SPN 9x19 and 9x20
Alex Annie Alexis Ann
I didn’t have much to say about this one even though it was one of my favorite episodes of the season, simply because it felt so heartbreakingly straightforward. But a few things:
What really impressed me about it was just how clear an argument it made against WHY DIDN’T SHE JUST LEAVE?!? She didn’t leave because she loved her abusers, because she felt complicit, because she was scared, because people who meant well leapt in the middle of it and pushed her the wrong way.
The ticket vendor at the bus depot was a nice touch. The episode went out of its way to show her defending herself to an argumentative…partner? parent? It doesn’t matter, the point is she was being guilted for having to work late, and so when we find out Alexis pinged her hard enough that she wanted to help and tried to lie to throw the vamps off her trail. It stood in an interesting contrast to a lot of the insider/outsider dynamic of flashbacks and early seasons, where there was a lot of validating the alienation and secrecy. People not knowing about monsters or buying Sam and Dean’s silly disguises kind of…fed the idea that ~nobody could possibly understand our dysfunction. As if just because they weren’t admitting there was an issue, other people could not objectively know there was an issue. In this episode, we see a lot of people who don’t need to know all the gory details to pick up on the signs of rotten interpersonal dynamics.
I…do not know how consciously this happened, but I think Sam’s concern for Jody was in a lot of ways reflective of Jody’s concern for Annlexis. I mean, yes, his keeping his eye on the ball to protect their friend was primarily in contrast to Dean’s bloodlust. But I also think his scope of concern narrowed to Jody in a way, because she’s one of a few people who’s been good to him lately and because that first time they met he was saving her. Jody even seeks to recreate her own experience in such a small way when she tells Ann “don’t watch this,” just as she couldn’t bring herself to watch something that looked like her son die. I don’t know how I feel about the popular interpretation of the Ben Franklin Effect (being better disposed toward a person after you’ve helped them), that it’s about rationalizing your nice act, but I do think that for whatever reason it’s a realistic factor at play. It’s happening in a messed up way with Sam and Crowley, but it can also be a healthy, even inspirational force, as with Sam and Jody, and Jody and Ann.
It seems redundant to go over all the parallels to Sam (though “I didn’t want to disappoint her again,” OUCH), but what I do think was interesting was how the parallels were getting through to Sam himself. Like, I think he was retreating more than usual precisely because he was relating and not comfortable with it.
Bloodlines
I had prepared myself not to like the episode, and so I was especially pleasantly surprised when I really enjoyed it.
I think the crying about ~~oh we’ve never seen this missing dad/revenge storyline before~~ quite misses the point, which is that the particular experience Sam and Dean had with the rough outlines of that story was not necessarily the only way it had to shake out. Severance of all ties with the world isn’t necessary. Sometimes it’s not an interdimensional conspiracy that fucks up your life, but just a mean-spirited bigot. Sometimes you get the shot and you take it, no plotting or mangst necessary. The similarities in experience provide a point of comparison for the differences in situation and environment. Or maybe generation? The acknowledgement - and suspicion - of existing power structures, as compared with the DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO isolation of the early seasons of SPN, is definitely more Millennial than Gen X.
And it’s not Mysticverse cynical, definitely, but there’s a little more acknowledgment of pragmatic survivor ethos coming through. Violet didn’t leave David to ~~protect him~~ or anyone else, she did it because David’s family threatened her own life and she had to protect herself. That shows both a character and a show which is a lot more honest, both about people's self-interest and about the ability of intimate groups to be the most dangerous of all.
Something that I enjoyed most about the earlier seasons of Supernatural was that it was a look into the rural and exurban Midwest and South. It’s a part of the country that I’ve only been through on busy road trips of my own, and therefore learned just enough to know that it was a different side of America than my East Coast urban enclaves. And so it was particularly exciting to get a peek into that life? But there was some stuff that pinged me as not just different but really disturbing. Like, for example, the cavalier attitude toward guns. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it a hundred times, people hunt for food, which has nothing to do with the fact that handguns are BAD and sawed-offs are WORSE. And so when David (and by extension, the MONSTER MAFIA) found a fraction of the usual Winchester number of guns not just distasteful but unusual, that felt a little more real. This is not just SPN dropped into a city, another story about Lost Boys running off into a Never-Never Land of guns and macho posturing. It’s something close to an urban sensibility, where people are more conscious of danger to ourselves and far less likely to know about specific incidents of violence toward others. The car isn’t just unnecessary, it slows the Winchesters down. The shifters’ ability to disappear is a sharp metaphor for urban anonymity. Chicago’s brick buildings create a feeling of history and even permanence. There’s a world outside of the Winchesters, and even outside of the group of regulars we got to know in this episode. I’m interested to see it.
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