“Is it a plot twist, or is it just lying?” and brief thoughts on the SPN road so far
To paraphrase an exchange from Bob's Burgers: Is it a plot twist, or is it just lying?
This seems to be an evolving theme of Supernatural's Season 15. I haven't been keeping up on my reviews here, dern it, but after some mild kerfuffles I've experienced between various fans (including myself), I'm re-inspired. Or perhaps incensed.
“Writers lie.”
When we first learned that God is a right asshole and as such, opened a rift in Hell before checking out to leave our intrepid heroes to deal with the undead invasion spilling forth—and then decided to check back in just to start fucking with the Winchesters again—I wasn't overly bothered, but nor was I particularly thrilled by the implications. I was begrudgingly interested to see what was evolving.
Well.
Kinda like watching a slo-mo train wreck, as it turns out. We're witnessing how this canon ret-conning is already starting to fray. How playing fast and loose with what the show has established as the rules of its universe is creating this “It was all just a dream” Dallas-esque meta embarrassment.
Seasons back, when the show first shattered the Fourth Wall by introducing the SPN books and conventions into its own mythos, that self-awareness was a really risky move. To this day, you either love it or hate it, but it managed to hold together because of the infrequency with which it was explored, and the skills of the writers at the time. (Even then, we got Season Seven, Time for a Wedding, arguably one of the more tasteless episodes of the whole series.)
As Dabb and company are choosing to further explore Chuck-as-God-and-puppetmaster, one of the show's important thematic cornerstones, that of the value of <i>freewill</i>, is taking a big hit. And the show knows it. They've had Dean come right out and air his disgruntlement with it several times already. So we get it, yeah, it's a thing. It's what Dabb is using to propel this last season (along with rampant fanservice and as many returning characters—dead or alive—that he can shoehorn into 43 minutes).
Now, I do loves me some fanservice on occasion, and there are certainly quite a few characters who died in rather inglorious ways and probably deserved better send-offs than they got, but I'm not sure 'hanging a flag on it' does enough to compensate for what this means in regards to the past 14 years of the show. In asserting that all of the past canon has been little more than Chuck's manipulations, it also means that the viewers' investment into the whole of the SPN universe has been hung on a lie within its own framework. “Ret-conning” doesn't even come close to describing this level of narrative dishonesty. (Wow, that sounded dramatic, but it's kind of true, you know?) By undermining the canon of the past 14 years, the current show creators have made Gamble, Carver and yes, even Kripke unwittingly complicit in this snake oil operation.
If SPN were just a movie, two hours designed from the jump to play out this way, I might think it was a little cheesy but oh well. I'm not that invested. (See 'Cabin in the Woods', which was a helluva fun neo-horror romp, in a similar vein.) But this is FOURTEEN YEARS we're talking here. That's a loooong time to be invested in a narrative, just to have the latest showrunner unseat all the canon that came before him. The only thing that matters one iota now? Season 15. It, apparently, is the only “true” canon. The only canon where “Chuck” is revealing his hand and operating with any in-world narrative legitimacy.
Thanks, I hate it.
I'm not going to pretend I like what Dabb is proposing. The segment of fandom hungry to bust Sam and Dean's so-called co-dependency is pretty stoked about it, naturally; they see classic SPN as toxic and unhealthy (and let's be real, in the way of a certain ship).
But here's the thing that gives me The Feels™, and it's not turning the Winchesters (or Cas, for that matter) into domesticated, well-adjusted Hallmark Channel leading men. (That's what, you know, The Hallmark Channel is for.) And it's sure as hell not invalidating the canon of the show I fell in love with.
It's urban legends, black humor, the endless highways and guttering neon. It's two brothers raised on the fringes of society, their unbreakable fidelity, finding comfort wherever they can since tomorrow, they may meet the business end of a rugaru. It's the colorful characters they meet along their travels. It's Led Zeppelin, greasy spoons and ancient tomes. It's faith and heart and sacrifice.
Unless Dabb dismantles these things too. At which point, a pox upon him and his house. Writers may lie, but this would be universe assassination.
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Oh! I was going to mention some episodes too, lol. Here are a few quick take-aways, since I've already blabbed on enough.
Episode 3: RIP, Rowena. I looooooved the line, “But I believe in prophecy. I believe in magic.” That was SO her. Of course an ancient witch, the most powerful in the game, would live (and die) on those words. And kudos to the show for remembering it put that Sam gun on the mantel in Season 13, iirc. Pretty sure we'll see Rowena again before the grand finale, though.
Big happy for the suggestion that Sam is a witch-in-the-making. Also glad Cas finally got his brain wrapped around the fact that Dean was pissed at him but he didn't need to take it anymore. Dean has some valid reasons to need space from Cas, and it's a handy way to get Cas off doing his own thing (as Misha is not contracted for every episode).
Berens did a solid job writing this episode, but I'm glad we've wrapped the customary 3-episode season premier. I had high hopes for myriad crusty, decaying dead shambling around a grim world, but instead we got a handful of ghosts, literally running around in broad daylight. The first two episodes were … clumsy.
Episode 4: 'Atomic Monsters', was written by my favorite current SPN writer, Davy Perez, and he did not disappoint! Something about the way he writes dialogue sounds so naturalistic to me, and he manages to tap into authentic feelings in the characters without feeling rushed or contrived. I believe his stories. I never get thrown out of his episodes.
The episode was lovingly directed by Jensen Ackles. The guy flat out knows what to give us. That whole beginning red scene, with Dean and his John Wick bad-assery and then … then we get a Sam who has never eschewed his demon blood addiction. It was chilling and gorgeously actualized and I might have watched that bit more than is healthy.
And we got to revisit Becky Rosen, who is now a fangirl—like many of us—but she's grown up and assimilated fandom enjoyment into her daily life. Perez did a great job in saving Becky, as a character. She isn't the butt of anyone's joke anymore. She isn't a dangerously unbalanced fan. She's just … one of us. Thank you, sir.
Episode 5: Fun stuff in this one! Brotherly banter, Sam and Dean dressed as sort-of Fish and Game employees, a brilliant turn by actress Anna Grace Barlow reprising Lilith (no one saw this coming!), werewolf brothers as yet another example of monsters that aren't as cut-and-dried as hunters might like, and more 'visions' from Sam wherein Sam is Lucifer again, and Dean still has the Mark of Cain. YUM.
But there were also a couple some not-so-fun things. The girls glamping in the beginning was just plain silly, the fight scenes had too many jump cuts (imho), but mostly, why on earth would they leave the God gun in the glove compartment of the Impala?? I noted that back when Dean put it in there, Episode 2 I think it was, but I seriously doubt they wouldn't have locked it up safely after that. Please, foo. Don't make our characters stupid.
By episode's end, Dean is clearly frustrated and demoralized by their predicament. It's clear Sam and Dean will be taking turns buoying each other's flagging spirits this season. As co-dependent as ever. I am here for this.
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This post has gone on long enough, so I think I'll hold Episode 6 ruminations for a separate entry, and maybe dish about where we think the series is heading, for a finale. Anyone reading this probably has a numb butt by now. Anywho, thanks for hanging in with me, gang! Talk at you later...