my roommate and i have been re-watching Supernatural recently since we were both into it when we were teens and then dropped off
and my god, i didn’t realize how fucking BORING it has always been. there’s usually a max of 3 minutes of real plot per episode, and they have NO idea how to build tension -- usually you can see where they WANT to build tension, but it ends up just being long stretches of Nothing Happening. like 70% of the show is just Men Making Faces at each other. the monsters aren’t even fun or interesting in the way they’re portrayed, which is something you’d think would be important for a Monster of the Week type story.
there are a lot of little tidbits of interesting plot, but the way each plot-line has played out is somehow the LAZIEST and most boring way that they could have possibly done it. like... dean going to hell and ending up torturing people, and having really bad guilt and ptsd over it? really interesting! but instead of giving him actual ptsd symptoms, or like having his personality change at ALL, giving him more guilt about what they’re hunting etc --- they just give him nightmares and have him say he feels bad a few times and That’s It. it’s so boring!!!! this life-changing event didn’t actually change him as a character at all!!!
also, oh my god it’s almost funny how much the spn writers just HATE minorities. every time someone shows up and they’re not a het white man, my roommate and i place bets on how quickly they’re going to be murdered. there was one set of finale episodes that had two white women (one of whom was gay) and a black man, and we were like “okay is it going to be the lesbian or the black man first.” it’s atrocious.
also it’s really funny because the brothers are like “we can’t let anyone find out that there’s supernatural stuff!!!” but then they choose One Single Sexy Woman EVERY episode to tell all about the supernatural stuff. also all of the women look exactly the same with the exact same body type and same “vaguely 18-24″ look, including when they want to make jokes about Dean hitting on literal children. good show guys!!!!!!
i will say though, the ONE thing that has stayed consistent across the years for me is how much i like Cas. he’s absolutely the best part of the show. yes he is just another man making faces into the camera, but at least i care about the faces and the feelings they portray!!!!! he’s complicated in a way that Feels like it has more depth than most of the other characters. plus he makes an EXCELLENT foil for Dean, thereby making Dean immediately more interesting.
also, i am going to fucking say it: they have chemistry from s4 ep1. foils are an excellent way to create tension and chemistry already, and the ways that they open up to each other about their Doubts And Issues SO quickly compared to the other people they’re close to... it’s good. if the writers weren’t cowards they would have just kept ramping up the tension until they finally got married in season 7 or whatever.
it’s genuinely disappointing how bad the writing / editing / directing is, because the bones are there! the interesting elements are THERE! they just don’t DO anything with them because they’re so focused on making a weird realized manly man fantasy world.
