#spn 5.09

[heller-meta-of-the-day]

January 19th

The Real Ghostbusters (5.09)

Hellers have got to be the most obtuse people on the face of the Earth.

No really, how do they completely NOT see that this is about Dean finding out that the pair of guys cos-playing as him and Sam ARE IN A RELATIONSHIP.

And I want to know what drugs this heller is taking to think that Kripke alluded to Dean having sex with men "in past episodes".

[spngeorg]

Episode 91: 5.09 The Real Ghostbusters

Chuck makes problems for everyone. But that’s pretty much the meta overview of the entire series, isn’t it? In this episode, he specifically gets to be a petty lil guy, though, which gave me an awful lot of real estate to roll around on.

I think I started this episode by hoping it would come in shorter than last week, and... uh... sorry about that? I was really on track to succeed at that! And then I had to keep adding in meta tangents. Once again, though, at least it’s a fun episode to spend time with.

Let’s get right to the links!

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

He seems helpful and dreamy… Lizbob’s thoughts on in-narrative book!fandom vs our tv show fandom

The Winchester Gospels tag on my blog for all your book fandom needs

Gore Orphanage Wikipedia page for Kripke’s inspiration behind the case

Production draft script with notes by James L Conway

Technical package (9 pages of set diagrams)

Casting call for Demian and Barnes

The CW promo for this episode

Listen now on AnchorFM, or wherever you enjoy podcasts!

[ghost-roads]

the supernatural convention in 5x09 is so unrealistic lmao it's all men?? if supernatural were a book series obviously its main audience would be teenage girls. goes to show how little the writers actually understood about their own audience

[foxthefanboi]

I'm right here sweetheart, I've got your back. Trust me, this is going to work.

[mittensmorgul]

I just rewatched 7.08, and while think I ran through this bit of the loop once already since 15.04 aired, I didn’t make any comments on it (must’ve been a busy day for me or something...). Anyway, the last time I posted rewatch notes for this episode was way back in July 2019:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/186196686115/708-season-seven-time-for-a-wedding-sams

(actually, trying to do TNT loop math in my head, I think I may have watched 7.08 shortly BEFORE 15.04 aired, which is probably why I don’t yet have better rewatch notes yet... but please do go read what I wrote in July, because heck, 15.04 just reinforces ALL of it)

(no, really, please go read that post before continuing on this one... it’s not very long, but incredibly relevant to the transformation in Becky we see in 15.04, AS WELL AS DEEPLY RELEVANT TO THE DECEPTION SAM IS ABOUT TO BE LED THROUGH BY CHUCK OVER THE NEXT SEVEN EPISODES)

And remember, while you’re reading all of this, that the person who wrote 7.08... was Andrew Dabb...

7.08 was Becky’s Lowest Moment, but Sam... gave her the power to find her own salvation. We wouldn’t see the payoff for eight more years, but HECK WAS IT EVER SATISFYING. My only complaint here is that SAM has no idea how profoundly he was able to affect Becky’s life for the better. He and Dean remember her as “superfan99″ or whatever, the woman so obsessed she’d deceived herself into believing that Sam actually loved her back, and nearly lost her soul to a demon, and was willing to literally trade Sam’s free will over it. Sam and Dean don’t know that, after these events, she found a healthy and satisfying life, with a loving family and a thriving business, all because of this:

SAM: You roofied me! BECKY: A roofie? I'd never. We had a great time together. You were happy.

And yeah, while under the effects of a love potion, Sam hadn’t questioned anything, hadn’t worried about his own free will, in other words. Which, in context of what Lilith would ask Dean in 15.05, seems effectively along those exact same lines-- 

Ashley: It's all just so random and awful. Wouldn't it be great if everything was just planned out for you... if it was all just already decided? Dean: No, not really.

OF COURSE NOT! But back in 7.08 Becky was in that exact mindset:

BECKY: He said it wouldn't even work unless you already loved me, deep down. It just activates it. SAM: So you think I love you? BECKY: Deep, deep down? SAM: Then untie me. BECKY stuffs a handkerchief in SAM's mouth. SAM: [muffled] No. No! BECKY: You're still working through your emotions.

and then, after Guy tells her she’ll have to pay for the potion from now on, now that she’s “addicted” to her false relationship with Sam, it’s gonna start costing her directly to keep it:

BECKY: I know what I am, okay? I'm a loser. In school, in life. Guess that's why I like you so much. SAM: What? BECKY: I mean, not that you're a loser, but you had that whole character arc about being a freak, and... I can relate. SAM: [muffled] Oh, my God. BECKY: Honestly... The only place people understood me was the message boards. They were grumpy and overly literal, but at least we shared a common passion. And I'll take it, you know? Then I met you guys – the real Sam and Dean. And I started dating Chuck. And everything was... amazing. But you left, and Chuck dumped me. I think I intimidated him with my vibrant sexuality. I just want someone who loves me for me! Is that too much to ask? [SAM says something muffled. BECKY snatches the handkerchief out of his mouth.] BECKY: What? SAM: If you want somebody to love you for you, maybe don't drug them. BECKY: But I want you! And this is the only way! [BECKY takes the vial out of her pocket.] SAM: Becky. Becky, you're better than this. BECKY: That's sweet, but... I'm not so sure.

We didn’t see what happened to her from the time this episode ended, and the beginning of 15.04, but heck... it’s clear she took Sam’s words to heart and made real changes in her life. Because of what Sam told her, she became better than that.

And we had to wonder how much of what we knew of Becky before, how badly she’d been directly manipulated by Chuck into the story, because she was vulnerable, because she was susceptible back then, was a direct result of Chuck. Not just of him pulling a random obsessed fan into the story because he knew she’d do exactly what he wanted, because she was an easy mark BECAUSE of everything she confessed to Sam in 7.08, but literally because Chuck manipulated her into all of this.

Which Lilith basically says flat-out in 15.05.

And which Chuck will use to much subtler effect with Eileen over the next few episodes after that.

Between 15.04 and 15.05, these two specific women directly connected to Chuck through 4.18 (for Lilith), and through 5.01 and 5.09 (for Becky)-- and specifically connected to Chuck via themes of deception and manipulation, and even MORE specifically connected to Sam through manipulative romantic propositions... it makes me wonder how ANYONE could watch 15.06 and think everything was clearly exactly what it looked like on the surface, and not even bothering to question whether Chuck had his grubby mitts all over that entire situation from the start.

This... is Dabb’s story. This is how he’s unmasked Chuck’s manipulative treachery.

And if you think the kiss between Sam and Eileen in 15.09 “makes them clearly romantic” or think “they kissed, it’s canon!” Then Sam and Becky are equally “canon.” Because Chuck was equally complicit in both.

I mean, even if you DO feel that Sam and Eileen have some great romantic connection, I humbly invite you to at least understand why it makes me deeply, DEEPLY uncomfortable to see it that way.... Eileen may not have used a love potion here, but neither she nor Sam had known how much of her actions Chuck had been affecting-- love-potion style-- between 15.06 and 15.09. And until they sort out their own feelings from the story Chuck forced them into in order to drive his own tragic romance narrative, it’s impossible for me to feel any sort of squee about them as a romantic couple. Because Chuck is a shitty writer, and lies and manipulation are at the very core of his story.

And I’ll apologize, again, to everyone who is able to divorce these themes from 15.06 and watch it without the baggage of this specific sort of emotional manipulation. Hell, let’s call it what it is. It’s gaslighting, and it’s something I’m personally hypervigilant about, because that’s how this sort of trauma works. But it’s also literally the MAIN THEME OF S15 AS A WHOLE, and how each of the characters are coping with this theme and how it directly relates to their own past history. It feels irresponsible to me to handwave the reality here to insist that in this one instance it’s “cute” or “romantic,” just because the result is personally desirable. That’s... the whole freaking POINT.

And it’s set up in 7.08, by Dabb, and made blatantly clear in 15.04 and 15.05.

I guess I just like Eileen as a character too much to wish a noncon romance on her, even if it’s with Sam, and I can’t unsee it as that. (Especially with the fact that Chuck only brought her back to romance Sam so that he could kill her again to break Sam’s will. Chuck himself intended her as nothing more than a manipulative tool for the sake of manpain.) Will she be back of her own free will? Heck, if so, then I’ll question it, but I’ll accept her choice. I couldn’t do it, myself. It would be like Sam going back to Becky and trying to make it work with her. It doesn’t look any different to me below the surface. On the surface, it’s different because Sam and Eileen actually LIKED each other before, years in the past before her untimely death. But take that layer away, at there’s no difference in how I see what happened from 15.06 on, because none of it was actually real. All I, personally, can see is the manipulation. Yet one more reason I truly appreciate the tag “get fucked chuck.”

[mittensmorgul]

Suptoberart2019, Day 4: Books

I started off thinking I might skip today, because the only idea I had was “draw them doing research,” and that was both dull and intimidating. Then I thought of drawing Dean and Cas telling the Scooby Gang about the book they’re writing, “Killer Stuffed Dinosaurs In Love.” Also intimidating. (I drew Dean wrestling the killer stuffed dinosaur for last year’s suptoberart, day 14: FIGHTS, and I ruined it trying to ink the pencil sketch, so yeah... intimidating) :’D

Luckily, 5.09 aired on today’s TNT Loop, and I was Meta Inspired! So meta. Plus I figured HEY I CAN DRAW THE VAGUE NOTION OF “CURTAINS!” :’D

So I thought I’d just draw the subtext. Empty stage, Supernatural convention, and a couple of the panel titles from Chuck’s first public appearance as the author of the Supernatural books in canon. Mind-bending in light of 14.20, yes?

“Frightened Little Boy: The Secret Life of Dean”

“The Homoerotic Subtext of Supernatural”

Chuck made sure Dean heard these, way back in s5.

[mittensmorgul]

5.09, The Real Ghostbusters (except... there's a heck of a lot of Role Playing involved, still...)

After 5.08, it's nice to finally do away with one level of the mirrors, with Chuck actually playing his own role directly. Except it's all only to further his narrative vision, in the end.

This time, the players in the game include a ridiculous number of pantomime monsters, and a gaggle of Sam and Dean Impersonators, who "play their roles" with varying degrees of success. Demian and Barnes are objectively the most successful, but even then they can't make that final leap of understanding to see what's really going on. Even by the end, even after sumbling over the "real" ghost hunt there (in a direct parallel to the pantomime play Zacchariah forced Sam and Dean into in 4.17), and having the REAL Sam and Dean walk them through the hunt, they still don't get that Supernatural isn't a story by Carver Edlund, but a real accounting of the lives of this very real Sam and Dean Winchester... To them, even knowing hunting and ghosts are real, Sam and Dean are just... fictional characters.

Which also nods to episodes in the future like 14.16, and the notion that if people knew about the supernatural being real, they'd be able to fight it directly on their own. Even presented with direct evidence, and lived experience of it, and Dean literally TELLING THEM TO THEIR FACES that he is the real Dean from the books, they think he's pulling their leg...

But I digress, as per usual. :P

This whole thing is set up by Becky. And this whole runaround of this very real case that she unwittingly planted Sam and Dean in the middle of served to give them ONE bit of misleading, manipulative information:

BECKY: (Running after him) Sam! Wait, one more thing. In chapter 33 of Supernatural Time is on my Side, there's that girl Bela? She was British, and a cat burglar. SAM: Yeah I know. BECKY: She stole the Colt from you and then she said she gave it to Lilith, remember? SAM: Yeah. BECKY: Well you know she lied right, she didn't really give it to Lilith. SAM: (looking at Chuck) Wait, what? BECKY: (Excited) Didn't you read the book? There was this one scene where Bela gives the Colt to a demon named Crowley. Lilith's right hand man. And I think her lover too. SAM: Crowley. (To Chuck) Didn't it occur to you to tell us this before? CHUCK: I'm sorry. I didn't remember. I'm not as much of a fan as she is. SAM: Becky, tell me everything.

Which makes me wonder just how much of this entire thing was actually Becky's idea, you know? Why would she feel compelled to deliver them this EXACT bit of information, about a situation that ostensibly hadn't been relevant in TWO YEARS? Why, unless she was aware of their current Apocalyptic Situation, did she feel that this was an important bit of information that Sam and Dean needed to hear at this specific time?

It feels uncomfortably like the same sort of ruse Chuck set up in 14.20 with the other Magical Gun he presented as a solution to their problems, but which was actually a manipulation into tragedy (luckily thwarted by Dean's eventual refusal to use the gun for Chuck's purposes).

Becky doesn't even seem to think it's strange to bring this up, of everything she may have chosen to tell them about the books, you know? She leads them directly to the Colt, setting up the tragedy that plays out in the very next episode.

Which is odd, you know? Makes one wonder just how much of the Supernatural books Sam and Dean both have actually read. I mean, I can understand why they'd shy away from the horror of Time Is On My Side, since it was such a horrific loss and maybe revisiting that period of horrific memories is something they'd rather avoid. But Chuck did give them that clue, and maybe he was just getting frustrated by the fact that they hadn't found it yet, and used Becky to deliver that message.

Even though WE know the gun was useless against Lucifer anyway, you know? And LUCIFER HIMSELF was aware of that fact, so obviously Chuck would've been, as well... and yet... he let them play out that Tragic Sacrifice anyway. All part of the script... while he happily continues to LARP as the wibbly prophet, taking it out once level further into the realm of make-believe in this episode, "revealing himself" to his readers as Carver Edlund, the author of fictional series Supernatural.

spirals within spirals...

[mittensmorgul]

So Kelly’s struggling to build an Ikea crib in an episode with a lot of parallels to s6 and all I can think about is this post:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142110045135/venusdebotticelli-thetardiswantscasinit

and I’m having some sort of mental meta implosion as a result...

Cas says he’s good at following instructions, but Kelly’s missing the wrench she needs to make it all fit together.

APPARENTLY, AS SHE PRAYS TO GOD/SVEN, WHO INSISTS THE WRENCH WAS INCLUDED IN THE KIT, KELLY REPEATEDLY TELLS HIM THAT NO, THAT WRENCH IS DEFINITELY NOT IN THIS PARTICULAR KIT. IT’S MISSING.

And God (or in this case, Sven, who I can’t help thinking of as the anonymous Scandinavian investor who got the rest of the Supernatural books published for some bizarre reason) told us just last season about something that was included in the standard humanity kit-- free will, it’s a small thing but it’s what allows humanity to put EVERYTHING together-- that is DEFINITELY missing in Kelly’s kit right now...

I’m sorry, but I have a feeling I’m gonna be like this for months.