Some Supernatural musings
I'm resurrecting this icon from the olden days of LJ, as is fitting and in keeping with SPN tradition of what's dead never staying dead for even a hot minute. *g*
I stopped being fannish about SPN about 9 years ago, but in the time I was all up in it, I wrote...pretty much everything there was to write. My final tally in the fandom was: 1 het, 11 Sam/Dean (Wincest), 2 Dean/Castiel (Destiel), 8 gen, and 16 J2 RPS (including one J3 story). It pained me in the early years of the show to have some folks tell me I was helping to shift the acceptable lines/norms of society by writing Wincest (not antis, just regular, thoughtful fans), and then later to have a different set of fannish friends hate Castiel so much for disrupting their Wincest vibe that we could not hang out in the sandbox together. Let me live, man...I wanted to ship everything!
Nowadays, it pains me to see how awful the Wincest fans (or "bibros" or "brosonly/bronlies", what hilariously awful terms omg) are to the Destiel fans (aka the Hellers, a term of disdain from Wincest fans - DestiHellers - that they promptly appropriated for their own), especially after episode 15x18, and how much of the actual fannish discourse has become about 'winning' (aka your ship sucks, only mine is valid, the canon does not support your interpretation of the text, etc) and 'losing' (aka die mad, Castiel fans). And how awful the fans across the board are with bringing up ships to the actors, and yelling at them for...IDK, it's unclear for what. Not writing the show themselves? Not conceding to fan demands? It's a trip. I know, I know. Fandom has always careened in and out of toxicity. It feels especially toxic at this point in 2020, tho; I confined myself to the corner of Tumblr that is lit up about 15x18, and that's been pleasant. Even though I think EVERYONE needs to adjust their expectations. (It's so helpful to be interested in the show, and a little invested in how it ends, but without feeling crushed if it doesn't go as hoped.)
If you'd asked me 10 years ago whether I believed Dean/Castiel could ever be canon, I'd have died laughing. Even one-sided! And yet here we are, where it's not ambiguous how Castiel feels about Dean, and the actors themselves are not refuting it - Misha Collins has explicitly said, yes, the fans are not crazy, Castiel's love is the big gay love. Apparently he knew this was coming ahead of the start of shooting for the season, and he had the WHOLE SEASON to play Castiel as an angel with a bucket of what he assumes are unrequited feelings. Jensen Ackles was fully aware the storyline was coming, allegedly worked on the big scene with Misha, and was so proud of it and emotional about it that he had a crew member film the moment with his own phone (if Q&A answers in one-on-one zooms are to be believed, and why wouldn't they, really). So that happened! And now the inevitable spiral of doom - are TPTB and the actors lying about 15x18 being Misha's last episode?? Would Dean really leave Castiel in the Empty?? WILL WE GET DEAN DEALING WITH HIS FEELINGS?!
There's quite a lot of absolutely excellent meta about it over on tumblr, people analyzing patterns and the way particular scenes were set up, and looking at the meta that's been handed to us in Swan Song, and in season 8, and with 10x05 "Fan Fiction," and that episode with Becky earlier this year where she criticized Chuck's 'ending' (aka the writers' ending), and talked about how what people really want is conversations and doing laundry and whatnot. (For example, here, and here). As usual, I think what makes me the most sad is that I believe the fans put 1000% more thought and creativity and heart into how they would craft the storylines - in ways that make sense!! - than the writers do. The writers sometimes appear not to have actually watched the show. That's not unique to SPN. It's an industry-wide failing.
For me, it's an "I want to believe" situation, in that I don't think I'd better get my hopes up, no matter how compelling some of those analyses are. Unfortunately I have learned over the years that when writers give you a terrible episode, it's because they meant for it to be good but they just suck as writers, and 15x19 is that episode. It doesn't give me a lot of hope for a proper resolution in x20, even though the two episodes are written by different people - the arc of the season is the driver of what goes into the script.
But there are so many missing pieces, at this point. After demanding that Chuck bring back Castiel, Dean somehow can't take a second to ask Jack the same thing? Sam is so frantic about Eileen but we don't see on-screen that he's called her or checked on her?? Don't we need a new Death?? Is the Empty going to be able to sleep with all those angels rattling around in there? Which of the fam got brought back?? And so many other dangling threads and plot holes, with Jack the hands-off boss. A whole lot got left up in the air there, not just Dean's boatload of big feelings about what Cas said to him, how he is changing in response to it, and that tremendous loss for him (and Sam) personally. (5x19 dealt with those things subtly - Dean's grief-drinking, and the race up the stairs when he thought Castiel was back, and demanding Chuck bring him back when it wasn't Chuck that killed him and Dean didn't have any leverage). I tend to think it's sloppy writing. And it will probably continue into the last ep. I'd love to be wrong. I don't think I am. But I want to believe!
Sidebars: It was also super, super obvious that 5x19 was filmed in the Covid era - the awkward positioning of the actors, for one thing. They were almost always socially distant from one another. Not always - in the car, and a few up-close line deliveries and side-by-side shots. But usually, they were oceans apart. It was odd, and took me out of the moment.
I do love the conceit that the Winchesters and Castiel - Team Free Will - raised God to be a God who understands human frailty and fear and loss and longing, who knows the power of forgiveness (!!), who understands that the answers lie within each person to their most troubling questions, and who understands the joy of being human, and all that entails. They raised their kid right. What a thing. *g*
So what do I think we might get in the finale? No idea. But there are things I definitely DNW.
1) No dead Winchesters, unless they die together or are in Heaven together. Yes, I know we saw their Heaven already once, but that was several Gods ago and now Jack is in charge, and there's no way he's going to keep them apart. Or even retain that construct of Heaven. Who knows! There's a theory out there that Dean is going to die, and/or Castiel is going to become Death, or...honestly, it's a little vague. I don't want these things. I could learn to live with them if they are reunited eventually. I guess. Before the show ends.
2) No heteronormative endings. I had enough of that with Hawaii Five-O and Avengers Endgame, thanks. Sharp left turns into heteronormativity make me angry. If we get Castiel as a woman (what the FUCK) or Dean married to someone random, or worse yet, bring back amnesiac Lisa or season 1 Cassie or some other terrible thing...I will set this whole place on fire. After the bury your gays thing, this would just go back to what I said about writers who have no clue at all.
2a) I'm actually terrified about 1 and 2 because I keep thinking about how Jensen said he had a lot of trouble with the ending, and he actually called Kripke and talked it through with him before he could accept it. Can you imagine how displeasing something has to be for an actor to have to persuade themselves to do it and then tell their fans that publicly? This does not bode well. (Unless the freak-out was prompted by something that's more of a big leap for his character, like the Destiel revelation...which is a lot more about Jensen's protectiveness of his character than irritation at the script.) It's also been stated and then retracted (because I think it was an accidental spoiler) that there would be a major character death in the finale. Here's hoping they meant Castiel in his final appearance. Not because I want him permanently gone, but because the alternatives suck.
3) No splitting up the Winchesters, not even temporarily. No scenarios where one marries and settles down while the other one keeps hunting. The hell with that. (Side note: can Sam just be allowed to be happy with Eileen?? How many times has that poor kid attempted a normal life over the course of the show? LET HIM BE!)
4) No acknowledgement of what Castiel means to the brothers, and particularly, Dean. I think back to the episodes where Dean has lost Castiel - how he was so freaked out by failing to save him from Purgatory that he mentally re-wrote that whole thing! And how devastated he was when he wrapped Castiel's body and burned it. To just have this death go without mention or emotional closure will really piss me off. See: bury your gays. The thing I'm hung up on is that I know Rachel Miner is slated to appear in the episode as The Shadow (aka the Empty), and I can't imagine how in the world there would be any interaction between the brothers and the Empty and Castiel would not come up. That literally makes no sense. Why deal with the Empty at all in this ep, if you're not trying to get something from it? An unresolved plot point, perhaps? IDK. Like the kids on tumblr say, I'm clowning hard.
...wow, look at all that. Apparently I do still care! I think I'm at a point where I will need to be spoiled about the episode before I can watch it. Which is easy, lucky for me, because I'm best coast; I can just look at twitter trends and have a pretty good indication of how far off the rails (or up into the stratosphere) things have gone.
There won't be any way to please everyone, that's for sure. But the big classic mistakes are so very easy to avoid...even for clueless Hollywood writers. I very much hope they manage it. (Not holding my breath.) Here's hoping for a happy ending, or at least one that pleases most fans. Especially me. It's been a hard year. :)
I stopped being fannish about SPN about 9 years ago, but in the time I was all up in it, I wrote...pretty much everything there was to write. My final tally in the fandom was: 1 het, 11 Sam/Dean (Wincest), 2 Dean/Castiel (Destiel), 8 gen, and 16 J2 RPS (including one J3 story). It pained me in the early years of the show to have some folks tell me I was helping to shift the acceptable lines/norms of society by writing Wincest (not antis, just regular, thoughtful fans), and then later to have a different set of fannish friends hate Castiel so much for disrupting their Wincest vibe that we could not hang out in the sandbox together. Let me live, man...I wanted to ship everything!
Nowadays, it pains me to see how awful the Wincest fans (or "bibros" or "brosonly/bronlies", what hilariously awful terms omg) are to the Destiel fans (aka the Hellers, a term of disdain from Wincest fans - DestiHellers - that they promptly appropriated for their own), especially after episode 15x18, and how much of the actual fannish discourse has become about 'winning' (aka your ship sucks, only mine is valid, the canon does not support your interpretation of the text, etc) and 'losing' (aka die mad, Castiel fans). And how awful the fans across the board are with bringing up ships to the actors, and yelling at them for...IDK, it's unclear for what. Not writing the show themselves? Not conceding to fan demands? It's a trip. I know, I know. Fandom has always careened in and out of toxicity. It feels especially toxic at this point in 2020, tho; I confined myself to the corner of Tumblr that is lit up about 15x18, and that's been pleasant. Even though I think EVERYONE needs to adjust their expectations. (It's so helpful to be interested in the show, and a little invested in how it ends, but without feeling crushed if it doesn't go as hoped.)
If you'd asked me 10 years ago whether I believed Dean/Castiel could ever be canon, I'd have died laughing. Even one-sided! And yet here we are, where it's not ambiguous how Castiel feels about Dean, and the actors themselves are not refuting it - Misha Collins has explicitly said, yes, the fans are not crazy, Castiel's love is the big gay love. Apparently he knew this was coming ahead of the start of shooting for the season, and he had the WHOLE SEASON to play Castiel as an angel with a bucket of what he assumes are unrequited feelings. Jensen Ackles was fully aware the storyline was coming, allegedly worked on the big scene with Misha, and was so proud of it and emotional about it that he had a crew member film the moment with his own phone (if Q&A answers in one-on-one zooms are to be believed, and why wouldn't they, really). So that happened! And now the inevitable spiral of doom - are TPTB and the actors lying about 15x18 being Misha's last episode?? Would Dean really leave Castiel in the Empty?? WILL WE GET DEAN DEALING WITH HIS FEELINGS?!
There's quite a lot of absolutely excellent meta about it over on tumblr, people analyzing patterns and the way particular scenes were set up, and looking at the meta that's been handed to us in Swan Song, and in season 8, and with 10x05 "Fan Fiction," and that episode with Becky earlier this year where she criticized Chuck's 'ending' (aka the writers' ending), and talked about how what people really want is conversations and doing laundry and whatnot. (For example, here, and here). As usual, I think what makes me the most sad is that I believe the fans put 1000% more thought and creativity and heart into how they would craft the storylines - in ways that make sense!! - than the writers do. The writers sometimes appear not to have actually watched the show. That's not unique to SPN. It's an industry-wide failing.
For me, it's an "I want to believe" situation, in that I don't think I'd better get my hopes up, no matter how compelling some of those analyses are. Unfortunately I have learned over the years that when writers give you a terrible episode, it's because they meant for it to be good but they just suck as writers, and 15x19 is that episode. It doesn't give me a lot of hope for a proper resolution in x20, even though the two episodes are written by different people - the arc of the season is the driver of what goes into the script.
But there are so many missing pieces, at this point. After demanding that Chuck bring back Castiel, Dean somehow can't take a second to ask Jack the same thing? Sam is so frantic about Eileen but we don't see on-screen that he's called her or checked on her?? Don't we need a new Death?? Is the Empty going to be able to sleep with all those angels rattling around in there? Which of the fam got brought back?? And so many other dangling threads and plot holes, with Jack the hands-off boss. A whole lot got left up in the air there, not just Dean's boatload of big feelings about what Cas said to him, how he is changing in response to it, and that tremendous loss for him (and Sam) personally. (5x19 dealt with those things subtly - Dean's grief-drinking, and the race up the stairs when he thought Castiel was back, and demanding Chuck bring him back when it wasn't Chuck that killed him and Dean didn't have any leverage). I tend to think it's sloppy writing. And it will probably continue into the last ep. I'd love to be wrong. I don't think I am. But I want to believe!
Sidebars: It was also super, super obvious that 5x19 was filmed in the Covid era - the awkward positioning of the actors, for one thing. They were almost always socially distant from one another. Not always - in the car, and a few up-close line deliveries and side-by-side shots. But usually, they were oceans apart. It was odd, and took me out of the moment.
I do love the conceit that the Winchesters and Castiel - Team Free Will - raised God to be a God who understands human frailty and fear and loss and longing, who knows the power of forgiveness (!!), who understands that the answers lie within each person to their most troubling questions, and who understands the joy of being human, and all that entails. They raised their kid right. What a thing. *g*
So what do I think we might get in the finale? No idea. But there are things I definitely DNW.
1) No dead Winchesters, unless they die together or are in Heaven together. Yes, I know we saw their Heaven already once, but that was several Gods ago and now Jack is in charge, and there's no way he's going to keep them apart. Or even retain that construct of Heaven. Who knows! There's a theory out there that Dean is going to die, and/or Castiel is going to become Death, or...honestly, it's a little vague. I don't want these things. I could learn to live with them if they are reunited eventually. I guess. Before the show ends.
2) No heteronormative endings. I had enough of that with Hawaii Five-O and Avengers Endgame, thanks. Sharp left turns into heteronormativity make me angry. If we get Castiel as a woman (what the FUCK) or Dean married to someone random, or worse yet, bring back amnesiac Lisa or season 1 Cassie or some other terrible thing...I will set this whole place on fire. After the bury your gays thing, this would just go back to what I said about writers who have no clue at all.
2a) I'm actually terrified about 1 and 2 because I keep thinking about how Jensen said he had a lot of trouble with the ending, and he actually called Kripke and talked it through with him before he could accept it. Can you imagine how displeasing something has to be for an actor to have to persuade themselves to do it and then tell their fans that publicly? This does not bode well. (Unless the freak-out was prompted by something that's more of a big leap for his character, like the Destiel revelation...which is a lot more about Jensen's protectiveness of his character than irritation at the script.) It's also been stated and then retracted (because I think it was an accidental spoiler) that there would be a major character death in the finale. Here's hoping they meant Castiel in his final appearance. Not because I want him permanently gone, but because the alternatives suck.
3) No splitting up the Winchesters, not even temporarily. No scenarios where one marries and settles down while the other one keeps hunting. The hell with that. (Side note: can Sam just be allowed to be happy with Eileen?? How many times has that poor kid attempted a normal life over the course of the show? LET HIM BE!)
4) No acknowledgement of what Castiel means to the brothers, and particularly, Dean. I think back to the episodes where Dean has lost Castiel - how he was so freaked out by failing to save him from Purgatory that he mentally re-wrote that whole thing! And how devastated he was when he wrapped Castiel's body and burned it. To just have this death go without mention or emotional closure will really piss me off. See: bury your gays. The thing I'm hung up on is that I know Rachel Miner is slated to appear in the episode as The Shadow (aka the Empty), and I can't imagine how in the world there would be any interaction between the brothers and the Empty and Castiel would not come up. That literally makes no sense. Why deal with the Empty at all in this ep, if you're not trying to get something from it? An unresolved plot point, perhaps? IDK. Like the kids on tumblr say, I'm clowning hard.
...wow, look at all that. Apparently I do still care! I think I'm at a point where I will need to be spoiled about the episode before I can watch it. Which is easy, lucky for me, because I'm best coast; I can just look at twitter trends and have a pretty good indication of how far off the rails (or up into the stratosphere) things have gone.
There won't be any way to please everyone, that's for sure. But the big classic mistakes are so very easy to avoid...even for clueless Hollywood writers. I very much hope they manage it. (Not holding my breath.) Here's hoping for a happy ending, or at least one that pleases most fans. Especially me. It's been a hard year. :)