ketch) is more than possible. I’d put more money on that, although they are looking for an ingredient so there’s that. But...also...the title.
So, bear with me, I take it to refer to John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” a FUCKING FANTASTIC 1982 horror movie that you should all go watch even though it has famously bad special effects. Go ahead. I’ll just wait here then...
Right, so, just in case you didn’t do that here’s the plot recap from Wikipedia:
It tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica who encounter the eponymous "Thing", a parasitic extraterrestrial life form that assimilates other organisms and in turn imitates them. The group is quickly overcome by paranoia and conflict as they learn that they can no longer trust each other and that any one of them can be the Thing.
The end of the film is especially bleak, as the two living characters watch together as the camp burns and share a bottle of scotch while fully aware that either of them might actually be The Thing. (We don’t find out if either is.)
Given this season’s focus on things that look like other things it seems pretty likely that some shapeshifting will be going on and, as before, that it will probably be expositional and, given the foreshadowing we’ve had of the split between the brothers, it’s most likely going to reveal their mistrust. I mean, heck, hunkering down in a bunker with scotch watching the world burn while quietly knowing that you don’t fully trust the other guy you’re with is...so much of the show. (I don’t exactly love TFW conflict but it seems inevitable right now.)
The X-Files connection, though, has to do with a very early episode, 1x08 “Ice”, which basically just follows the plot of “The Thing” except that it’s not a shapeshifter but a parasitic worm (gross) that attaches to your brainstem and mind controls you into being incredibly violent. Mulder and Scully get trapped up there with a group of strangers and, in paranoia about The Thing, they all start turning on each other. This is the episode that begins with a radio transmission from the arctic ice station that is a man repeating “We’re not who we are” - creepy AF and very appropriate to this season of SPN.
What’s that you say? SPN already did that exact thing complete with worm, isolation, and paranoia in 6x16 “...And Then There Were None”? The last episode starring Mitch Pileggi, aka Skinner from TXF? And an episode that highlighted how little the boys trusted one another at that point? You’re right!! It did! But when an idea is worth doing once it’s worth doing twice and we’ve already had so much S6 in S13 that it makes total sense. It’s interesting that it’s followed by 6x17 “My Heart Will Go On” and 6x18 “Frontierland”, episodes that deal respectively with alternate dimensions/realities and time travel since those aspects are also going to be in 13x16 and 13x17. I feel like we’re moving methodically through S6 in the writers’ room and that makes me nervous because we all remember 6x19 and 6x20... <cries>
Anyway, “Ice” is also the TXF episode that first introduced the idea of an alien life form being trapped in permafrost that was just now unfreezing...itself the basis for most of the mytharc including the Purity Control that Deep Throat dies for. It’s here that I see the connection to “Trust No One” in the description. PR is not showrunning but PR wants to remind everyone of SPN’s ties to TXF. And I assume so does Davy Perez, who I adore and who only just finished working on a short called “Abduction” about...aliens. Bet he did himself a rewatch.
I freaking love X-Files and will be so happy if they decide to use it as a parallel/subtextual reference in 13x17. I mean, they are VERY OBVIOUSLY going to retread the plot of “The Thing” and it’s thematically perfect for this moment in the narrative. I just hope TXF figures too since it already has such deep connections to SPN.
Heck, I can’t remember which followers like X-Files stuff so I’m not sure who to tag. @sactownbrowns3 @fuckedupasusual @tinkdw @elizabethrobertajones @thedogsled maybe it’s you? Sorry for my awful memory! If you’re someone who wants a tag on future TXF stuff reblog or comment to let me know!
p.s. Here’s the intro to “Ice”...tell me that’s not AMAZING and creepy as hell!