SPN 5×22 and the peace/freedom question
I finished my second full-series rewatch of Supernatural this weekend. (I actually rewatched the series once already, but stopped at 5×09 because I didn’t want to watch what happens in 5×10. So I went back to the beginning and did a highlights-only rewatch of the whole thing, this time through to the end.)
The show is a lot better when you skip the boring MoTWs and the blatantly sexist moments. (Does anyone know how to edit .mkv files? Because “99 Problems” would be a pretty good episode if it weren’t for the three lines that make me want to puke every time I hear them.)
5×16, “Dark Side of the Moon,” actually made me cry, which I think is my first time crying at a SPN episode? This SPN obsession happened so fast, I think it took a while for my emotions to catch up. The thing that got me was the first memory Dean relives in heaven, setting off fireworks and Sam hugging him. That kid that plays young Sam is fantastic, and just, the simple experience of making Sam happy and being loved by Sam means so much to Dean. (Plus the subsequent juxtaposition of that innocent joy with the flashback of Dean and Sam being shot to death in their beds was such a horrific commentary of how miserable their lives have become at that point.)
The other thing that hit me is that I’m really happy with the ending of 5×22. I’ve been rewatching with Dean’s final scenes in mind, looking at the threads that build up to it, and I think it’s very well-developed, moving, and effective, because:
* I have an aversion to the idealization of white-picket-fence domesticity that you often see on TV, but it doesn't bother me here. Dean doesn't want conformity--that's never been part of his character, and I don't think he buys into it now. It's not about some delusion that a "normal" life is superior to an "abnormal" one. What Dean wants is peace and love and security, to be safe and to be connected to other people in a meaningful, stable, long-term way--that's always been part of Dean's character. He's been mourning that life since he was four years old.
The show wove that theme through the seasons really well: Dean's quixotic quest to reunite his family throughout season one; that he could barely bring himself leave the djinn's constructed universe, which was defined by stable, unconditional familial love and the promise of a future; his desire for a last Christmas; his recurring dreams about a life with Lisa and Ben; his happy memories in heaven all being moments of closeness with his family. Dean's always been longing for the stable family life that he lost, but he's always believed he can't have it--the closest he can get is life as a monster hunter with Sam, to whom he clings in ways even the show acknowledges are unhealthy.
The question posed at the end of the season is interesting--peace or freedom? I think Dean would ultimately choose freedom, but really, most people need a mix of both. Dean's lived without peace for so long--on the road without a stable home, risking his life every day, sleeping with a weapon under his pillow. In the early seasons it was Sam pointing out that the lives they live are absurd, but later it's Dean who wants out. He starts saying he's "tired" in season two, and it only gets worse as he bears more suffering and feels more responsibility for saving other people and eventually the whole world.
I think Farscape portrayed the effects of trauma and PTSD more consistently and coherently than SPN, but SPN has still been fairly effective in showing that the life Dean's been leading is destroying him. (Of course, forty years in hell didn't help.) By the last couple of seasons he's emotionally exhausted, (borderline?) alcoholic, and regularly teetering on the edge of a breakdown. After everything Dean's been through, he deserves some peace.
I don't necessarily think he should stay in the domestic life forever, but man, he could use the break, and he probably needs it in order to continue functioning at all.
* I like Lisa. I'm mostly okay with her lack of development so far, because part of the reason the story works is that she represents a world that Dean wants into, but really does not understand. Now that Dean has entered that world, it's the time to develop her--I hope the show does.
And from what we have seen of her, Lisa is a strong character. It would've been easy for the show to make her a perfect supportive woman stereotype, but instead she has her own agenda and doesn't take any bullshit from Dean. I like that she's suspicious of him and sends him away as soon as she decides he's a bad influence on her son (and that the show doesn't portray her as unreasonable or punish her for rejecting Dean). I also like that she sees through the changeling so quickly. We don't know that much about her, but we know that she's smart, quick-thinking, and independent enough to stand up to Dean and to raise a kid on her own.
I'm still bothered by the fact that she takes Dean in after he just shows up on her doorstep with a massive heap of emotional issues, when he's basically a stranger who she's seen a couple of times over the course of years. But after rewatching, I'm fairly okay with it, mainly because she's legitimately grateful to him for saving her son, and because the last thing she does in her first episode is invite him in for a beer. It is a metaphorical invitation into her life that he declines because 1) he's busy fighting a demon war and 2) he knows he's going to hell soon. When he comes back years later to say goodbye and tell her he'll make sure she's safe, she invites him in again and again he declines. So when he shows up in 5x22, it's not a totally unsolicited intrusion--he's just very belatedly taking her up on her previous invitations. (And JA acts that scene fantastically--it's clear that Dean knows that Lisa doesn't owe him anything, that her taking him in is an act of grace.)
(I don't like that the she's always home when Dean knocks and apparently never dates anyone else, or that her main defining trait as a character is as a mother, but this is Supernatural we're talking about. I'm trying to find the positives.)
My biggest fears about season six:
* I'm afraid that they're going to project the peace/freedom question onto essentialist female/male stereotypes. I really don't want to see Lisa as a stereotypical "harpy" nagging Dean into giving up all his boys-will-be-boys "fun."
* That they're going to fridge Lisa. Given this show's track record, I'd be absolutely shocked if they didn't fridge her, but for the sake of my own sanity, I'm holding out hope.
In slightly more shallow news, I have been watching this for like five minutes straight. Um.
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