SPN’s closeness to Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet sequences in seasonal form is kind of awesome.
I’ve mentioned before that SPN basically acts like an extremely long movie and this is what I meant. Part of film theory is applying a certain lens to a work to view it from that perspective. It’s kind of amazing how well Supernatural adheres to Blake Snyder’s structural beat sheet if you view it through that lens. It’s almost hilarious at times. More under the cut
First off, I know Blake isn’t the first person to talk about the Thesis, Anti-Thesis, Synthesis structure but he is the first one I had seen apply it directly in a screenwriting textbook with this much detail. *waves at Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus*
Secondly, because SPN is a TV show, the start of the sequences below will actually be the last episode of its previous season. The applied season is an exploration of the concept given by the sequence. Thirdly, I combined Dark Night of the Soul and All is Lost into one because those sequences tend to be in tandem in works anyway and happen in very close quarters. It would honestly be hard to stretch their concepts individually into 2 seasons on their own. Blake Snyder has a book called Save the Cat. It’s a nifty little textbook about screenwriting written in 2005 that has been the basis of the structure for a lot of films for many years. In it, Blake constructs a sequence Beat Sheet as a structural guide. I don’t think it was intentional as SPNs guideline(certainly not to begin with anyway) but the resemblance between the seasons and the sequences in the Beat Sheet is really interesting. 3 act structure is often a product of just general occurrence because of how our brains work so this happening on its own isn’t too far fetched. That being said, the possibility of this being on purpose (probably starting in the Carver era if remotely possible) is really fascinating and also possible. (Some of it is hilariously literal) I didn’t add all of the examples for each sequence, just a general overview.
More under the cut
Opening image/Season 1: This is the status quo, this is the original quest/This is Sam and Dean, this is the world they live in, this is the reason we’re following them. Theme Stated/Season 2: This is the question the work is posing/Can Sam and Dean exist without hunting/Are the darker aspects of us always bad? Who can we trust? Set up/Season 3: Initial quest is traded for a higher stakes one/Sam and Dean find out about Lucifer. Yellow Eyed Demon is thwarted. Catalyst/Season 4: Something happens to get the main characters involved in the higher stakes game/Cas and the angels show up. Lucifer is released from the Cage. Sam had been learning to use Demon Blood. Debate/Season 5: Protagonists are given a choice to test their character/Dean and Sam are revealed to be arch angel vessels. Debates all around. Break into Act 2/Season 6: We are leaving the thesis and entering the anti-thesis. The status quo goes haywire/Cas betrays the Winchesters and shit gets weird. Sam’s soul is missing. B Story/Season 7: We poke around in the theming for a little while and remind the audience what it is. Individual characterizations and issues are explored. Any love story that exists in the work is usually explored in this sequence/Cas dies and we explore the thought spaces and psychology of Sam and Dean. Dean’s feelings regarding Cas are explored. Bobby dies, further breaking up the status quo and whatever structures could be fell back on. We are reminded about the themes posed in season 2. Fun and Games/Season 8: Promise of the premise. Still a more personal culmination. Often where padding lives. What the show is about as a surface visual/TFW is back to working together. The premise is world affecting but the presentation is personal. Cas explores being a hunter. Sam undergoes the trials.
Midpoint/Season 9: A huge change occurs that jumbles the story and characters. The A plot is set back in motion. Stakes are raised again/The Angels fall and Dean gets the Mark of Cain. Sam has the possibility of dying permanently. Cas becomes human. Dean kills Abbadon and Sam gets possessed by an angel to save him. (false achievements. Crowley planned it and now Dean’s stuck. The Angel is Gadreel and working for Metatron. Cas becoming human and being kicked out could also be considered a false achievement depending on who you ask) Bad Guys Close in/Season 10: Things get bleaker, the big bad gets a leg up and tightens its grip/Dean becomes a demon, the Mark of Cain seems permanent. Sam goes against his better judgement to save him and use the Book of the Damned. Metatron looks like he could win. All is Lost/ Season 11: Usually involves death either literally or symbolically as a contemplative test to the characters/Death is literally killed prior and Dean contemplates suicide symbolically through his interactions with Amara. Cas is possessed by Lucifer. Chuck appears and is literally dying (False defeat. Dean is able to move past his “attraction” to Amara and focus on defeating her and saving Cas) Dark Night of the Soul/Season 11: An extension of All is Lost. A low point for the characters. A darkness before the dawn/Amara closes in and seems unbeatable. She literally blocks out the sun. Dean feels he has to sacrifice himself again and resign himself to her to stop her from destroying the world. According to the Beat Sheet, that makes Season 12 (and possibly also 13) Break Into act 3. This is the sequence where the main characters realize something that will help them live better and complete the finale. TFW gotta start resolving personal conflicts and learn to use all the lessons their journey has given them. This is Dean resolving the Chuck/Amara issue peacefully and Mary being resurrected. The aftermath of that. I say Season 13 will be this too because if they’re gonna drag out anything, it’s Break Into 3.
Note that I have a pretty bad memory but I’ve been watching a lot of the series over recently and couldn’t find much to go against this in the long run. The hardest sell was Fun and Games but Season 8 still falls into it in its own weird SPN way. It’s still the promise of the premise and TFW working together again with the stakes (starting) more personal than universal and relatively low in comparison. It’s just SPN, so it has to keep being sad as hell. Fun and Games doesn’t have to mean fun either, it usually just means character progress is made in a direction and is sometimes where weird second act padding hi-jinks happen.
The really funny/awesome bit about all this in my opinion is how SPN likes to play some of these sequences literally. Like death being killed to open All is Lost(a sequence that specifically deals with elements of death) and Amara blocking out the sun and being called The Darkness in Dark Night of the Soul.(Darkness before the dawn) Mary coming back is almost a ribbing to the audience. Break Into Act 3 is basically the reset of the Thesis with the backdrop of Act 2 as a sort of retrospective rules overhaul. So why not take the entire point of the thesis and mess with our perception of it? Season 12 is even very much a reverse of Season 6, the Break Into Act 2. Cas showing up with his sparks and mystery basically screams “This is the Catalyst. Look at it!” and all of Season 5 is a Debate. All of it. SPN also likes to subvert these structures while still having them like “Throwing out the script” as the end of the debate in Season 5 and having Cas being dead for the exploration of the Bplot in most of Season 7. It’s one of the reasons I like the show so much and also why I can find it extremely painful. This structure is what I reference for a lot of my speculations. We’ll see if they keep this up. Either way, it’s fun to look at. I wasn’t wrong about how s11 would go but eh, who knows? I am aware that this post contains opinions and they could do any number of things.