big long SPN S7 post!
I have been into Supernatural for a whole...several months now! So here is my totally convincing and authoritative assessment of THE ROAD SO FAR.
This show is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of shows. It is my Zooey Deschanel. Whenever I'm all, "oh show, you so wacky! This is the wackiest anyone could possibly be! Congratulations, you win at wacky!" it looks me right back in the eye and is just like:
Then it puts on a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, snorts a line of coke off its pet iguana, and scampers off to step-dance through the streets of Manhattan, thus teaching me a life-affirming lesson about daddy issues. It is - and I do not say this lightly - the Snooki of genre television.
What made S7 neat was that it was, conceptually, something this crazy-ass show never even tried to do before.
S1 was a volume of fairy tales. S2 was about setting up the traditional Campbellian story elements for both of the guys. S3 and 5 are fairly standard Western religious fiction, and S4 is a Greek tragedy. A crucial bit of all of this is that the guys couldn't have escaped the action, whether they wanted to or not, because Lucifer and Michael were just never going to let them be. S6 was noir - a more modern, secular type of story, but still, their involvement with Castiel put them on the radar of these huge cosmic forces.
S7, not so much. It gets hammered home for every main character that, as far as the universe and leviathan are concerned, he is SO NOT SPECIAL. Slash Fiction gives us carbon copies of the guys - there are people who are exempt from replicating, but the Winchesters aren't among them. Lucifer, the driving force behind Sam's mythic importance, exists only in Sam's head. The Amazons black widow Dean like any other sperm donor. Bobby thinks he's the one person ever who can cheat death and avoid becoming a vengeful spirit; he can't. Castiel tried to make himself a superior being, and he loses his entire sense of self for the whole season. Even the iconic car has to go.
The season presents a challenge to the self-image they both have, in different ways, of being isolated/exempt/elevated from the world around them. That's a blow to the ego, sure. But it's also, for the first time ever, a chance to walk away. They could leave. Dick was planning to take over the US, not the whole world. Moreover, whether they leave or fight, their choice could, realistically, last for their entire lives. They don't have their angels to keep them immortal any more, either so they can die like anyone.
They've never had that choice before, not really. It wasn't even do or die, because: we'd just bring you back. It doesn't mean they didn't do the right thing before - often they did, sometimes they didn't - it doesn't mean they didn't face things admirably, it doesn't mean they didn't try. It doesn't mean the determination before was solely an act of rationalization to convince themselves they had some agency, though I do think that was always a psychological factor at play. It just means that stepping up was never an act of free will before. This season it was, and they did.
The most common criticisms of the season seem to be that (1) the leviathan arc was tacked on to episodes that seemed to stand alone and (2) that they weren't a particularly personalized antagonist for Our Heroes. But I'm not sure if those two points aren't what make the season work?
(1) The guys aren't close to being as far off the grid as they've thought of themselves as being. Even assuming they only eat and stay at local businesses, they still purchase food shipped in from all over the country, purchase gas, consume media via television and radio, sleep on beds and sheets manufactured by large companies - commerce is hidden, but it's everywhere they turn. The leviathan, all these different faces of one large incorporated (see what I do there?) group, able to eat up and take over for people in the most remote places, ends up being a tight metaphor for megacorporations in American life.
Which is why I don't feel point (2) is necessarily a negative, either. It's not their problem because of some white man's burden* plot point. It's their problem because it's everyone's problem, and they're the ones in the position to do something about it. Sometimes corporations touch us personally - and sometimes we take it personally, a la Dean's venting all of his anger at his fucked-up life into his personalized vengeance quest against Dick - but usually they're just present in our lives in a million impersonal ways.
Which. Is it too pretentious to say that this is noticeably Occupy-era writing? Not just in the critique of corporatism inherent to the leviathan arc. It's just, this dream Americana world no longer has to be completely inaccessible. This season we've spent comparatively more time - that is to say, still very little, but at least some time - in cities and even, OH MY STARS, along the East Coast, which we've hardly done since S2. The season even removed us from the Impala, the importance of which is tied in with the car-dependent lifestyle which is far from everyone's experience.
They're not set apart from us in the sense of classical heroes any more. The narrative has spent years building these characters around the presumption that the universe wants them to fall into line in a certain time. Giving them an antagonist who doesn't give a fuck about them - well, it rips a big old hole in their universe. And they fight back anyway, and win. And that, to me, makes them the most heroic they've ever been.
*Is this not the glaring weak spot of the first five season arc? the WHITE MAN'S BURDEN nonsense. For the show to spend S6 by and large deconstructing that, and then for S7 to move on ahead and do something else - nifty!
ALSO
.
S8 wishlist
Anyway, as the CW, like Lucille Bluth, gets off on being withholding, I'm hoping to fill the hiatus with at least a few respectable meta answers to the SPN 30 Questions meme! The beginning of a mortifyingly long Sam post comin atcha tomorrow! BYOP!
This show is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of shows. It is my Zooey Deschanel. Whenever I'm all, "oh show, you so wacky! This is the wackiest anyone could possibly be! Congratulations, you win at wacky!" it looks me right back in the eye and is just like:
Then it puts on a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, snorts a line of coke off its pet iguana, and scampers off to step-dance through the streets of Manhattan, thus teaching me a life-affirming lesson about daddy issues. It is - and I do not say this lightly - the Snooki of genre television.
What made S7 neat was that it was, conceptually, something this crazy-ass show never even tried to do before.
S1 was a volume of fairy tales. S2 was about setting up the traditional Campbellian story elements for both of the guys. S3 and 5 are fairly standard Western religious fiction, and S4 is a Greek tragedy. A crucial bit of all of this is that the guys couldn't have escaped the action, whether they wanted to or not, because Lucifer and Michael were just never going to let them be. S6 was noir - a more modern, secular type of story, but still, their involvement with Castiel put them on the radar of these huge cosmic forces.
S7, not so much. It gets hammered home for every main character that, as far as the universe and leviathan are concerned, he is SO NOT SPECIAL. Slash Fiction gives us carbon copies of the guys - there are people who are exempt from replicating, but the Winchesters aren't among them. Lucifer, the driving force behind Sam's mythic importance, exists only in Sam's head. The Amazons black widow Dean like any other sperm donor. Bobby thinks he's the one person ever who can cheat death and avoid becoming a vengeful spirit; he can't. Castiel tried to make himself a superior being, and he loses his entire sense of self for the whole season. Even the iconic car has to go.
The season presents a challenge to the self-image they both have, in different ways, of being isolated/exempt/elevated from the world around them. That's a blow to the ego, sure. But it's also, for the first time ever, a chance to walk away. They could leave. Dick was planning to take over the US, not the whole world. Moreover, whether they leave or fight, their choice could, realistically, last for their entire lives. They don't have their angels to keep them immortal any more, either so they can die like anyone.
They've never had that choice before, not really. It wasn't even do or die, because: we'd just bring you back. It doesn't mean they didn't do the right thing before - often they did, sometimes they didn't - it doesn't mean they didn't face things admirably, it doesn't mean they didn't try. It doesn't mean the determination before was solely an act of rationalization to convince themselves they had some agency, though I do think that was always a psychological factor at play. It just means that stepping up was never an act of free will before. This season it was, and they did.
The most common criticisms of the season seem to be that (1) the leviathan arc was tacked on to episodes that seemed to stand alone and (2) that they weren't a particularly personalized antagonist for Our Heroes. But I'm not sure if those two points aren't what make the season work?
(1) The guys aren't close to being as far off the grid as they've thought of themselves as being. Even assuming they only eat and stay at local businesses, they still purchase food shipped in from all over the country, purchase gas, consume media via television and radio, sleep on beds and sheets manufactured by large companies - commerce is hidden, but it's everywhere they turn. The leviathan, all these different faces of one large incorporated (see what I do there?) group, able to eat up and take over for people in the most remote places, ends up being a tight metaphor for megacorporations in American life.
Which is why I don't feel point (2) is necessarily a negative, either. It's not their problem because of some white man's burden* plot point. It's their problem because it's everyone's problem, and they're the ones in the position to do something about it. Sometimes corporations touch us personally - and sometimes we take it personally, a la Dean's venting all of his anger at his fucked-up life into his personalized vengeance quest against Dick - but usually they're just present in our lives in a million impersonal ways.
Which. Is it too pretentious to say that this is noticeably Occupy-era writing? Not just in the critique of corporatism inherent to the leviathan arc. It's just, this dream Americana world no longer has to be completely inaccessible. This season we've spent comparatively more time - that is to say, still very little, but at least some time - in cities and even, OH MY STARS, along the East Coast, which we've hardly done since S2. The season even removed us from the Impala, the importance of which is tied in with the car-dependent lifestyle which is far from everyone's experience.
They're not set apart from us in the sense of classical heroes any more. The narrative has spent years building these characters around the presumption that the universe wants them to fall into line in a certain time. Giving them an antagonist who doesn't give a fuck about them - well, it rips a big old hole in their universe. And they fight back anyway, and win. And that, to me, makes them the most heroic they've ever been.
*Is this not the glaring weak spot of the first five season arc? the WHITE MAN'S BURDEN nonsense. For the show to spend S6 by and large deconstructing that, and then for S7 to move on ahead and do something else - nifty!
ALSO
- I loved Sam's whole arc with The Crazy. Could not have been better. I don't know if it's the smartest thing for me to do, to try to unpack it right now. But it reached right into my chest and twisted my heart. (Sammy's good at that.)
- JODI! GARTH! CHARLIE! NEVER LEAVE US. lol at least two of you will probably leave us.
- LOVED the way it ended. Cannot WAIT to see purgatory.
.
S8 wishlist
- They really do need to spend a few episodes apart. Sam's emotional dependence on Dean is incredibly unhealthy for him (probably not a picnic for Dean either but #shruggin) and he needs to remember that he can be on his own.
- I LOVE that Sam didn't get Dean out of hell last time around, because ~reasons (STAY TUNED), but I really do think the power dynamics between them need to change and the only way for that to happen is for Sam to at least be able to help save his brother.
- MUPPETS IMPROVE EVERYTHING.
- If we waste purgatory, I will weep tears of blood. Preferably they should meet Dean's demon spawn.
- A while back I did a meme which was a list of things I always love in fiction. After Dick Roman, SPN has EVERYTHING on that list checked except ONE thing: it treats its ladies TERRIBLY. Sigh. It's obviously not a dealbreaker - maybe it should be for me - but argh! It would improve the show on so many levels
- And therefore: BRING BACK SOME OF MAH LADIES. I DO NOT EVEN CARE WHICH ONES. AS LONG AS I GET BELA.
Anyway, as the CW, like Lucille Bluth, gets off on being withholding, I'm hoping to fill the hiatus with at least a few respectable meta answers to the SPN 30 Questions meme! The beginning of a mortifyingly long Sam post comin atcha tomorrow! BYOP!