I’m all caught up!

[rusty_halo]

After I watched up to 5x21 last night, I went back and watched the premiere. (I hadn't rewatched it before, since I remembered seeing it at Comic Con in 2005.) I can see why I disliked it so much. Mary and Jess both get fridged to inspire Dean and Sam's quest. And then on top of it, the MOTW is the most stupidly offensive collection of gender stereotypes ever, the mother so upset that her husband cheated on her that she drowned her children and now goes around getting revenge on unfaithful men. In every case, women are representations of ideas rather than characters (family, normalcy--gone bad in the ghost's case) and exist solely in relation to men, while the men get to be real, complex characters.

The pilot is a bit better in retrospect, because they later put much more focus on Mary. Usually these stories are all about the dad; this show was like that too in the early seasons, but tried to make up for it by going back several times and fleshing out Mary as a character. I appreciate it.

On a shallow level, man, the boys are such generic CW pretty boys in the pilot. No wonder I hated them. Even Dean's adorableness doesn't really come across. I like them so much better now that they've grown up more, that their story is now about men, not about boys.

So, to anyone out there who dismissed Supernatural on the basis of its terrible premiere, I agree with you that the premiere sucked, but I still think that the show is absolutely worth watching. This was one of the most absorbing, entertaining, and fun viewing experiences I've ever had; the show ended up being so much better than I thought it would. What follows is some thoughts on the overall series, and on late season five specifically.

I really like the way the show handles its arcs. They're all about the characters' emotional states and they don't get easily resolved. We get occasional moments of epiphany (Dean in the dream finally recognizing how much his dad fucked him up, Sam in the past finally forgiving his dad for fucking him up) but for the most part their issues evolve with them as characters and emerge in relation to whatever's going on with them plot-wise at the moment, but don't have easy answers and can't just be "fixed" by being recognized. I like how much continuity the show has, that they spend the first half of the season dealing with the fallout of whatever happened at the end of the previous season, instead of just pretending that new season = reboot.

I like the way they've expanded the mythology. It's obviously pulled out of their asses, but they've done well with it. It makes sense that they'd want to ramp up the stakes with each season, so we've gone from "some demon has devious plans for Sam" to "Sam and Dean are the vessels for Lucifer and Michael to fight it out during the apocalypse." It's silly, yeah, but it basically works in that it provides plenty of opportunity for drama and character exploration, which they're still doing well.

I was nervous when they started in with the Christian religious stuff--I am as atheist as you can get, so I had my guard up. But I needn't have worried--god is MIA and angels are dicks and it's good that Castiel rebelled and that Dean doesn't want to cave in to "destiny."

I... don't even know what to say about the "pagan gods" thing. It's good that they acknowledged that Christianity isn't the only game in town; it's bad that they were so patronizing about it. Kali needs Gabriel to save her, seriously?

I haven't read any of the Neil Gaiman that they're cribbing from, so it doesn't bother me that it's derivative.

Every time I watch something about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I have this niggling thought in the back of my mind that goes "Yeah, but these aren't the real horsemen, because the real horsemen are Methos, Kronos, Caspian, and Silas." And then I'm always a little surprised when I remember that Highlander isn't real either.

So back to the free will thing--now I'm really curious what they're going to do in the finale. Whatever happens, I don't think they're going to reverse on the basic premise that free will is good to strive for. I like how much it's not black-and-white, though, that you can see why Dean would be tempted to cave. (Though I'm extra-annoyed at the deaths of Jo and Ellen because it's more clear in retrospect that they were fridged to precipitate Dean's breakdown.) I absolutely love that Dean had fallen apart, was all ready to give up, and the thing that stopped him was the look of disappointment on Sam's face. Like, seriously, the thing that kept Dean fighting against all the forces of fate was that he didn't want to disappoint his little brother. This show is so adorable. I really like how it handles the relationship between Sam and Dean, that they're each others' greatest weakness but also each others' greatest strength. It's good to see the strength part acknowledged too, lest the "psychotic, irrational, erotic codependency" become too much to bear.

I take back my complaint about Dean being too emo in season four--they were doing that on purpose, as part of his plot and to explain why Sam was so frustrated with him. I actually don't think they're overdoing the emo with him--I mean, he's a mess, anyone in his position would be, there's not really a cure for it. It makes sense that he'd have ups and downs, the way people do.

I definitely feel like I have a better read on Dean than on Sam. Dean I get--his father put way too much responsibility on him from a young age and no matter how much Dean recognizes that his dad was wrong to do that to him, it's still drilled into the core of his personality that he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders, that he's responsible for keeping his family together, for protecting his little brother, and for saving all the people who need to be saved. And because he couldn't/can't do all those things, he's got epic guilt to go with the epic responsibility. He drinks/eats/fucks too much, and he feels empty inside, and he doesn't have hope for the future, but he still believes in doing everything he can, in going down fighting. And there is a part of him that wants to rebel, that would rather not have the responsibility for saving the world, that was happy when he didn't have to worry about Sam, that dreams of having his own family, but he always sublimates it, and he doesn't whine about it, which I have to say is pretty awesome after all the damn whiny just-wanna-be-normal heroes we have to put up with. 'Cause there's also a part of him that's happy with his life, that thinks it's pretty awesome to have adventure and excitement and purpose.

Sam... I don't know. It's interesting how the first season was structured with Sam as the viewpoint character, but later on it became more equal or maybe even more Dean-focused. I don't entirely get why Sam dropped his desire for a normal life, except that after his father's death he felt guilty for letting his father down. (Wow is that a terrible motivation for a life choice, though.) I suppose it's also that he was enjoying being with Dean, and particularly after their father's death he couldn't abandon Dean. But I still don't get why Sam, intrinsically, as a character, wants to be a hunter. It was revenge for his family, but after they killed the yellow-eyed demon, then why? Because there was no going back after how involved he was? I guess also part of it is fear of getting close to anyone because he's afraid he'd just get them killed (not unjustified). And part of it is that hunting is an outlet for his rage. And, y'know, once you've got Lucifer hunting you down and trying to take over your body, I guess retirement isn't much of an option.

Sam, morally, I don't get. It's weird how Sam and Dean kind of switched ethical positions--originally it was Sam who helped humanize Dean. These days it certainly seems like Dean is the one with the stronger ethical compass--Dean is the one who is always thinking about how to save everyone, whereas Sam is more willing to cut corners. I wonder how much of Sam's conscience even comes internally from Sam versus how much he is just following Dean's lead. I don't know, Sam isn't really my focus, though, so I'll leave the philosophizing about him to the people who care.

I really like Castiel. First of all, an angel who defies heaven because he has a crush on Dean Winchester? That is just epic. And second, he is adorable. He's one of those characters like Anya from BtVS or Data from Star Trek, a semi-alien creature trying to figure out the mysteries of human emotion and human interaction. Castiel drunk, Castiel hungover, Castiel not knowing how to record a greeting for his voicemail? That stuff kills me.

I get why people would be annoyed, though--he takes up screentime with Character Moments About Him in a way that was previously limited to Sam and Dean. And I'm sure people were all excited wondering how Sam was going to get Dean out of hell and were disappointed when Castiel did instead. It sometimes feels like they're forcing him on us--I find myself scanning the credits for his actor's name, 2/3 hoping he'll be listed and 1/3 hoping he won't.

soundingsea, I'm almost afraid to ask, but why don't you like him?

I still can't quite believe how meta the show has gotten. If it were any more self-aware, it would achieve consciousness, a la Skynet. I like this a lot--the show was previously following the pattern of other shows, doing X-Files/Ghostbusters/Scooby Doo in ways that were blatantly generic and predictable. The extreme self-awareness is not something I've seen on this level in genre TV before, so it gives them more of a chance to innovate, experiment, and play. They're clearly having a lot of fun with it, and I find it a lot more entertaining than the predictable X-Files plots that were filling up the MoTW episodes before.

So, now I'm going to go read the Transformative Works and Cultures issue about Supernatural, and then I'm going to go read the Dean/Castiel fic that cindergal recommended. And then I'm going to rewatch the series. But probably, um, slower.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.