True Love Letters are Never a Mistake
Because one of my flisties pointed out that there have been some bad reviews for The French Mistake out there, I'm going to post this as an actual entry rather than where I originally wrote it, which was in comments to my last entry.
This, more than how good it was, or how funny it was, or how perfectly written and acted and envisioned it was, is why I loved this episode as much, if not more, than any other humor-based SPN episode, period:
The French Mistake is flat-out awesome ... so much so it is actually in a fist-fight with Bad Day at Black Rock for top honors as "best SPN humor episode EVER." In the end, I suspect Bad Day will hold its own as the perfect funny-SPNshow show while French will take the crown of perfect funny-SPNfandom show. Because as hilariously brilliant as "I lost my shoe" and "don't touch my Jesus" are to SPN as a show? Every bit that hilarious and more were "I need to figure out her name" and "What, you're polish?" to the people who make the show.
And my very favorite thing about both of these episodes? Is that BOTH of them depend solely on knowing AND loving the show (Bad Day) and the cast/crew (French Mistake) in order to be funny, rather than taking the hack way out of thinking lazy, trite, over-used-to-DEATH "references" to the subculture of fandom is the same thing as sharing a truly funny insider joke with fandom.
In a nutshell: understanding that "He sold OctoCobra?" is hilarious, while "They write about us doing what?, the boys ask in an appalled tone" is not even funny any more, if it ever was, and it CERTAINLY isn't an "insider joke" so much as an "every dog and their hamster knows the 'beam me up, Scotty' reference, so there is no longer any INSIDERness to it."
So as much as Supernatural producers/showrunners have, in the past, claimed the SPN Convention episode and the SPN Books concept are love letters to SPN fans? They SO aren't. Yeah, both are cute in some ways. Even funny in places. But mostly, both of those (and the majority of other "love letters to the fans" labeled) episodes/shticks are far more accurately described as endlessly-repetitive, broad, inspecific, non-insider love letters to Creation Con --- Creation Con NEVER being mistaken as an insider ANYTHING by anyone actually on the inside so much as (grudgingly) acknowledged as points of expensive contact with genre actors --- and their quasi-insider ilk.
Rather than love letters, in fact, these episodes are the SPN version of a knock-knock joke, told ad nauseam (until you actually want to KILL the kid, even if you otherwise like them) by a precocious ten-year-old who thinks "Boobies Who?" is the most hilarious punchline ever.
Bad Day and French Mistake, on the other hand? Now THOSE are love letters, both to the show and to us, the show's fans.
They are filled with everything we love about SPN and J3+M, and are written to us in the same witty, snarktastic voice that made us fall head-over-heels in love with The Show in the first place. And perhaps more important than even the familiar and much-loved tone is the veracity of the sentiments expressed: every declaration of mutual admiration and respect, every expression of love in reciprocation for fidelity and unconditional support, every reminiscence of "remember that time?" or "wasn't it funny when?"s are intimate conversations with US, the fans, that --- while the rest of the world may understand the words used in the speaking --- are designed to speak solely to US, the fans.
And to speak to us on a totally different level than mere words can ever do. To speak very intimately to us about all the things we -- those who make the show and the fans who love the show -- have in common and all the travails we've shared in this 6-year relationship that has been both blessed and cursed, both brilliant and so-not-even-passingly-acceptable that it aches.
And most important of all, to us, the fans, to say, "We love you ... we really, really do. Even if we don't always listen to what you say. Even if we don't always say what you want us to say, or see things the way you want us to see things. We still love you, and we know that you love us, too. Even when we fight. Even when we disagree. Even when we insult one another or withhold good opinions in retaliation for bad scripts. Even then, we still love you. We really, really do."
And that's what The French Mistake does. It is a love letter of the truest kind. A love letter from the show and those who make it to the fans. The love letter to fans the producers/showrunners kept claiming to have put in the mail, but that, until yesterday, had never arrived.
But it did finally arrive. And upon its arrival, in opening it and reading it, THIS fan is re-smitten all over again, and reminded of why I fell in love with this show in the first place ... but reminded THIS time from a fan perspective, rather than from a strictly show perspective.
Because what I love about this show? Has become so much more than just the show itself. It is the actors. The writers. The directors. The showrunners. It is their work on the show and their interactions with the fandom as a whole. It is their wall of postcards and their convention appearances; their interviews and blogs and remarks-made-in-passing that they never expected fandom to actually hear.
It is why we demonstrate our love by voting them onto the cover of TV Guide, and why we shell out hard earned cash to meet them in person and to support their charities and to buy damn near every stupid-ass tie-in product they can think of to produce.
Because we love this show, but we also love those who make the show.
And what The French Mistake tells us --- the fans, the faithful, the hopelessly love-struck --- in ways no words simply spoken could ever say, is that they love us, too. They love us, dammit. They really do. And they are willing to say as much --- to shout it from the mountaintops, even --- and to do so in a language specific to, and limited to, SF/TV fans in general and SPN/J3+M fans in specific.
And we love you, too, dammit. We do. We really, really do. Even when we fight.
But we love you more when we laugh. When we laugh together, at ourselves rather than at each other. And when we laugh in celebration of everything we have in common instead of everything we do wrong to one another, or everything one or the other of us feels a need to ridicule.
And we love you most when you send us love letters like this.
Love letters written by Ben. With Terminator homages. With Misha tweeting. With Sera being called a newbie, and Kripke selling a series called OctoCobra, then getting whacked by an angel named Virgil who looks a lot more like Antonio Banderas than you or I would EVER fail to notice or comment upon in a snarky way. With Bob Singer being Bob Singer; and Jared and Gen sharing the joy of their on-screen-turned-off-screen love story with us; and Jensen flat out killing the whole fandom with how much Dean and Jensen differ while being, at the soul, very much the same ... all of which he makes fun of more readily and more effectively than anyone else can ever write. And with Kim Manners references, to boot. The only thing missing from this love letter, in fact, is the peanut gallery. And yes, we realize Mr. Peanut Gallery was out on a beer run, which is a pretty good reason to miss out on all the mushy stuff and just show up in time for the ass-kicking next week; but still, we wish you'd tied him to a chair or something so he could have been there when finally, after all these years of wondering if it really was as reciprocal as so oft is claimed, the whole of you got together and didn't say you love us this time, you showed it.