#spnwin 1.02

[deancasforcutie]

saying it back in their eyes, musical signatures, and context of what's unsaid

[mittensmorgul]

love that millie’s rule was telling henry “i love you” after they have a disagreement, or anything

and that’s her big regret, not getting to tell Henry “i love you” before he disappeared

everyone, please shriek loudly with me

[disasterbijedi]

Dean Winchester: “I’ll keep picking the music.”

The music:

Hair, Cabaret, Little Shop of Horrors?  These are all Broadway musicals.  

Flashback to season 10.  Dean teases Sam for being a theater kid, for liking Oklahoma! and Andrew Lloyd Webber, bopping his head along to the tunes only when he thought no one was watching.  But now?  Broadway songs and references are peppered throughout the story unabashedly, without a hint of sarcasm behind which Dean can hide for cover.  

In an episode about breaking from what your parents wanted and finding your own path, Dean picks his own kind of music.  He chooses camp and pizzaz and sunshine.  He chooses an art form where even the coolest dude must open up his heart to the audience.  This is me, too, he says.  This is me. 

[dotthings]

Heart stolen, and I'm not sorry. EPISODE TWO OF THE WINCHESTERS IS SO GOOD.

-an entire episode about defining yourself on your own terms instead of who your parents need you to be, and that applies whether it's a nurturing loving parent where there are disagreements, or an abusive parent (or parent figure). Necessary process. And something our narrator, Dean, knows first hand. It's quietly shattering to see young John go through this, and trying to assert his own path, and he has understanding and warmth and support from Millie even though they disagree, while knowing what's ahead for John and what he'll do to his sons, especially Dean, who had to fight so hard to forge his own identity and endure John's endless criticism, neglect, abuse, being pressured into becoming his father's blunt instrument. I knew this series would add extra layers of heartbreak (not in a bad way). It's just a heavy irony and truly tragic. Meanwhile Mary looking for her absent hunter father, who doesn't listen to her, who runs the hunter family as a dictatorship, and she's trying to find her own path, so she's going through Dean's story too. John and Mary both have similarities with Sam as well--Sam who rebelled openly, early on, the way John is, the way Mary is. But they are both like Dean as well. And John right now may be defining himself on his own terms, in a positive way, but he's not going to be able to be the parent this era of John would want to be.

-the friendships of the core 4 are a delight to watch. Carlos and Mary's friendship and how they call each other out and can speak bluntly to each other, but out of caring, in a way that familiarity and closeness can support. Carlos and Lata is a lot softer, but supportive and they too tease and tweak at each other's ways and foibles, and help keep each other centered. Mary and Lata's respect and love for each other, but coming at hunting with very different skillsets and with very different personalities. John adding a wild card as the new guy and he is closest to Mary right now, but his interactions with Lata and with Carlos have both been an interesting dynamic so far and we'll get to see all those friendships grow.

-"You disappear for a week and come back covered in blood" "It's not my blood" sksksksksjsdkf poor Millie. Like that makes it ok.

-getting to finally get some insight into John's time as a marine. In ep 1 we find out he has PTSD, in ep 2 it addresses his skill as a tracker and how he feels he's failing to live up to his training. John is carrying a little bit of this theme of veterans who return from war and find it hard to readjust to life at home, feeling out of step. John clearly felt some confidence in his skills as a US soldier, but is feeling in over his head learning to be a hunting soldier. Yet he plunges in head first. He's like Mary in his boldness and strength, but wilder than Mary, which is meant to be concerning. There is something heedless about John, of his own safety and maybe even of others, his head goes so deeply into the moment of battling a monster. While Mary is more cerebral about it, methodical. She's ruthless and cool-headed.

-Millie and Ada continue to ground this. (The whole cast is wonderful, Bianca and Demetria continue to bring a strength and gravitas to add weight). With both of these women, their warmth, wisdom, and imperfections and vulnerabilities. Millie's love for her son. Her heartbreak about losing her husband, and her fears about the path John is going down. I loved the moment with the jasmine. Millie having no idea what is growing on the side of her garage, and Ada telling her it's jasmine, it's there for protection, and the look on Millie's face. That Ada asked to take some of the jasmine for her special tea to do the automatic writing. Using some of the legacy Henry left behind to watch over his family, to help his son and his friends save the world from monsters and Mary find her own father. Ada's acting as something of a mentor already for the core 4. She does things her own unique way and has experiences they don't, and is going to use that to help guide them.

-I'm guessing those creepy big bug thingies (one of them attacked Samuel in the pilot) are the Akrida. But who is the cloaked figure leading them?

-I liked the MOTW. Following in the spn tradition of monsters that reflect on the emotional themes, even embody them.

-really really liking the look of the series overall, the style it's filmed in. It's in some dynamic directing choices and how performances are filmed, as well as the spookiness, like all those zombies. This is loaded up with monsters, fully on screen, and while I understand the reasons to hide monsters on screen, to show only a shadow, and how that builds suspense, there's also a lot to be said for going unashamedly full monsters and in large numbers, and a lot. And it's the visual aesthetic, the Americana, and even the lenses to create the feel of a period piece. The vintage lenses and mimicking how tv and film looked in the 70's. All that is helping to build the world of The Winchesters. It feels very much like a Supernatural show, feels like it's in the same world, yet has its own aesthetic notes and style and style of storytelling too.

[ldrmas]

John spits like Dean spits heheh

[cassinidean]

I’m not saying it was Rowena. I’m just saying if it was Rowena, that’s objectively a ridiculous song choice to play over her first appearance.

[deancasforcutie]

The Winchesters + Time Periods

Or why I can't begin to describe the stroke of genius it was to follow up 15 years of vicarious nostalgia for an era one was never part of with a series set in that era, laying bare the illusions our original unreliable narrators learned to recognize as such with us in real time

The vision of the 1970s, more earnest than the whitewashed myths younger generations had to deconstruct for ourselves, representing that shining moment where queer liberation started speaking its name. The funhouse mirror of the white picket Fifties, once again set in stark contrast to a countercultural merry band led by our holy goof unstuck in time. The quite literal representation of how generational trauma unravels linear timelines, as the parentified wayward son passes his inheritance back down to break the circle in a spiral wheel inside a wheel never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel-

I just think it's groovy

[mittensmorgul]

lol a whole-ass musical monstage... dean’s still picking the music

and he picks Age of Aquarius :’D