Edvard's Supernatural Rewatch and Review: 1x16 Shadow
In my analysis of this episode, I will discuss Dean’s understated intelligence, the hunting life as a metaphor for trauma, a silly altar, Kripke’s bad treatment of his female characters, and Sam being a pissy bish.
Supernatural’s sixteenth offering is an outing directed by Kim Manners and written by Eric Kripke. It is rated 8.5/10 on IMDb based on over 5,300 votes. It is an important plot episode as we discover that the conflict between John and the Yellow-Eyed Demon is heating up and could have very lethal consequences for the Winchesters. The actual writing for this episode is spotty and does not do a good job of presenting the characters as the writer wants us to view them: Sam is supposed to be Mr Smart University Man who is good with research and good at hunting, whereas Dean is supposed to be the air-headed, womanising himbo kind of man Kripke seems to resent for some reason. What the writing does, however, is show us Sam being mostly useless but earns his keep on occasion, whereas Dean is the true mvp (‘most valued player’) of the episode.
Unfortunately for the aforementioned plot, the show takes a three-episode break from the overall story for the space of episodes 1x17-1x19. This thin spreading of plot is one of the things I disliked about the show when I first watched it almost 14 years ago, and it would still be an issue if I still watched Supernatural for the story. Which I do not: I watch it for Dean.
Whilst we are on the subject of Dean – which we were not – I want to address a problem I have with both Kripke’s writing of him AND the general fandom’s perception of him: his sexual exploits. I will discuss the latter first: The Show tells us time and time again that Dean engages in much coitus with a plethora of womenfolk. I repeat, The Show tells us this, but television is a visual media and one of the basic precepts of visual media is ‘show, don’t tell’. The Show can tell us whatever it pleases about Dean’s adventures in copulation, but what it tells us is not in keeping with what it shows us.
How many women has Dean actually been shown with in the show so far? Only one: Cassie, a woman he was ‘in love’ with a few years previously. Certainly he has been flirty with women, e.g Jess in 1x01 Pilot, Haley in 1x02 Wendigo, Amy Acker in 1x03 Dead in the Water, Layla in 1x12 Faith, but nothing actually happened with any of them. He was in the (men’s) toilets for a long time in 1x15 The Benders, but other than that, the next time I can assume he had sex with anybody is 2x18 Hollywood Blues when he did the horizontal tango with the actress in the caravan. After that, the twins (at least one of whom was presumably female) in 3x01 The Magnificent Seven, the barmaid in 4x05 Monster Movie, Anna in 4x10 Heaven and Hell, Lisa in the time he spent with her between the end of 5x22 Swan Song and roughly 6x05 Live free or Twi-Hard, and then maybe one woman every two years until series 12, whereafter… nothing. Not a single woman.
This does not mesh well with what we are supposed to believe. Of course we do not see all of the boys’ lives, but we do not see nearly enough of Dean’s sexual interactions with women (or men) to have any actual reason to think he is as promiscuous as we are told. Yes he is flirty, but there is very good reason to believe he had to learn to be flirty as a child in order to keep Sam fed when John was away. It could simply be that his flirty nature is one of the roles he steps into in order to help him get through different situations: he knows how to flirt with women, and can be comfortable when he adopts that persona. How often he actually goes through with that is another matter altogether, and what he actually thinks and feels about sex is up for debate. My thoughts are that he does not like it quite as much as he says he does, but perhaps puts on the act because John, Sam, and others expect or demand it of him. I refuse to discuss toxic masculinity, but John and Sam’s expectations and demands of Dean because he is a man are undoubtedly poisonous.
Kripke, however, wants us to believe Dean is a himbo, a man-slut, a f*ck-boy, and a man-shaped hormone. Why else would he put lines such as ‘do you mind doing a bit of thinking with your upstairs brain?’ into his self-insert Sam’s mouth and not have Dean answer back if he did not want us to think Dean is an air-headed scarlet woman? More on this later when I discuss Kripke and Sam both sounding like women who hate men.
I will return to the very beginning of the episode: the cold open was generally effective and successful with lovely cinematography, use of shadows, and atmospheric sound design. Meredith WAS a bit of an idiot walking down creepy alleys in the middle of the night by herself with earphones in. It was also rather weird how quickly her panic abated as soon as she locked the door and set the alarm in her flat. Paula R Stiles wasted no time in her review pointing out that Meredith should have turned all the lights in her flat on and kept them on all night if she were that scared, but instead she blithely toddles over to her answering machine and listens to her messages. Conveniently, the messages fall silent as soon as we see Meredith’s heart getting ripped out. Funny, that.
Actually, let’s backtrack a moment. I said we see Meredith’s heart getting ripped out. This as only half-true: since Meredith is not a man, we do not see violence enacted on her, we just see the shadow.
Exit Meredith and enter Dean and Sam on a street in downtown Vancouver Chicago. There are a few things I like about the following scene: number one is the adorable security alarm company boiler suit, as much as Dean hates it and having to pay for it. Dean makes it very clear the outfits are expensive and the money comes out of his hard-earnt money. Later in the show, such costumes are infrequent and the boys opt instead for simply posing as FBI agents most of time. More’s the pity, because my dopamine level shot through the roof seeing Dean playing dress up.
I also enjoyed the sassy landlady, short though her role was. But the most noteworthy part of the scene for me was Dean spotting the symbol in the blood on the carpet. Other than revealing that Dean is a closeted Evanescence fan, it showed both his impressive working knowledge of occult insignia and his ability to link things together and spot patterns. People both within and outwith the show are keen to call Dean stupid, but he is anything but. He is not educated, but he is highly intelligent and knows a lot about the world he and Sam are in which Sam does not. His ability to spot patterns is also another bit of evidence for Dean having Asperger’s.
Bear this in mind as I jump forwards to a little later in the episode when Dean finds the meaning of the symbol and tells Sam about it over the phone, only to be met with Sam’s surprise that Dean knows how to research. ‘Name the last book you read,’ is Mr Me Smart University Man’s response, delivered with a superior, arrogant grin on his face. Sam’s concept of intelligence seems to be reading books and academic success, and a person who does not read books cannot be intelligent.
Quite apart from the fact that history, science, and craft magazines exist which are exceedingly educational, academic success does not guarantee intelligence: it guarantees specialisation and expertise in one area. Dean has this without academic success: how many times over the course of the show does he rebuild the car after an accident? How much knowledge of the occult does he have which we only get to see fleeting glimpses of? And how much lore and mythology does he know by heart whilst Sam has to ferret through books and websites. Is there a single pop culture reference he does not get? And he does read: it is canonically acknowledged that he likes Kurt Vonnegut. He also seems the type to be a fan of Cormac Macarthy and Stephen King, but back to the point: shut your gob, Sam.
The misplaced arrogance is especially glaring and grating in this episode because Sam does not actually do much at all for the first two thirds of the episode. Kripke wants us to believe Sam is awesome and cool, but he does nothing useful in Meredith’s flat while Dean spots the pattern in the blood. Dean does the research while Sam sits in a car. Drop it, Sam.
And did I mention Dean’s home-made EMF reader? The one Sam mocked him for making in 1x04?
It would be remiss of me to ignore the fact Dean had a dig at Sam with his ‘drama dork’ comment at the beginning, but that actually came off as a sibling joke. A little puerile and immature, but not mean-spirited, unlike Sam’s two jibes at Dean in this episode. Even the difference in their reactions says a lot: Sam is utterly unperturbed by Dean’s joke, whereas Sam’s ‘Do you mind thinking with your upstairs brain?’ wiped the smile off Dean’s face and had him rushing to explain himself like a child fearing punishment.
Whilst on the subject – please bear with me, Dear Reader, I am almost done with my Sam-bashing – I would like you to cast your mind back a few minutes to the beginning of this analysis: Sam’s pissy comment about Dean’s sex drive sounded like exactly the kind of thing a woman who hates men would say. There was absolutely nothing about Dean’s behaviour in the scene suggesting he was only thinking about sex. Sam’s comment was an unnecessary escalation meant to shame. You might be wondering ‘how did you get that from one sentence?’ If so, please go and look at what I wrote about Sam’s pissy, controlling behaviour in 1x13-1x15 for some context, or take a look at the offence and resignation of Dean’s face in this episode after Sam says ‘Name the last book you read’.
Paula R Stiles and I are in complete agreement about Sam’s view of Dean: he is an embarrassment, an interruption in his life, an idiot, and a burden. This has been true since 1x01, and it will remain true until the end of the show.
By the way, apropos the bar scene: do we know which bartender’s number Dean got? We see him talking to a barmaid, but their conversation did not seem like they had got far enough to exchange numbers, and Dean left her as soon as he saw Sam enter the pub. Curious... Meg’s Chad Michael Murray line also seemed to interest Dean while Sam was clueless. The camera also cut away to Dean’s face for some reason. Curious...
As for ‘Dad’s friend Caleb’, Dean already has his number on his phone, so who is the Caleb whose number is written in the notebook under the information about the daevas? Curiouser and curiouser.
Mentioning Chad Michael Murray brings me to the next big point of this analysis: Meg. I have to admit I did not like Meg much at all when I first met her 14 years ago, and to this day this first incarnation of Meg simply does not do anything for me. A mix of the writing and acting choices make her feel like a Bad Ass BitchTM and it does not tickle my frusset pouch. She sounds arrogant and annoying. No wonder Sam liked her. The second incarnation of Meg is more to my liking.
‘Dude, cover your mouth!’ What an incredibly rude way to talk to a stranger who was clearly clearing his throat, not coughing. Note also that Sam does not speak up for Dean at any point during this exchange (like he did not call Missouri out for being a mega bish), nor offer a real apology for the things he said. Sam is the show’s POV at this point, and it stands to reason that what Meg said is supposed to be the viewer’s takeaway from the exchange. We are supposed to think Dean treats Sam badly in spite of what the show shows us. Sam’s lame ‘He means well’ only serves to underscore the fact Sam thinks Dean treats him badly, and he does nothing to challenge Meg’s views on their dynamic.
That being said, I noticed that Kripke wrote the only recurring female character so far as a mega bitch and I did not like it for several reasons. The first reason is that is sucks to bring in a character who differs from the main two only to write her as a mega bitch, as if we would not notice the only woman is being written as a bitch. The second reason is that nobody in their right mind would ever say the things she said to Dean at first meeting unless they was an extremely good reason to do so. This made her feel unrealistic and hard to take seriously.
The third reason was Dean’s face after the bitching and his words outside the pub afterwards. He was perfectly justified in being upset by what Sam said about him, but Sam just brushes it aside so he does not have to deal with it. Rather than ‘I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I’m sorry for bitching about you to strangers again’, he gives non-committal platitudes and lame reassurances that are as flimsy as something which is very flimsy. ‘Yes, yes, sorry, whatever, it’s not important, now let’s change the subject.’
In addition to the bitching, there is the fact that Sam was angry at Dean for telling Cassie about the hunting life in 1x13 Route 666, yet what Sam did was much worse and far stupider. He knew at that point that he was in danger and there would be ‘people’ following him, but he still could not help himself having a bitch about his idiot brother to the first person who would listen. Dean knew Cassie for a few weeks, but Sam knew Meg for all of a few hours before he starting spilling his secrets.
And the show wants us to think Dean is the stupid one.
One thing I did appreciate about Meg was the minimum amount of pontificating and snarky Bad Ass Bitch dialogue in the loft at the end. She did talk, but she was still doing stuff, even if the creepy rapey vibes of sitting in Sam and Dean’s laps while they were tied up was creepy and rapey. She is also serving somebody else and following somebody else’s orders, a fun-house mirror version of Dean.
The loft confused me for a long time, but before discussing that: Sam wants Dean to think Dean is stupid, and Sam clearly thinks he is smart. But please note, Dear Reader, that Sam followed Meg into the big scary building after a suspected murderer alone. That would have been the time to call Dean for back-up, but nope: Sam decides the prudent course of action is to climb up a lift shaft all by himself. Were you dropped on your head as a child, Sam?
Anyway, the thing which confused me about the loft was: why? Why did Meg have the altar in the loft rather than her home? It took until this evening when I was washing my hair and thinking of my analysis that I realise a few things: her flat was a small space with people above and below who would hear any loud noises going on there. That could cause problems for her plan, since she cannot have her daevas ripping people apart without the neighbours hearing. It would also be hard to lure Dean and Sam into a trap if she were not seen doing anything untoward such as entering a creepy building.
The black altar, by the way, looked like no effort had been put into it, and was taken directly from an emo-rock music video. Not that there is anything wrong with emo music: I am quite partial to a bit of My Chemical Romance on occasion. But you have to admit the altar looked cheesy.
Before continuing, I want to briefly outline something a friend recently explained to me: the hunting life as a metaphor for trauma, particularly generational trauma. People only enter the hunting life after a traumatic event such as the death of a friend or family member, or are raised into it by these same people. Normal people cannot see the world of monsters and demons, i.e. the life of a traumatised person, and when they get a glimpse of it, they run as fast as they can in the opposite direction. Normal people simply cannot handle it. The only people who can are those who have suffered the trauma of losing somebody, but most are doomed to die young and bloody.
Hunters are the only ones who can fight the monsters, but the more they fight, the greater the risk of getting hurt and the higher the likelihood of taking severe damage and dying. This works as a metaphor for facing trauma: if we ignore it, it might not get to us. Perhaps. We might even be able to live for decades with only infrequent encounters with monsters/trauma. Then again, we might not. Ignoring the problem is no guarantee of safety once we know the problem exists.
Even if we try to ignore the monsters/trauma, we might not ever even be able to fit back in with the normal people again. We know the other world is there, and that the normal world is simply a facade. It is always there trying to pull us back in, sometimes subtly, sometimes with a shepherd’s crook.
Dean was traumatised by the loss of his mother at the age of four, and after that John piled trauma upon trauma on him. ‘Hunting’ is the only life Dean knows, and the only place he believes he could ever fit. The normal world is a foreign place to him and his behaviour is too alien for normal people to understand. The world of monsters and hunters terrifies normal people, and they are quick to reject hunters and their ilk because they are too scary, just like the behaviour of traumatised people is often scary, uncomfortable, and difficult for people who do not understand. Even other hunters struggle to get Dean because each hunter’s experience is individual.
Sam was too young to be effected directly by Mary’s death in the way Dean was, but it drew him into the hunters’ world all the same. However, he was shielded from the brunt of the trauma in a way Dean simply was not: Dean was exposed to all the horror, whereas Sam was kept in the dark. John’s neglect had a serious negative impact on him, but it was mostly second hand. Dean was the buffer between Sam and the horrors of the hunters’ life, which is one reason why he was able to rebel and leave for university: he believed there was a way out, and he took it.
With this in mind, a discussion of the scene in the hotel room before Dean and Sam go to the loft is in order. The trauma of Jess’s death drew him back into hunting, but he still believes there will be an end to it one day and that he will be able to return to his old life. He believes that killing Azazel will be the end of his hunting life, i.e. that the worst of his grief will be over. Dean, however, believes it will never be over because he knows nothing else than hunting and has never been allowed to be anything else.
‘Dude, what’s your problem?’ - I forget that Dean’s mask is so well fitted that other people struggle to see past it, or even that it’s a mask at all. I honestly cannot be angry at Sam for not seeing this because he just does not understand why Dean is so upset, no matter how clear it is to me.
On the other hand, I do not understand how Sam can think it would be okay to abandon Dean. Dean is not Sam’s responsibility, true, but human relationships are not founded on only doing things because they are responsibilities. We do things because we want to help the people we care about, not because it is our duty to do so. Although perhaps this is more evidence to prove that Sam does not really care about Dean unless he is losing him.
I think this scene also shows that – in spite of fandom consensus – Sam is really not very good at all with reading other people’s emotions motivations or emotions. Given Dean’s emotional state when Sam announced his intent to leave him, the only reason Dean could have asked the question ‘Why do you think I cam to get you at Stanford, huh?’ is because he wanted to underline the fact he went to get Sam because he wanted Sam’s help, and he wanted to be with Sam again (Winc*sties, leave it!) and get his family back together. That is blindingly obvious to me, but I have had to learn to read people’s motivations and to actively interpret and understand them. Sam, apparently, is clueless here, whereas Dean is much more in tune with his thoughts and feelings. I have touched on this before, so constant readers should know this.
That said, the reason for Sam joining Dean was not to find John, or even to help Dean. It was to get his revenge on Jess’s killer. He did choose to join Dean, but only due to a lack of better options. Nobody else he knew could help him. However, one of the reasons Sam’s relationship with Dean is so strained is that he associates Dean very strongly with John. In fact, rather than seeing Dean as an individual with his own thoughts, feelings, and ideas, he regards him as simply an extension of John’s will. Sam finally managed to escape John, but is now forced to ally himself with Dean, whom he resents through no fault of Dean’s own.
Dean’s presence reminds him of John and the disastrous experience of growing up with John. I have said before that Dean bore the brunt of John’s abuse and Sam seems blissfully unaware of the majority of what his elder brother suffered, yet Sam clearly has his own issues that make it hard for him to be around his family. He wants to separate himself from John in order to heal and move on: the corollary of that is he wants to cut Dean out of his life because of his association with John. From Sam’s perspective, this is understandable, whether he knows this is what he is doing or not.
Dean knows much better than Sam that their life as a family was far from perfect, but he has nothing else. John made family the core of Dean’s identity, and he is utterly lost and hollow without it. Sam, however, sees Dean’s invitation as a trap. It would cut him off from the life he wants to live and doom him to a life like Dean’s. This is perfectly understandable, but Sam comes off as callous and patronising. He says things he thinks Dean wants to hear in order to take the edge off his words, but the actual substance of what he says sounds like ‘I have my own life to lead, sorry.’
The result, though, is that he comes off as callous and patronising. He says things he thinks Dean wants to hear in order to take the edge off his words, but the actual substance of what he says sounds like ‘I have my own life to lead, sorry.’
So what is Dean supposed to do? He has no life to ever go back to, and is instead doomed to be John’s tool for the rest of John’s life. Screw him, though, am I right? Let’s just abandon the traumatised man to deal with his trauma in an environment which makes it impossible to recover from trauma.
Paula R. Stiles’s thoughts run parallel to mine here, and I quote: ‘Dean gets upset. He wants his family together again and since he has no life outside of hunting, can’t conceive of it all ending. Sam rather coldly tells him that he has no intention of hunting forever and wants a “normal life”, of which Dean can’t really be a part (since, it’s implied, but not said, that Dean is not normal and deserves to be abandoned to his fate, much like the MOTWs he hunts). O the irony.
And this comes after Dean left John yet another unanswered voice mail. I know he claims to hate chick flick moments, but Dean needs a hug, a mug of hot chocolate, and a tartan blanket here.
And yes, it is time for that part of my analysis again: Jensen’s acting, Dear Reader! Dear Reader, Jensen’s acting!
Sam: ..things will never be the way they were before.
Dean: Could be.
The subtlety, his facial expression, his nervous smiles-which-are-not-smiles, the tears in his eyes. Dean here knows he has no possible argument to make to convince Sam. He knows Sam does not really care about him nor want to spend any more time with him than necessary. 'Could be...'
Dean's rejection sensitive dysphoria is on full display in this scene, and this moment here shows the heart of his abandonment anxiety: he believes he is worthless and unlovable. And his final look after Sam says Dean will have to let him go his own way: at first it looked like anger, but after I took a second I saw somebody straining to keep as much of himself hidden and controlled as possible.
I feel exactly what he is feeling, and I cannot begin to understand how people miss this stuff. If only, if only he could have been cast as the lead in a show with better writers and a better budget.
Apropos John, when Dean told Meg that John would not walk into her trap, one’s mind is drawn back to when Dean was dying in 1x12 Faith and John did not come to see him or save him, nor even return his phone calls. One is also reminded of 1x09 Home when John did not answer Dean’s call about the ghost in the house Mary died in. The underlying implication here is perhaps that Dean believes John will not try to save him. Remember that when rewatching 1x12 Faith.
After the daevas yeet Meg out of the window (and there will be consequences for that), Dean and Sam return to their room to find Daddy Winchester lurking in the dark. How exactly he managed to find them is not explained: episode 2x07 The Usual Suspects informs us Dean and Sam have a practice whereby when separated they look for the first hotel in the directory and always take a certain room. Whether this is a code of conduct Dean and Sam have been following ever since in order to allow John to locate them if need be I do not know. At this point, I would not put it past John to have known exactly where Dean and Sam have been for a very long time, and to even have been in the vicinity many times, but has refused to let them see him, or even know he is near. Shady, shady behaviour.
As for the reunion scene itself, it clearly shows where we are supposed to focus our interest. Dean and John’s reunion is distant, shallow, unemotional, in spite of Dean willingly embracing John instead of drop-kicking him out the window as he deserves. They hug, but little dialogue of any variety passes between them, nor anything of substance. I see a beaten little boy hugging the dad who beats him hoping it will never happen again if he can just be better, but The show does nothing with this. It is glazed over.
Instead, it is Sam who gets the apology, the catharsis, and the heartfelt reunion. Given it is the first time Sam and John have properly spoken for years, it is also the first time in a significant length of time Dean and John have seen each other for the best part of a year, if not more at this point. Sam might believe Dean is John’s favourite, but how he can persist in this false belief is quite beyond me: Sam is clearly the favourite son. Dean loves (and hates) John, but I do not think John loves Dean: he is simply a useful tool to be taken for granted.
This reminds me of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Sam is the son who left and squandered all his money on wine and women, only to be welcomed back by his father who orders for celebrations to be held. The faithful son, however, who had laboured in his father’s fields all day, every day for years without such parties is understandably aggrieved by this, but his complaint is dismissed by his father: All that is mine is yours, etc. The parable tells us the father has treated the faithful son well, but the story is from the father’s perspective. Who knows how he actually treated his faithful son? Forget moral messages. The faithful son had every right to be pissed off after all the years of work he had put in, only for his wayward brother to be given the red carpet treatment.
Sam is the prodigal son, and Dean the faithful son. I cannot wait for John’s comeuppance, but at the same time Dean’s reaction was completely in character. Most of the wounds John inflicted on Dean’s psyche are yet to be revealed, and will continue to exact their toll over the next 311 episodes of the show, but knowing what I know, I both sympathise with Dean’s relief to see John again, and want Dean to be free of John forever. That is the only way he can be free of the man John wanted him to be, and free to be the Dean he wants to be.
While John hugged Prodigal Sam, Dean stood in the background watching. The camera even does a focus pull so that Dean is in focus and Sam and John are blurred. Dean has something like a smile on his face, happy to see his brother and father together again, but almost wistful, sad.
Luckily, the huggy pukefest is swiftly broken as the daevas yeet John into the kitchenette and proceed to eviscerate him. A quick cut away to outside the building reveals Meg alive and well, controlling the daevas with her amulet, then the camera is back on John. I was disappointed I did not get to see John torn apart. Note they focus on him, not all three: Dean is knocked around a little but Sam is ignored.
In spite of his quick thinking in using the flare (where exactly he learnt that light would cause them to dissipate is never revealed. Gary Stu Sam to the rescue!), Sam does the silly television thing where he tells the audience what he is going to do before he does it. This breaks my suspension of disbelief because it gives the daevas a moment to react and stop Sam doing whatever it is he is going to do. I think exactly the same every time a character sneaks up behind a monster or bad person and says something to get his/her attention rather than just shooting/stabbing him/her in the back before s/he realises what hit him/her.
The episode ends with John leaving Dean and Sam at dean’s insistence – ‘to protect him’ because John is in danger as long as he is around his sons. He is also in danger by himself, and surely three of them together would be better able to hide and fight off enemies, but whatever. Eric Kripke logic, I suppose. Why on Earth John was there in the first place if he knew his presence puts his sons in danger is beyond my ken, but I am quite sure Kripke thought it would be dramatic and cool. The man has some good ideas, but his execution is poor.
While on the subject of Kripke, earlier I discussed his bad treatment of women, but he also treats men badly in his shows. Women are fridged in one way or another too often (although in fairness hatred from female fans does not help), but almost all violence is against men. This is also true of his current project The Boys. To be honest, I got sick and tired of the show about half way through series two, and only kept watching for Jensen and Soldier Boy. What soured me against the show was the excessively graphic violence against almost exclusively men, with at least two instances of on-screen sexualised violence against men ending in graphic, bloody, painful death.
The violence, blood, and guts itself did not bother me, so let me put it this way: women complain about women being nude on screen more than men, but we see much, much more of men’s blood and gory inside bits than women’s. Women complain that female nudity objectifies them, but by the same logic the ubiquitous nature of violence directed almost exclusively at men deadens people to violence against men. The show is supposed to be liberal and progressive, but it seems rather regressive in its squeamishness to depict violence against women – especially not if a man is the perpetrator – and its treatment of men as cannon fodder.
It is also regressive in its treatment of gay/bi men. The first 15 minutes of The Boys 3x01 introduce two of perhaps three gay/bi men who have been acknowledged as gay/bi on the show, only for them to engage in weird, drug-fuelled sex and for one of them to die a horrible, bloody, sex-related on-screen death. Well done, Kripke, very well done. That is a perfect example of Bury Your Gays. “Look, we have gay sex on our show, aren’t we liberal, progressive, and inclusive! Psyche, now they’re dead. Screw you, gays.” I was supposed to laugh, I presume. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and wished I were watching Dark Angel instead.
Wait, Dark Angel – in spite of its good qualities – has the occasional noxious undertone of violence-against-men-is-funny-when-women-do-it-because-girl-power-or-something. Such violence includes Max hitting Alec across the head because she was in a bad mood, slamming Alec’s fingers in a locker door for no particular reason, and a kick to the genitals because Alec used a milquetoast slur, the only appropriate response to which was physical violence. ...and possible permanent damage. And possible infertility. Possible severe bleeding. Serious stomach pains… but all of this is funny, remember, because haha men’s genitals. She laughed as Alec was led past, clearly in too much pain to walk under his own steam, then she laughed and got told how she was a ‘rocking, awesome chick’. I swear by Allah’s beard, sometimes I just...
Anyway, that essay is available right here.
Returning to The Boys,the show has gay/bi women and it touched briefly on bi erasure, but this feels like a cover for shitty treatment of gay/bi men. Kripke also regretted not being able to include the Homelander raping Soldier Boy plot from the source material, because – and I paraphrase – it would have been funny to see the two fuck.
While Kripke's a Fan of the Homelander/Soldier Boy Sex Scene in the Comics, It Won't Work Here: "I love that scene and it's hilarious, but for a dozen reasons, all of which will be revealed when you see the season, it ultimately just didn't track. We talked about it. It conflicted with a lot of the other things we were trying to build with Soldier Boy. So, unfortunately, that one had to go," Kripke explained. "I would love to see Soldier Boy and Homelander f***ing, but it can't happen in this show, unfortunately, for reasons everyone understands."
Source: (x)
You read that right: Kripke described Homelander raping Soldier Boy as ‘fucking’, and he thought it was hilarious. And this guy is going to try using Soldier Boy to preach to me about how masculinity is toxic. For some reasons I am reminded of a badly-translated Biblical metaphor about motes of dust and planks in eyes. Bismillah, spare me...
And I just swore in one of my analyses. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound: shit bugger fanny bum fart.
This is supposed to be high-quality, intelligent television, but it is just spectacle and shock covering up an above-average-but-not-fantastic story and plot. Excessive gore and swearing does not make a show good: it just means the show has excessive gore and swearing. While I am very happy for Jensen to finally be on something bigger than Supernatural, I think this is beneath him. Soldier Boy is my favourite homophobic douche in the whole wide world, but Jensen deserves better. Lord of the Rings better.
On that note, I come to the end of my analysis of 1x16 Shadow. It was never a favourite episode and it feels as though something is missing. It is unsatisfying to have a mytharc episode in between so many monster of the week episodes because the build up to it has been non-existent and it will be a while yet before it has any real relevance to the plot again. It is certainly no bad episode, but I just do not care much for it, in spite of the purple plaid Dean was wearing.
That about does it for this time. Next time will be 1x17 Hell House, so look out for that. I bet you won’t.
Thank you to @emotionalsupportbees for the metaphor of hunting as trauma =)
okay y’all! new chapter is up after way too long! this is a pretty iconic ep and chapter. We get to see more of Jane’s weird dreams from last ep (what was that anyway?), some old faces (and new!), major angst and daddy (and brother!) issues, and all sorts of other fun stuff!
It would mean the world to me if y’all would check it out, I've worked super hard on it and love getting feedback. Really, a comment-even if it’s just “I like it!” means so much to me and makes my day every time! so please please please give this a chance!
