Supernatural, Season One, Episode One
After (with my girlfriend's persistent nagging) watching the first episodes of Season Two of Supernatural, I've finally gotten around to watching Season One.
All I can say to the people who have been bugging me to watch the first season is: Thank your lucky stars I watched Season Two first. If the first episode of Season One had been the first thing I saw of Supernatural, I never would have wanted to watch the show again.
The mistakes regarding a STANDARD ghost story trope would have pissed me off enough that if I didn't already love Sam and Dean I'd never want to watch this show again. I mean, the story of "The Woman in White" (way to white-ify the Central and South American La Llorona story) is pretty cool: Poor woman falls in love with upper class man and has children with him. He either has to marry an upper class woman or cheats on the poor woman with an upper class woman. Maddened with grief-- or simply afraid to let her children live in poverty-- the poor woman drowns her children in the nearby river. And then, stricken with grief at what she's done, she kills herself and ends up searching the world the looking for her children.
Now, while I find the class stuff interesting, the important part of the story is that La Llorona is searching for her children. She ends up drowning travelers because she mistakes them for her children.
The Supernatural version, the Woman in White is killing unfaithful men. While this is interesting and creepy, this is NOT THE WAY THE STORY GOES. I could do a whole feminist thing about the fact that the way they changed the story shifts the focus from a woman's love for her children (which would have been completely in-theme for Supernatural anyway) to ZOMG she's killing MEN. Which is annoying enough as it is without the FREAKING ENDING. Not the ending of the episode, although even if I hadn't known the spoilers, I would have seen that one coming a mile away. I mean the way the ghost story ends-- she was afraid of her children? WTF. The entire POINT of La Llorona is that she's searching for them-- that she doesn't know where they are!
Hoestly, the story would have been a lot more cool if she'd ended up mistaking the boys for her children-- it would be thematically correct for the show, fit with the real legend, and have given the writers a chance to put Sam in danger.
So, of course, the entire second half of the episode, I'm ranting myself about this and can't actually focus on the episode itself. The plot's cool-- if they hadn't tried to dress it up and pass it off as something that it isn't at all.
So, yeah. Second Season? Hasn't yet done the "look at me, I can reference legends and get them wrong, I R SMRT," thing to me, so I'm willing to forgive the show. But, man, am I glad I saw the Second Season first. More gay, a LOT more cheesiness, less of me ranting at my computer screen.
All I can say to the people who have been bugging me to watch the first season is: Thank your lucky stars I watched Season Two first. If the first episode of Season One had been the first thing I saw of Supernatural, I never would have wanted to watch the show again.
The mistakes regarding a STANDARD ghost story trope would have pissed me off enough that if I didn't already love Sam and Dean I'd never want to watch this show again. I mean, the story of "The Woman in White" (way to white-ify the Central and South American La Llorona story) is pretty cool: Poor woman falls in love with upper class man and has children with him. He either has to marry an upper class woman or cheats on the poor woman with an upper class woman. Maddened with grief-- or simply afraid to let her children live in poverty-- the poor woman drowns her children in the nearby river. And then, stricken with grief at what she's done, she kills herself and ends up searching the world the looking for her children.
Now, while I find the class stuff interesting, the important part of the story is that La Llorona is searching for her children. She ends up drowning travelers because she mistakes them for her children.
The Supernatural version, the Woman in White is killing unfaithful men. While this is interesting and creepy, this is NOT THE WAY THE STORY GOES. I could do a whole feminist thing about the fact that the way they changed the story shifts the focus from a woman's love for her children (which would have been completely in-theme for Supernatural anyway) to ZOMG she's killing MEN. Which is annoying enough as it is without the FREAKING ENDING. Not the ending of the episode, although even if I hadn't known the spoilers, I would have seen that one coming a mile away. I mean the way the ghost story ends-- she was afraid of her children? WTF. The entire POINT of La Llorona is that she's searching for them-- that she doesn't know where they are!
Hoestly, the story would have been a lot more cool if she'd ended up mistaking the boys for her children-- it would be thematically correct for the show, fit with the real legend, and have given the writers a chance to put Sam in danger.
So, of course, the entire second half of the episode, I'm ranting myself about this and can't actually focus on the episode itself. The plot's cool-- if they hadn't tried to dress it up and pass it off as something that it isn't at all.
So, yeah. Second Season? Hasn't yet done the "look at me, I can reference legends and get them wrong, I R SMRT," thing to me, so I'm willing to forgive the show. But, man, am I glad I saw the Second Season first. More gay, a LOT more cheesiness, less of me ranting at my computer screen.