#but I had a really good run of the fight so it's fiiiiine lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dotthings · 5 years

Text

Okay SPN 15.04, here we go, where I feel weirdly self-conscious about posting a meta post about an ep that had so much meta on itself and now I’m going to write meta about it, so it’s meta on meta on meta, while I’m having my feelings.

THAT COLD OPEN HOLY CRAP DIRECTOR JENSEN. As a director Jensen always pulls out warm performances from actors and he’s a really kinetic director too. That opening fight sequence I held my breath for a lot of it.

BENNY OH NOES IT’S BENNY (this must be the character Jensen said was one of his favorites and the actor came back to set for one day to do it). “I’ll see you on the other side, brother.” Thanks so MUCH, spn, I thought I was over this and then you come in and reopen that and now I’ve got feelings gdi. Benny was a good friend to Dean. My heart hurts.

Ohshitohshitohshitohshit demon blood Sam. Noooooo. And he kills Dean. I can never erase these images from my mind, thanks a LOT spn.

Just a nightmare of Sam’s except no probably not given Sam’s god-wound, so wow this maybe happens on one of Chuck’s other worlds, that’s fine, oh that’s okay I’m fiiiiine, it’s fine. *covers face*

So we have a flip on early S14 here where Dean was turtling to cope with his trauma which is a healthy thing to do but hiding from the world wasn’t going to fix anything so Sam coaxes him out with a hunt. Dean coaxes Sam out with a hunt only I don’t think hunting works for Sam the same way, it’s not Sam’s mental comfort food the way it is for Dean, but still I appreciate the mirroring there.

Sam’s struggling with Rowena’s death and I think those horrific AU nightmare visions aren’t helping much either, but it’s clear he’s feeling the loss. Her loss, all the recent losses.

Dean trolls Sam with real bacon, which seems like Dean is maybe trying to cheer Sam up by pranking him and trying to cheer himself up via food pranks. Dean has quite the case of the munchies in this ep.

I noticed almost every scene Dean is snacking or drinking from his flask. How’s that whole “Cas walked out and left apparently for good” working out for you Dean, wow, you’re suspiciously chipper while stuffing your face and drinking and Not Talking About It. Did Sam and Dean talk about where’s Cas? Who knows, the ep didn’t mention it, hey SPN you needed a Cas mention, OH WAIT THE EP IS GOING TO CALL ME OUT FOR SAYING THAT.

Seriously though, this is very Dean MO, and I have thoughts about his mood in this ep and how Cas’s absence was felt, and what it means, I’ll get to that later, but even before the last scene Impala talk, I was thinking Cas is a reminder of pain--and no it’s not all about Dean’s anger at Cas, it’s not because Dean is angry at Cas. Cas is a reminder of some things Dean just isn’t coping with very well and part of the problem is Dean cares so much.

So Dean’s snacking and drinking and Sam is feeling the weight of them knowing all the scary things out there while people go on obliviously with their lives and I’m not sure if Sam is envying them or Sam is feeling some existential angst about the state of the world, how people can go about their lives unaware there are real monsters ready to pounce and tear their lives to shreds. And feeling the weight of the job they do in every bone of his body. Sam’s in a dark headspace.

Ok I admit I was not thrilled to see Becky again given her previous episodes and role. SPN’s later in-canon fan characters were much more nuanced and successful and respectful depictions of fans. But as with many other things, this era of SPN is revisiting some things to move them forward in a different way than before, and subvert some things that needed subverting and Becky has had--wait for it--character development. How about that.

Yes, Becky, run, you do not want anything to do with Chuck. Run, Becky run. I’m rooting for her now. RUNNNN.

Along with finding a more constructive way of channeling her interest in the Winchesters’ lives, and having a satisfying fandom creative life and a full life of her own, Becky has funko pops of Sam, Dean, and Cas. LOL. I see you spn.

Dean, still with the case of the munchies. So this is like the eating a whole pint of ice-cream after a break-up, only Dean does it with junk food while hunting vampires.

I enjoyed this conversation between Becky and Chuck about writing immensely. Becky is actually right. Speaking myself as someone who’s suffered from writers block for a while, it’s miserable, and not writing just perpetuates the cycle. You feel cut off from an important part of yourself. And--oh here we go getting meta within meta--I find writing meta on SPN a positive outlet.

“Writing is writing.” Damn Becky’s takedown of Chuck’s derisiveness about fanfic was sizzling and oh excuse me Chuck, what is it you think you were doing with those Supernatural books about your favorite story. Even though he’s the creator, I know. But still. Also seems to be a sly comment on how male-authored “fanfic” based on someone else’s characters or historical characters gets to be professionally published novels and nobody wants to admit it’s fanfic but it is, but women write fanfic and women write novels based on someone else’s characters or historical figures and it gets derided.

Did not expect commentary celebrating the creativity and validity of fanwork of women in particular an episode of SPN, especially not with Becky of all people, but here we are.

Uhhhh is Chuck writing this episode, as it happens? I am seriously uneasy now. What is going on. What is real. Which is what I think Dean is going through because of Chuck and OUCH the Winchesters think they’re free but they’re not but also they are their own people and Chuck isn’t controlling them but it’s like he’s still making the framework?? Or would this case just be happening on his own and Perez is just messing with our heads in this script right now.

Oh damn because this ep wasn’t sadness enough now here we go with the Jack parallels. “I can’t control this.” “I’m a monster.” “I killed someone I love.” Parents doing anything to save their out of control teenage kid or does he need to be killed, so the parents are Cas, while Sam and Dean are Dean.

Interesting that Dean lowered the gun and didn’t kill Jack, but tells Sam they would do that for Jack if it was necessary. You didn’t, though, Dean. You couldn’t go through with it any more than those distressed parents of the vampire teen.

Becky is voicing various non-dire fan complaints here, every lane of the fandom is being gently called out right now. Hahaha including lack of Cas mentions in an ep that pointedly is not!Mentioning Cas because it’s not a mistake there’s actually reasons for that which is just lampshading how much Dean is pointedly Not Going to Talk About Cas.

“Where they sit around doing laundry and talk” -- again every lane of the fandom should feel very called out right now. Seriously, fandom lanes that hate each other’s guts all have that common factor of craving more domesticity, and would like to see the laundry ep of SPN and for many, it has better include Cas, or we’re working through our need for this via fanfics or fanart. Even Jared and Jensen have expressed interest in a “Winchesters do the laundry” kind of episode.

But here’s the thing--here’s the thing about SPN...it depicts domesticity. In small bits of pieces. Even in this ep there’s domesticity. SO HA. It’s not that SPN is against depictions of domesticity, it’s definitely in the toolset of its storytelling, to give the characters more layers, to make their lives seem more real, but there needs to be mostly an action plot because that’s the genre so they mostly kill monsters and we only get nibbles of domesticity.

Becky and Chuck arguing about Chuck’s incredibly dark story ending, after Becky criticized him for the story not having enough bite, was so interesting. While the episode’s dark story ending was actually quite well done IMO and not overdone and yes it’s bleak but it’s supposed to be. So it’s not that sad is always terrible writing, no. It isn’t. But its overuse has been a raging hot topic in spn fandom for years and SPN is a hopeful narrative as well as a bleak one. Overuse of loss of hope and misery can hurt the story, causes a number of fans to become desensitized and lose their emotional engagement for it (which has happened to be at a couple of points in SPN’s long run). So that conversation interested me a great deal, yes it did.

So.....SPN had its current biggest of the biggest of ultimate big bads, the ultimate power God himself, the author, and made him the enthusiast for overuse of the misery pr0n like that’s the only smart way to tell a story. The season’s big bad villain is a misery porn enthusiast.

I’m just gonna....sit here and absorb that for a moment.

Oh and this while all the PR for the show keeps warning us about how sad this story is and how bleak the ending will be, not a happy ending show. Are they warning us? Are they trolling us and misdirecting? Because they made their villain a misery pr0n fanboy and this intelligent, self-aware positive depiction of Becky the fan taking him to task for it.

I feel like could be headed for every story needs its darkness and its light, you need the darkness to appreciate the light, and you need some light or the story is less meaningful. We’ll see.

“I’m a writer,” says Chuck and then takes away everyone Becky loves and then unmakes Becky. This is a purposeful depiction of a writer creator as a sadist. It’s a diabolical reversal on the Stephen King’s Misery scenario. Becky played the deranged fangirl in the past, who kidnaps an object of obsession, now she’s the victim of the deranged sadistic writer who breaks into her home, destroys her life, and then effectively kills her because of his own obsession with making Sam and Dean wretchedly miserable because he thinks that’s the only way to make the story exciting.

*blinks*

In the last scene, oh thanks Sam, for vocalizing the Jack connection.

Hey Dean, that’s really a nice speech and yes Sam did give you a great pep talk but Sam wasn’t the only one who told you what you did still has meaning. This is like 15.01 where Dean is pointedly erasing Cas again despite Cas very obviously having done something Dean refuses to acknowledge. In 15.01 it was Dean leaving Cas out of his us vs the forces of evil speech to Sam, despite Cas having spent most of the ep shooting ghosts in the face and saving Sam’s life twice. Sam and Cas both have given Dean pep talks about the meaning of what they do but only Sam pulled Dean out of it...uhhh yeah that’s not writer error or canon ignoring Cas. That’s Dean trying to push Cas out of his mind. Something there hurts so much Dean isn’t dealing with it right now.

As I said, as I’ve been saying, it’s not so much that Dean is that angry at Cas. It’s not just about Mary. Or about Cas keeping things from him. Although those are all valid reasons for Dean’s hurt and anger. Dean seems to be afraid or hurt over more than that. And his love for Cas, IMO, is part of why this is weighing so heavily. What does he fear. I think it’s connected to the whole existential crisis about Chuck. What if none of this is real. I’ve talked about that in other posts, if none of this is real, if Dean still doubts, then what if what’s between him and Cas isn’t real, what if Cas doesn’t really care about him because none of it real.

Dean valiantly puts a brave face on things here, they keep going, they keep fighting for the sake of those they lost, no matter what, “keep putting one foot in front of the other.” Which makes sense. That’s how you honor those you’ve lost. It’s just that I don’t think Dean has really reached that. He is Not Dealing with an awful lot of stuff here. And we have seen again and again how hard Dean reels from losing loved ones. So what’s going on with Dean here. This is a healthy concept, but not if Dean is just whistling past the graveyard again. This might look like character development except look at what’s been going on with Dean. How deeply losing Mary, losing Jack affected him. The impact of those losses needs to be acknowledged and dealt with in order to truly move on and move forward. It’s like Dean is voicing a healthy outlook but isn’t actually experiencing it. I think Dean is posturing because if he lets all the hurt it right now, it will devour him.

There’s also the part where Sam and Dean have in the past displayed a lack of ability to just keep on keeping on if they lose each other, so they used to sell their souls, or violate the other one’s wishes and autonomy, or let the darkness free, but we’ve also seen them let each other go, and “keep putting one foot in front of the other.” Sam and Dean have done both ways with each other. Dean didn’t exactly just keep on keeping on no problem when Cas died at the end of S12.

Sam voices the other side of things, he can’t just move on right now. He’s feeling all the losses. They’ve piled up and piled up and it’s crushing him. Sam says he "can’t breathe” at times. He brings up Jessica, a loss he suffered 14 years ago.

So Sam and Dean are airing the two aspects of loss and grief on SPN. One the one hand, you don’t just give up and quit because of loss. Honor who you’ve lost and keep on fighting. But losses are deeply felt, and it’s not all okay either. Sam and Dean don’t just shrug off these losses because they have each other. That’s not how this works. They need more than just each other and SPN is increasingly having more and more open dialogue about all of this.

S15 so far has been so much about the impact losing people they love has on Sam and Dean, and why their isolation isn’t a good thing.

And there’s Chuck, the big bad, typing away to add more misery. Because Chuck gets off on giving them loved ones and taking them away, over and over and this isn’t presented as a good thing or a satisfying thing or a desirable thing or a celebration of anything.

#Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Chuck Shurley #Becky Rosen #spn #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #meta #Sam and Dean: a work in progress #Destiel #Team Free Will #Jack Kline #Castiel

181 notes · View notes