"I Believe In Supernatural"
I keep hearing that Season Three is where the series turns toward being
very mythology-heavy. As this may be my last chance to talk about
maintaining balance on a television series, let’s talk about maintaining
balance on a television series.
I’m going to begin with a very obvious statement, so bear with me: For
the most part, we watch television in our homes. We begin here, because
this is the most fundamental and essential truth that must be understood
when taking into account the myriad obstacles in place for a television
series to be successful. When we watch TV, we are in our home, our
comfort zone, our kingdom. When we invite others into our home, it is
either out of a sense of obligation or because we genuinely enjoy their
company– with the latter being far more common, in most cases. We
dictate the terms of our home, or share that duty with the person with
whom we share our home. We choose color scheme we want for our walls,
the way we want our furniture arranged, the least obnoxious place to put
the litter box. Our homes are ourselves, our happy places. Home is
where we go when we have traversed the numerous compromises that every
day in the outside world requires of us. It is where we put on our comfy
pants, our zombie slippers, and collapse onto the couch to wind down
with our old friend, the television. And what do we watch on said
television? Well, if you’ll forgive another obvious statement, we watch
what we want to watch.
Some shows seek to service this by offering up familiar storylines and
punchlines. They (looking at you, CBS) want to reassure the audience
that while the world may be going to hell outside, but that everything
will be okay if you just hang with them for a few hours every night.
Mark Harmon, who reminds you of your attractive neighbor, will take care
of everything, and The Who will soundtrack it, to remind you of a time
when you had sex just because. Other shows seek to provoke, or prompt a
discussion. The expansion (some might even say explosion) of original
programming on cable channels has led to many, many essays on how we’re
living in a Golden Age of TV. These arguments, however, tend to forget
the importance of the former group. Just as you can’t have Lars von
Trier without Steven Spielberg, you can’t have Vince Gilligan without
Chuck Lorre. And if you think I’m kidding, listen to interviews where
filmmakers talk about their influences– filmmakers are constantly
watching everything, taking cues from the unlikeliest of places.
Supernatural belongs to a cadre of shows which exist between these two groups. It’s no surprise that so many X-Files
veterans have worked on the show, both shows try to maintain a balance
between episodes that service the larger mythology of the series, and
episodes that are more “monster of the week” in nature. It is also not
surprising, given the X-Files veterans on staff, that this show would tilt towards the mythology so heavily and so early.
I was fourteen years old when The X-Files premiered on Fox. I was instantly smitten. As a little boy, I would stay up late Friday nights and watch Monsters and Tales From The Darkside and Nightmare Café (during
its brief but memorable run). I loved stories of things that go bump in
the night, and given their minimal budgets, these shows often
specialized in catering to the fear of the unknown. Also, they tended to
have beautiful women in their episodes…which mattered a great deal to
me. When The X-Files happened, it was revelatory. Here were those
same stories that I watched every Friday, only this time we followed
two smart, capable, flawed people as they investigated each case. It was
funny, it was terrifying, and most importantly– after a life of moving
and changing schools– it was consistent. It was my new best friend.
Of course, I was not the only person to feel this way. The X-Phile
movement was not an insignificant one. Because of this, most major
magazines and entertainment shows featured it regularly. It was the job
of the X-Phile to consume every bit of this, and I did my job with
aplomb. As the show went on, and its rich, dynamic mythology was
developed further, camps started to emerge in the X-Phile movement. Some
people loved the show without reservation. Others were fascinated by
the mythology, and had little patience for the “Monster of the Week”
episodes. If the opening credits didn’t include William B. Davis (the
Cigarette Smoking Man), they said they would turn it off. They said this
in magazines. They said this in newspaper. They said this on TV. As you
might imagine, in a world where ratings directly effect earnings, this
was not music to the ears of the network, the creator, etc. What do you
suppose they did? They sacrificed balance.
They were not alone. Just as every network had tried to create their own X-Files, they were now trying to create such a thing using the new mythology-heavy mold. This is how you get shows like Lost,
which was either compelling or confounding, and often times both at
once. This happens because most (I am being generous and not saying all)
networks are more concerned with satiating the masses in pursuit of the
almighty dollar, than in taking a chance on something truly
groundbreaking and original. This is not meant as an insult, but rather a
statement of fact concerning the marketplace. In fact, it is a
compliment to those who navigate these waters that they are able to do
so. I would point to another JJ Abrams pilot, that for Alias, as
one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen on television. It was
smart, thrilling, and demanding of its audience. It refused to slow down
in service of the cheap seats, and I firmly believe that had it stopped
for a single commercial break, it would have lost half its audience. I
was fortunate enough to speak with JJ Abrams once, and he said that it
was pure luck that they were able to go commercial-free that night. They
knew they had something special, and the network helped them by going
out and finding a sponsor for the entire hour-plus. He worked with the
Money People, not against them. And now…well, you may be aware of his
resume since then.
Supernatural is clearly a show with something on its mind. I
will not beg indulgence for another obvious statement, as I’m not sure
that’s an obvious statement to most people. They see two hunks, they
hear it’s about hunting ghosts, and they check right out. It’s similar
to explaining Game of Thrones to someone who thinks “There are
dragons? I’m not watching that.” You can tell them about how the show is
more preoccupied with the balance and pursuit of power. How it is
actually grounded in the interactions between people who are, for the
most part, only talking to others instead of killing them because
etiquette deems it so. But, for a large swath of the potential audience,
words like “dragons” and “evil shadow baby” will serve as an automatic
deterrent. Again, people want to watch something that they want to
watch, and certain buzzwords are just not their cup of tea.
Yet, here’s the thing: You cannot just ask people what they want to see,
because people simply do not know. Henry Ford has this great quote, “If
I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Truly great storytelling lies in the ability to tell a story that is
uniquely your own, but in a language that everyone speaks. Supernatural resonates
so greatly with people because it understands how to take a formula
with which everyone is comfortable, and use it to tell a story that is
utterly and completely its own. Dean and Sam are not Mulder and Scully,
but Kripke and Co. are more than happy to use The X-Files as a
means of explaining to people what they’re trying to do. Because they’re
smart, and they realize that audiences may immediately enjoy the
spoonful of sugar, but they will later appreciate the work that went in
to making the medicine.
Let us now appreciate that work.
Season One saw the estranged brothers Winchester joining forces to find their Dad. It was a simple mission, and from what I saw of the season, it was executed well. They found him, and the family was reunited…only to then be torn asunder in a vicious car wreck. Fans were left wondering just how severe the damage was, and how each character would be effected by it. Which, yes, is me going out of my way to avoid saying that it left the audience wondering if they had survived or not. I don’t want to say that, because frankly, WHAT SHOW KILLS ITS LEADS? There is marketing. There are contracts. There a million reasons why the faces of your show cannot be killed. This is a device often trotted out on dramatic series, and it bothers me pretty much every single time. And beyond the fact that most shows contrive this cliffhanger, only to back their way out of it, your damn show is called SUPERNATURAL. Most weeks are spent with someone who is dead, so stakes– which drama is somewhat dependent on – are rather difficult to establish.
Of course, as I’ve previously said, creating a TV series is to create a
world – and part of creating a world is creating the stakes of that
world. Yes, we see dead people all the time. But it’s largely with goal
of either helping them move on or compelling them to move on. We salt
and burn bones, why? Because stakes. We have a gun that kills that which
is already dead, why? Because stakes. So as Season Two begins, we see
that Dean is…not dead. But he’s also not up and walking around like Sam
and Dad. He’s in purgatory– which looks a lot like a coma, but is
purgatory, because we’re told that it’s purgatory. There’s a story here,
about a Reaper and whatnot, but it doesn’t really matter. The point of
“In My Time of Dying” is to execute the task of a season premiere. It
provides closure to the story of last season– Dad Is Dead, Demon Has The
Colt– while setting us up with a “where do we go from here” for this
season– We Must Avenge Dad And Retrieve The Colt– in a tight forty-two
minutes. Which it does, swimmingly.
From there, we’re thrust into Episode Two, “Everybody Loves A Clown” and
begin to glimpse the story of Season Two. Where Season One was
basically Find Dad, it would seem that Season Two is more along the
lines of Become Dad. As the sibling dynamic was established so
thoroughly in the previous season, this one shows them building a
support network– a new family, if you will. We see what life must have
been like for John as he began hunting, the way that tragedies build a
cadre of like-minded people. In this case, we revisit Ellen and Jo and
Ash in their roadhouse. I mean, yes, there’s an evil clown-thing in this
episode, but that’s pretty beside-the-point. The point, it seems to me,
is the idea that John had built himself a life that he loved, and in
one moment it was burned down by the Yellow-Eyed Demon (seriously, I
want so badly to call him That Yellow-Eyed Bastard). After that moment,
his boys were a reminder of what he so briefly had, and he built a new
life out on the road, on the hunt. This became more real to him than
anything back home, which is why the boys were largely denied anything
resembling a normal childhood. Of course, as we get older, we come to
understand our parents more and more. So it is that Sam and Dean, as
they meet Ellen and Jo and Bobby, et al, begin to understand the life
their Father lived. Season Two, it would seem, is to be a coming-of-age
tale for both Sam and Dean.
Episode Three, “Bloodlust,” furthers this theory. As the old sage Jerry
Maguire once said, “This is the world and there are five billion people
on it. When I was born, there were three.” One of the most fundamental
parts of growing up is learning empathy and perspective, that every coin
has two sides. In this episode, we meet Gordon, the hunter, who sees
the world in very black-and-white terms, much like Dean. Which, when
your life is spent fighting, makes sense. Fighting and hunting are very
simple things which leave little room for nuance. They are missions that
must be executed, nothing more. Years of evolution have not relieved us
of the impulse to assert dominance, but they have made us feel bad
about it. When one defines themselves by a single label– be it fighter,
hunter, lover, disciple– they remove the need, or even desire, for
nuance or doubt. This is the story of Lenore, the reason for doubt. She,
too, has gained perspective on her plight, and wishes to do as little
harm as possible. Dean doesn’t see this, because it conflicts with his
mission. But he loves Sam, and Sam, ever the doubter, sees her
predicament, and conveys this insight to Dean. It’s pretty much the core
of dramatic writing, to externalize the internal, and having Dean
literally tie Gordon down does that nicely.
Conversely, I had major issues with Episode Four, “Children Shouldn’t
Play With Dead Things.” This was the one about the beautiful girl whose
friend loved her and brought her back from the grave. First of all, this
story has been done eleventy billion times before, and I didn’t see
anything new in this treatment. Secondly, Dean makes a big deal out of
her being “a little too good” in both the accounts of her friends and
her journal…and then that is just dropped completely. I realize this
sets up the question of how bringing someone back from the grave might
change them a bit, a theme this season will explore much, much further.
When it is explored further, however, it this episode isn’t echoed at
all. This felt like introducing the gun in Act One and then forgetting
about it. To the show’s credit, moments of seemingly lazy writing stand
out, because of the overall high quality of the rest of the episodes.
We’re damn near 2500 words now, so I’m not going into detailed
paragraphs for every episode. Episode Five, “Simon Said,” builds the
world further by introducing more of the Psychic Kids Club – most
notably Andy, who we will discuss later. Episode Six, “No Exit,” was a
lot of fun, and it was nice to have Jo around for a little while to
shake up the brothers’ dynamic. Episode Seven, “The Usual Suspects” was
the one with Linda Blair, who puts on a clinic for why stunt-casting is
not always a good idea. Seriously, every time she spoke, it took me out
of the show. Next up is Episode Eight, “Crossroads Blues.” It should be
noted that I am a big Robert Johnson fan, so as soon as this episode
started, it had my rapt attention. The story was good, the stakes
understandable, and obviously it’s an essential episode for the story of
the season– but mostly I remember Robert Johnson music playing
throughout the episode, making me OH SO HAPPY.
Episode Nine, “Croatoan,” was fine. Frankly, the story of Roanoake
annoys me, as it’s a pat mystery that people drag out in an effort to
sound smart (because history) and deep (because abstract). There’s a
virus, Sam’s immune. That’ll be important, I’m sure. Moving on. Episode
Ten, “Hunted,” brings Gordon back for an hour before sending him to
jail. A black guy, in Indiana, with a trunk full of guns. Yeah, that’ll
go well for him. At this point, they have to be setting Gordon up as a
Massive Big Bad for some future season, because there are DEMONS who
have more fondness towards the Brothers Winchester. Though, I do think
it’d be interesting if his story played out that the fraternity of
hunters actually trumps the desire for vengeance, and Gordon ends up
sacrificing himself for them. Just a thought. Episode Eleven,
“Playthings,” is fun, and typically the type of story you see on Doctor
Who. Which reminds me, there are a few references to Doctor Who this
season, was there something going on back in 2007, between the shows?
Because, if so, AWESOME. (Yes, I’m a Whovian.) Episode Twelve,
“Nightshifter,” was a cool heist film of an episode. Obviously they’ve
established they can play with tone on the show, so it was nice to see
them playing with genre as well. Episode Thirteen, “Houses of the Holy,”
happened.
There are two things about Episode Fourteen, “Born Under a Bad Sign”,
that intrigue me. One, Evil Sam comes damn close to raping Jo. Seeing as
how the CW audience is known to be largely young and female, I’m
curious what the effect this had on them. Was this a major event back
then? Was there a bumper or anything around the episode prompting people
to call a hotline or something if they or someone they know has been
through something similar? The other thing that intrigues me is the
character of Bobby. Bobby, with his beer treated with holy water and
doorways lined with salt and demon holding circles drawn all over his
house, is that guy who comes back from Vietnam and can no longer hold
down a normal job. He spends his time at either the VFW or the VA
hospital, because he can’t even relate to people who haven’t seen the
terrible things of which this world is capable. Which is awesome! A show
about two good-looking brothers fighting demons needs precisely this
kind of character. Their Dad was, well, their DAD. He’s a mythological
being, someone they’ve romanticized heavily in their minds. Bobby is the
face of what this life actually does to you. Bobby is the best case
scenario, because he’s alive.
Great googily-moogily, I loved Episode Fifteen, “Tall Tales.” The
trickster. The “he said, he said” structure. Bobby, again. LOVE.
Here, we arrive at a couple of episodes where I will go into detail.
Episode Sixteen, “Roadkill,” presents us with an interesting idea. Sam
and Dean are our leads. They are the first two names in the credits.
They are who we follow in every episode. So I really dug seeing them
presented as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern here. But you see, this is
also where watching a lot of TV and writing about TV and keeping a
critical eye to things becomes a burden, because I knew IMMEDIATELY that
Molly, this episode’s main character, was dead. I mean, it’s a
testament to how well the writers have built the infrastructure of this
show, that I can immediately recognize what’s happening because of
context. Also, I really liked the concept of doing a short story of an
episode. This wasn’t just a self-contained episode, though, this was
essentially a short film. And because of that, because of the repeated
motifs and ideas from earlier in the series, I never connected to it. So
I don’t know, it was a well-built episode, and I have no idea whether
the execution was right or not. It probably was, and I’m just
nit-picking. So I will move on to another episode I loved: Episode
Seventeen, “Heart.” At first, I thought this was going to be a repeat of
my “Roadkill” experience. As soon as the episode started, I guessed
that she was the werewolf, and her neighbor was the one who’d turned
her. I had settled in for another hour of “Yep, that’s what you do. Pass
the M&Ms, please.” But then sex happened. The sex itself is not
what made me love the episode, but rather what came next. Sam had to
make a choice, and in an instant became the man Dean has spent a season
trying to not become. Sam loves someone, and because the good of the
many outweigh the good of the few, he has to shoot her dead. At first, I
kind of chuckled when “Silent Lucidity” started playing as Sam walked
down the hall, but then the camera stayed on Dean. And the episode
brought it all home. And I had to step away and take a break.
But only just a break, because up next was Episode Eighteen, “Hollywood Babylon.” Because THAT is how you end a day-long Supernatural marathon, with Ben Edlund being meta and awesome.
Obviously, Episode Nineteen, “Folsom Prison Blues,” plays a large part
in the story of the season, bringing back the agent from “Nightshifter”
and continuing that plotline, but I would offer that this episode better
serves as a reminder of the theme of community that this season has
been building. When it’s revealed that the guard is Deacon, an old
family friend, we are reminded that there is this whole world of hunters
and those familiar with the hunt, and they are to be found in the
darnedest of places. Had this not been established so well early on, the
Deacon reveal would have felt like a cheap deus ex machina. As it is,
however, it’s an awesome moment where the awesome Winchesters get to be
awesome again. And with us about to plunge into a three-episode stretch
that goes to some mighty dark places, it’s kind of exactly what we need
at this point in the season. Get your smiles where you can, kids,
because they’re about to go out-of-season.
Episode Twenty, “What Is And What Should Never Be.” Dean gets what he
wants. Dad is dead (because nothing is free), but Mom is alive, Sam is
in law school and still has Jess, and even he is very respectably dating
a nurse. It’s a beautiful notion, and one that puts us in Dean’s head
as well and as extensively as we have been this season. Dean wants with
all of his heart for everyone to be happy, but he cannot shake the idea
that something is wrong. On a personal note, the idea of never trusting a
good thing rings much, much closer to home than I would like. So yeah, I
get it when Dean gives up the semblance of a happy life for the reality
of his calling. Oh Dean, things are not going to go well for you.
Like, not well at all. Like, “sell your soul to a demon” not well.
Because that happens. Not in Episode Twenty-One, “All Hell Breaks Loose,
Part One”, mind you. No, first Sam has to be abducted by That
Yellow-Eyed Bastard and taken to Old Wild West Town with the rest of the
Psychic Kids Club. I know I haven’t really talked about them yet, but I
really liked the Psychic Kids Club. Bunch of kids in their early
twenties, trying to figure out what the hell is going on in their heads,
that sounds familiar. Especially Andy, of “Simon Said”, who realizes he
can control people with his mind, and tries to do no harm with it.
Sure, he satisfies some of his more base instincts, but his evil twin
used the same power to kill people, so relatively speaking I’d say Andy
was a good guy. So yeah, he dies. As does every other damn member of the
Psychic Kids Club, except for an Army dude named Jake, who ends up
killing Sam. Which brings us to Episode Twenty-Two, “All Hell Breaks
Loose, Part Two.” In this episode, well, all hell breaks loose. Dean
sells his soul and gets a year to live, in return for Sam being brought
back to life. Ellen’s roadhouse is burned to the ground, killing Ash,
the mulleted computer genius. That Yellow-Eyed Bastard now has a human
agent, and the Colt that kills everything and can apparently open a door
to Hell (Why do we even HAVE a door to Hell???) in Wyoming, because
that’s where Samuel Colt built it. Again, it’s a credit to how well
they’ve built the world of this show, that I can type all of that out,
realize how ridiculous it all sounds, and think “Yeah, but it’s flippin’
awesome onscreen!” The door opens, some demons escape Hell, and John
Winchester walks out long enough to grab the Colt and kill the
Yellow-Eyed Bastard. So…closure.
Except that not. Now there’s a bunch of demons running around, and Dean
only has a year to live. The finale brought the story of Season Two to a
close, while also providing a good pivot to the next season. I really
hope this is how the series is run in coming seasons, with finales
containing resolution and pivots, rather than cliffhangers. Again, maybe
I know too much about writing for television, but rarely does a
successful show end a season with a cliffhanger; that is usually
deployed by shows trying to convince executives to bring them back for
another year.
Obviously, because I am writing this in the lull between Seasons Seven
and Eight, they got that next year. It is my hope that my earlier point
that death on this show is not a hindrance from appearing again, because
I refuse to believe that Andy and Ash are truly dead. This is a show
that knows it’s best to keep some light around when trafficking in
darkness, and both Ash and Andy were excellent sources of light. Here’s
hoping those troublesome stakes I mentioned earlier become part of Supernatural’s
milieu, as there’s little I enjoy more in film and TV than having my
expectations proven wrong in ways of which I could not conceive. Please,
Kripke & Co, show me that I’m thinking of a faster horse, and you
have a car in mind.
The second run of the FX and Ryan Murphy mini-series American Horror Story is being dubbed AHS: Asylum. Set in a haunted insane asylum, the show, which returns this fall, will flit back and forth between the present day, run-down tourist and horror enthusiast attraction, and the 1960s, still in-use "hospital." According to Murphy, per Entertainment Weekly, he wanted to tell the story of what is sanity, really and play with ideas of perception and reality, while still showcasing some true genre tropes and the things that scare him... [MORE]
