Supernatural 10X5 Fan Fiction
And here we see the most demonstrative example of the thinking patterns of both the cynic and the optimist.
I was, as a previous LF prediction expounded, very nervous about episode 200 and it's proclamation about being 'for the fans'. My experience with the show as a fan as been quite negative in a directly textual sense, as I have seen myself and those like me mocked in a number of ways within the meat of the show.
So this made my approach to the episode more like battening down the hatches for a bumpy night. I honestly didn't and don't (to some extent) think these people know their fans. They might know the crazy town surface, but not the breadth of the audience willing to dig deep into the show on an intellectual level. Some of the Supernatural metas I have read are nothing short of breathtaking. It's not just about thinking the boys are hot. It helps, sure, but how many tv shows full of hot people debut each year on television only to be canceled by the third of fourth episode?
While I've beheld a few people having extreme Supernatural Feels in response to this episode, try as I might I cannot share their unbridled enthusiasm. For example, I did not cry. I did not even approach cry stage, and I am a girl who is not terribly hard to crack. I brayed like a donkey and clapped like a seal, but no crying. In fact, I'm so late posting this because I had to sort out my feels, rewatch and then go away to see what I really thought about it, and there is something holding me back from full joy. It could be that I'm a cynic. Or a bitch who will never be satisfied, but everyone else seems so pleased, why am I in the 'Had-A-Good-Time-But-Why-Is-Everyone-Else-Fangasming?' camp?
This is not to say I didn't enjoy the episode enormously. But I have so much to say, this bitchview gave me fits on how to set it up. This episode had so much content I wanted to address, and I have to give it props for that alone, for the shear dearth of STUFF. And there are several elements that I won't know how I feel about until we see them pan out. But there were great one liners, and lots of fun moments. It's where we come into meta content this becomes sticky...
Recap
We open with what appears to be the front page of the pilot typed out, and then onto curtains swinging back and we see a bit of the stage play being rehearsed before the director, Marie, calls cut and pokes at the actors for not wearing their full costumes.
Actually, I was girding myself for some hardcore upset with Marie in the first minute. Marie is the student director of her private girl's high school musical, a musical she has written based on the Supernatural books. Her bombastic behavior over something as reasonable as PLZ WEAR YOUR COSTUMES FOR THIS DRESS REHEARSAL, plus the actresses muttering about just being there for credit and the drama teacher's annoyance are a weird note to open it up with and made me deeply uncomfortable with a reminder that this show thinks all people with ovaries who watch the show are Becky Rosen. The drama teacher, convinced Supernatural is bull to the shit, is going to pull the plug on the musical, leaves, and gets kidnapped by some vines which leave behind CONVIENENT FLOWER.
The title sequence was fun. I don't give points for this kind of thing because it's just editing, and as nice as it was to see them, the Queen Mommy of this concept is still Buffy the Vampire Slayer's season 7 open where the First Evil morphs into every one of the previous big bads.
The credits pick up on Dean, apparently trying to get Baby to forgive him for his relegating her to 'just a car' by grease monkeying around in the wee hours. That, or he's desperate for a distraction, so desperate he's willing to take a disappearance without any weirdness as a potential case. Sam points this out, but I get the idea that both understand Dean is clinging to the wall by his fucking fingernails, so Sam humors him and off they go. Apparently Paper Moon's pseudo talk has not actually helped matters. Shock and awe.
They pull up to the St. Alonso's High School talking shop. Namely, Sam was a theater kid, and Dean mocks anything demonstrative despite the fact he is a walking movie dictionary. They also fail at observing, considering they walk right under the banner for the musical going up, and so Sam and Dean head right into meta-town.
AND LO, THE LAST ADULT TO BE SEEN. Maybe the FBI dudes shouldn't be questioning minors alone, lady. No? Okay then.
It's fitting that girl!Bobby startles them out of their rut, in a way. There's a girl rehearsing as Bobby, as Castiel and then the scope of it hits them. My notes have the first of four instances referencing their faces. This one is OMFG THEIR FACES. Swiftly followed by 'Dean's broken' and 'SAM'S FACE' and 'DEAN'S FACE'.
This, I think is the best aspect of the episode, hands down. Watching Sam and Dean react to people's thoughts and interpretations of their lives. They are, of course, horrified initially. Everywhere they look is HORROR, seeing the worst shit in their lives put to jaunty music. I have to hand it to Jensen and Jared, this is some fantastic work on their parts.
Needless to say, Sam and Dean are thrown off their game.They still pretend to be FBI and interrogate Maeve and Marie, our main girls. Well, Dean gets sidetracked by announcing there is no singing in Supernatural. Marie and Maeve are quick to point out that this is Marie's interpretation of the books.
- Pedantic Point Alert! On one hand, I vaguely understood why this had to be at a high school. They needed to have an amateurish stage-play of the books. Though, sidebar, has anyone EVER honestly heard of a high school just letting a student take over creative direction of their play, particularly in this day in age? It's one of those things that happens in film only. And to back up how weird and unrealistic all this is, the teacher disappears and there is not a single other representative of the school there? At no point does any member of staff go Hey, Maybe We Should Worry About Those Giant Dudes Just Hanging Out With The Students? Please consider your high school experience. How often were you totally unsupervised, possibly with expensive theater equipment?
Sam takes over the interview, as Dean is still in the background grappling with this reality. We find out that the drama teacher who got snared in the cold open was an intense drunk. Sam sends Dean with Marie to look at Mrs. Chandler's office and Sam goes with Maeve for a behind the scenes tour. Well, after he confesses he's a little charmed by the stage play and Dean gives him him a look like 'You Cannot Be Serious, Traitor'.
They experience different angles of this production. Dean heads backstage with Marie, and passes girl!Sam and girl!Dean rehearsing for a Wincest moment which Dean addresses, then fixes the blocking for. Marie is more the egotist, and gives plentiful opinions of the books, the characters, and her alterations to the plot. Maeve is more subdued, and Sam more goal oriented, so he actually asks questions, unlike Dean who is knee-deep in the meta of it. Sam tries to reminisce about working tech and his apple pie memories but Maeve brushes him off. Sam plays with the tech equipment anyway because he is an adorable moose.
Mrs. Chandler's office (Seriously? All those booze bottles in the open?) Dean finds a robot head, and we learn that he knows what fanfiction is (I bet he gets drunk sometimes and looks it up on Sam's laptop when he's feeling a need to self flagellate and like, cries and reads and drinks) and we hear Marie's feelings on the send off series five, how invested she was and generally her passion. Dean is less than impressed. Dean attempts to tell Marie what really happened, post Swan Song. She laughs at his rendition as being terrible fanfiction. While she laughs at him, Dean tries to look anywhere but her, and he spies Girl!Dean and Girl!Castiel. Now, when Dean protested that Girl!Sam and Girl!Dean were standing waaaay too close together a few minutes earlier, I wrote in my notes 'They will never refer to Destiel' because Wincest is a good free shot. I dislike Wincest intensely, and it has no chance being canon so I knew there would be at least one Wincest joke. THere was, and it was over quickly.
Imagine my surprise when but minutes after writing that the show decides to aquatint Dean with Destiel.
Dean has another mental breakdown wherein outside of the girls actually dating, he finds out that the 'nature of Destiel is explored in act two' and 'you can't spell subtext without sex'. Then Jensen looks at the camera.
Dean and Sam leave the theater, presumably with Dean having said to Sam DID YOU FUCKIN' KNOW PEOPLE SHIP CASTIEL AND I? WE'RE LIKE BRANGELINA OR BENNIFER, EXCEPT WE'RE DESTIEL because we come with Sam questioning the pronunciation. This whole exchange is comedy gold, GOLD, I TELL YOU. With Sam figuring out what his ship name for Sam/Castiel would be. See Destiel section for more thoughts here, which revolve around text wise, this scene is a barren wasteland. Ultimately, they decide there might not be a case, and Dean tries to restrain his excitement that he gets to leave without being presented with any more evidence that EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD THINKS HE IS BANGING DUDES.
The boys pimp off for their motel which, interestingly, we do not see. Once the boys arrive at the theater, the show sticks on the school campus. most of the scenes take place in the theater, though there are quick trips to an office, the library, and the boiler room. However, it's not a bottle-show, so the fact that they don't leave the world of the theater where fiction and reality merge and mutant, where Dean and Sam are constantly being juxtaposed with dramatizations of their life, lends a particular kind of skewed reality to the proceedings. This has benefits but also detractions.
We cut to that night when the girl playing Sam, Maggie, is leaving in a temper, followed by Marie. She is sick of Marie's Nazi-directing and non-canon liberties, and is going to tell the principle ...something. Anyway, Maggie gets grabbed by the vines, which are actually a scarecrow. Also it leaves behind another convenient flower and a frightened Marie as a witness.
Well, a second disappearance means the boys are back on campus the next day to interrogate Marie (the girls do not actually seem to have class, when they go to school). Marie, aware she will be disbelieved, tells them what she saw. She comes to the realization that all the stuff from the books is real and so Dean and Sam try to tell she and Maeve that they actually ARE Sam and Dean Winchester. I hold my breath, but in a rare moment of restraint, the girls laugh at them and the idea that these fictional men are real. I was so relieved that the girls weren't ready to throw themselves at Sam and Dean like Becky, whose grip on reality was a little tenuous. They do believe that the guys are hunters, though.
And point out the men are too old. I get teenagers have a skewed idea of age, but something I don't like about this show is how often they just pretend Jensen and Jared are not obscenely attractive. It makes no sense with me.
Having decided the scarecrow prop in the play from the episode Scarecrow might be the culprit, the four go to the school library (Clearly, I got the short end of the stick, my school library did not have a mythology section. They had Bullfinch's Mythology. Does that count? And, what the hell? The Librarians didn't go WTF are you two doing with those teenage girls?) Anyway, they think it might be a Tulpa. So Sam and Maeve stay in the library, and Dean and Marie go burn the scarecrow prop from the musical. They do, but upon returning the library discover that Sam believes it is not a Tulpa, but Calliope, one of the Greek muses.
Who is a lot more violent than I remember her being. She's here to make sure the show will go on, and will then eat the heart of the one behind the vision.
- Pedantic Point Alert! Look. I knooow in this version the angels are dicks. So in order to make Christianity the more appealing option, the rest of the pantheons of gods eat humans and other such douchery. Now, there are some straight up legit freaky bits of mythology, but I sincerely do not like the way the Greeks like Hestia and Calliope have been portrayed. I mean, the Greeks were all about being petty bitches and kicking humans who annoyed them, but I'd actually say they were muuuch more likely to fuck you than kill you. Again, I understand why Calliope is here, I just don't like the way they've maneuvered her to be here. Muses do not eat people, and if they did, I'd like to think they might aim a little higher than high school productions of recycled stories. An I'm kind of tired of all the goddess characters as well as big name Christian characters like Eve and Lilith being psychotics that need to be put down.
So, Marie is going to cancel the play, but Sam points out that Calliope won't let the show stop, and that they have to take her out, but the only way to do that is to do the show and lure her out. Marie, understandably, panics a bit. Sam ditches Dean to leave him to handle Marie. In the end, with some encouragement from Dean, she resolves the show must go on with her now playing the role of Sam. She has to fight, like her sweet Sam would. Here is where Dean first defends the play, where previously he had been very negative of their interpretation.
So, the show is on, the house is filling up! The cast gathers back stage. Marie gives everyone a once over. And in the background Dean fixes Girl!Castiel's tie. I almost die. His attention is drawn to Marie and he learns about the 'Samulet'. Sam rolls up and hands Dean some weapons as Dean starts to give the cast an inspirtational speech which highlights particularly how this is Marie's version of Supernatural and that her version should involve as much standing too close/subtext as they can.
Marie goes out to address the audience and kind of blabs a bit, and advises the audience to put on the ponchos under their seats and the musical begins.
As the opening number starts, it's worth it to say the music is actually pretty good. I've seen a lot of musicals, and heard a lot of mediocre music. The three original songs presented here, 'On the Road So Far', 'I'll Just Wait Here Then' and 'A Single Man Tear'' are actually really decent and catchy, as well as the lullaby cover of 'Carry On My Wayward Son. While the performances are often cut with the backstage action, there are actually some great lyrics. I would actually sit through this production.
While "The Road So Far' plays, Sam stalks around backstage. Dean cannot help but get into the play before remembering he should be hunting the scarecrow. The Scarecrow appears and takes Sam. Dean tries to intervene without going onstage.
Sam wakes up in the basement with the kidnapped Maggie and Mrs. CHandler and is confronted by Calliope. Onstage, Girl!Castiel sings her song ( All the props to Nina Winkler, for this, frankly, beautific expression while singing it) while Dean regroups with the offstage Marie.
In the basement, Calliope brags about knowing something was different, what with the inspiration for the story being present. Then she swiftly mocks act two, which is apparently where the canon divergence is. When Sam asks why Supernatural, she claims it has everything a story needs and praises it. This could be seen as the writers patting themselves on the back in praise of their product, though I think it occupies more of a middle ground than sheer masturbastation.
Onstage Marie as Sam sings 'A Single Man Tear', which is in praise of Dean, but Dean is too busy fighting to hear it. The scarecrow pops up and tries to grab Marie, presumably so Calliope can eat her before act two? Without fully realizing the vision? See, this is weird. I would argue that Calliope eats highschoolers writing fanfic to stay under the radar, rather than, I dunno, say J.K. Rowling. BUT, your Scarecrow disappearing people on a stage in front of a hundred odd witnesses is not all that under the radar, is it? In other words, it doesn't make much sense.
Anyway, Dean tries to fight the thing off, even ending up on stage while the cast carries on while a massive scarecrow tries to grab Marie. This is intercut with scenes of Sam in the basement with Maggie and Mrs. Chandler, who manage to both distract Calliope and arm Sam so he can stab Calliope at the same time as Marie onstage can stab the scarecrow. Both explode in a burst of purple goo, the latter coating the audience. The evil is vanquished; Marie onstage and Sam behind the scenes.
Okay, I must confess, I love Poncho guy. I love Poncho guy's commitment.
During the intermission Sam has a final moment with Maeve, who tells him he might not make a half bad Dean. I am unsure if this is a Gilmore Girls joke, or if Maeve is a DeanGirl and Marie is a SamGirl, so each extended their highest praise to the wrong brother.
Marie has a moment with Dean, wherein she accepts that Dean is Dean. She gives him the stage samulet and Dean does his jerk/bitch thing with her. So far he has yet to do that with Sam this season.
Act two starts up. Offstage, Dean and Sam watch girl!Sam and girl!Dean doing the scene Dean earlier saw being rehearsed, about doing what they do and their purpose. Sam at first claims that Dean was right, staying being cooped up hasn't helped. Then the boys do my pet peeve, and LET OTHER PEOPLE HAVE THEIR CONVERSATION FOR THEM. Only this time, it's as close to being Sam and Dean having a conversation as it could ever be without actually being them. It's two people playing them, reiterating that their place is on the road, hunting things.
Then Mary, John, Bobby, Dean Sam and Adam come onstage to sing Carry on My Wayward Son. Sam and Dean have no idea who Adam is, despite the fact that they could recognize Chuck was absent from the cast earlier. Maeve tells them that's Adam. That moment I kind of loved, because the fans have never forgotten Adam in the cage. The boys and the show kind of have, so it was good to see this nod that fans remembered this character and his horrific fate, while the 'official' people have forgotten him. More interesting is that, rather than casting someone else to play Adam, Nina Winkler, the Castiel, is the one playing him. The song is beautiful, and clearly touches the boys.
In the Impala, driving towards sunrise, Dean puts the stage version of the Samulet onto his rear view mirror and off they go.
Back in the theater, it turns out Chuck Shirley saw the performance. I was more like 'huh' than excited. Again, how I feel about his particular presence depends on what happens with the future and whether or not he is God and we get textual proof of that. The problem with the ambiguity, is that I don't get excited just seeing someone whose motivations are a mystery. It's more 'oh, Chuck. Is Chuck back for good, or is this just for this episode?'.
This episode has, what is for Supernatural, a very unusual feel-good element to it. I enjoyed it all times I watched it, though the second time I was more aware that my excitement and amusement over certain elements overshadowed more critical thinking aspects. So it's still a highly enjoyable episode, but I'm not sure and will not be sure until we see more, how well the serialized elements were handled.
Every single one of the female actresses did a fantastic job, I just want to say that loud and clear. Jared and Jensen were at the top of their game. THis episode was funny, fast paced and incredibly fucking ambiguous. Get used to that word, folks.
Meta
For my money, it's this episode which should have been called 'Meta Fiction' and last year's episode featuring Metatron re-writing their lives should have been titled 'Fan Fiction'. Besides the name pun, Meta Fiction had much more to say about writing fanficition than it did with anything meta. Nothing meta in the sense of it being self referntial was really happening. It was about the ultimate fanboy taking a stab at fanfiction, to 'right' what he thought was a narrative 'wrong'. He demonstrates knowledge of trope and device, of the characters, and, at the end of the day, is writing a Gary Stu fanfic casting himself as the hero.
This episode has much more to do with the meta aspects of the show. Yes, fanfiction is mentioned a lot, but it's not really what the episode is about. The boys interrupt a musical of the books of their lives, and I would suggest this is the most they've ever seen of that version. Sure, they knew about the books, they knew about fans, but evidence suggests that neither Sam nor Dean has ever sat down and read them.
We've seen several of these kinds of episodes, but never has the focus been on the content of the books. In The Monster at the End of this Book, the boys discover the Supernatural books, squick over the Wincest and track down the author Chuck Shirley, but issues in the episode revolve largely around how Chuck knew about them, and how they can use his foreknowledge to their advantage. The Real Ghostbusters was more about the inanities of the fans themselves. The French Mistake was about poking fun at the production team, actors, and making the show. Time for a Wedding skewers fangirls specifically through the repeated kicking of Becky Rosen and her fixation on the fictionalized version of Sam. Charlie mentioned the book series being online, but never elaborated.
Putting this episode here has value in a direct textual sense. As I said, the boys have run into the books and the fans before, but this is a different perspective altogether. This is them inescapably witnessing their lives, their choices, the people they've loved and lost, from an outside perspective.
We've only had Dean back for one episode, and in Paper Moon, Dean was quick to come down on himself for always doing what felt like the wrong thing. He wasn't even particularly happy as a demon. Old issues keep coming up in this season. We've have more references to previous events and issues in these few episodes than we have the last few seasons, so with Dean needing some affirmation, a meta episode seemed like a good idea. For Dean to see that people love and value him, and understand the decisions he's had to make. By their nature, Hunters are isolated. They can only be honest with people inside their community, but it's a community of semi-crazies who are not likely to see old age. Dean, in particular, really craves community, affirmation by his peers and a certain amount of external, even paternal, approval. I liked the idea of him and his epically bad self esteem seeing himself through the eyes of fans who have seen him through bad and good and love him. People love Dean. Hell, I love Dean He's a deeply disturbed and damaged individual, but I love him, and I want the best things for him. He's inspiring and strong, brave, noble, and so many other positive things he can't see about himself. I wanted this episode to be a bright spot for Dean and for Sam to remind them that the choices suck, have always sucked, will always suck, but they keep truckin' and that's what makes them remarkable. Someone keeps stacking the deck against them, keeps knocking them down, but they persevere, they get back up each time. I think, after all this time, the guys needed that. Needed to feel why they were loved, and feel that what they do matters.
Not so much Marie praising Sam to Dean, Maeve praising Dean to Sam, Dean getting a crash course in who is shipping who and reminding Sam and Dean that, gosh, they love each other. The Single Man Tear song was good in elaborating Dean's strong qualities, but Dean wasn't really listening to it.
In fact, I'm not entirely sure what the boys walked away with at the end. There was a kind of cinematric gravity lead to Sam and Dean driving off into the sunrise, but I'm not sure it was warrented. I'll go more into the mind boggling ambiguity that accounts for huge swaths of this episode in the Destiel section, but it's very much in play with Sam and Dean too. After arriving at the theater after the cold open, Sam and Dean spend most of the episode split up with Maeve and Marie, or together as a foursome. It makes the idea that they had some big epiphany bizarre. They do not talk about a single thing they see in the production. Nada. When Sam does try to agree with Dean, that they can't be cooped up, Dean interrupts them so they can watch girl!Sam and girl!Dean have basically the same fucking conversation they've had over and over again: That Sam and Dean Need To Be On The Road.
Ignoring how many times we've basically had the same conversaion, didn't we already do this last week? Wasn't that the point of Paper Moon? That Dean couldn't just sit still, and aren't they at this high school they were looking for a case? I guess I didn't feel this issue was ever at stake, so the fact that this same old We Belong On The Road shit is being what is reaffirmed, reminds me that this show is so mind bogglingly emotionally constipated even I feel like I need an enema. It's like the only thing it can have any unambiguous discourse on, is how the brothers belong on the road and together. But they already were.
Here is all the other shit present in the episode that no one says a damn thing about: about how their relationship can be damaging, How Sam and Dean feel about each other after season 9, Dean's recent demoning, Dean's continuing self worth issues, how the boys feel about their life available as fiction, John Winchester's A+ parenting, Bobby, Ash, Jo and Ellen Harville or even Adam, or Dean's preoccupation with Sam leaving him.
But none of it was addressed. We're in the same old place we've ever been.
Sam's experience with the girl's musical is very much one where he enjoys this window into normalcy. He talks about his days working tech, he manages to stay on case. Sam is a very healthy individual in some ways. After initial moments of shock seeing his horrible life dramatized, he comes around very quickly to finding it all kind of cute. He gets a kick out of being something there is a fandom for. He's always been confident in his identity and masculinty. What others incorrectly perceive him to be has never bothered him terribly. He can find this all very funny because he is secure, thus he is not sidetracked the way Dean is.
Dean, on the other hand, is incredibly threatened by everything in this production, and the episode goes out of its way to fling aspects that will upset him the most into his path for comedy. Basically, the episode is making jokes out of Dean's insecurity. He can't let it go. Dean wants to fix everything in the show. But, again, of all the things they could talk about or present to Dean for him to think about that would do some healthy things for him, basically the episode wants to push Wincest and Destiel under Dean's nose and watch him squirm, rather than address, say, John's parenting. John came up not two episodes ago in Soul Survivor, and we would be foolish to think that the boy's issues surrounding him have simply evaporated. This would be an excellent opportunity for Dean to be able to look at some of it and maybe put it to bed.
Over the course of the episode, Dean goes from hating every second of the musical to encouraging the players and even rocking out to it. While I like the shift, I don't really understand why he warms up to it. Again, I suppose it falls into that gully of things I guess I felt should have existed; which was, something to sway Dean's mind about some inherent value in the production. Maybe some of the girls talking about why this show was important to them in a serious way. I've heard a lot of fans talk about how this show has given them courage or companionship, or how they look up to the characters, and I felt that this was missing. Not only for a sense of Dean's mental equilibrium, but to turn him around into accepting that this was a story that gave strength and hope to people. Instead? Lots of jokes on what fans added to the canon, which I don't think was where the heart of the episode was.
So, when the boys drive off triumphantly into that sunset, I'm not really sure what either of them walked away with. I'm not even sure what the new Samulet represents. Is it a renewed symbol of Dean's love for Sam? Is it a symbol of Dean's acceptance of his life consumed as fiction with lots of interpretations that he finds uncomfortable? Is it a talisman for Marie? There are so many options, because the show cannot stop sitting on the fence about a single emotional issue.
And still, Supernatual thinks it's male fans are 30 something losers (The Real Ghostbusters) who are pedantic about the supernatural details and thrive on horror... annnd it thinks its female fans are quasi-lunatic teenagers who cannot see any farther than the feels, and are capable only of squee.
Although Marie is a mixed bag. She laughs rather than immediately buy into her favorite fictional characters being real. When Dean asks for her to be brave and put herself in danger, she does. When she decides Dean is really Dean she doesn't drool and grope, the way Becky Rosen did. On the other hand, she's obsessive kind of a bitch. The actress, Katie Sarife imbued her with more likeability than was innate in the script.
ANd, in a final annoyance, the episode does go to some lengths to validate that Marie can have her version, and Dean will have his. Again, I've seen fans ever-so-excited to see this, and honestly, I'm insulted by it. It's the height of hubris to feel you get to decree that the public has the right to interpret your work you've put into the public. OF COURSE WE GET TO INTERPRET YOUR WORK. That's what it is to put a piece of creative fiction into the public's eye. And as much as I'm about to talk some Destiel, I feel this overwhelming message of the episode overshadows what it should have been doing. We need resolution for Dean and Sam, not permission for us to play in our own crazy sandboxes. 'Our version' wouldn't exist if you didn't spend a fuck of a lot of time putting in the subtext.
Destiel
I was nigh convinced they were never going to bring this up in this episode. As I've said, Wincest is a good free shot, because it's not going to happen, nor should it. The show itself has been really firm on that in text and in terms of behind-the-scenes talk. Dean dismisses Wincest, the creators say No, Ew, whereas with Destiel they are way more cagey and all over the map. At the very least they know Destiel shippers are legion, and pissing them off would be a bad move. So we get a range of avoidance statements from tptb, and Misha Collins going 'C'Mon, what do you think is going on? (Please, someone, in ten years, interview Misha and find out how often he got called into the carpet for stuff he's said. I will pay you in pie.) So a textual admission that this thing existed opens up many more sticky issues.
But, on that slim chance they didn't simply pretend Destiel didn't exist, I was fortifying for the worst. Destiel is not the reason I watch the show, but it's a ship I didn't want to be sailing, and sort of found myself shanghaied into YO HO YO HO A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR ME. I'm cognizant that the ship represents a chance for some serious representation for bi-characters while smashing down a stereotype, and highlighting that someone's sexual orientation does not have to be the whole story, or 'serve' a story.
Basically, mocking Dean for being interpreted as a bi-sexual would be a harmful, cruel and a stupid thing to do and I didn't know if SPN had it in them to treat the topic respectfully.
And they know all this. So they just decided not to address it at all.
While I've tried not to read too many other people's thoughts before fully formulating my own, I haven't been able to miss the response to the way Destiel was addressed. People feel validated. People feel Destiel has been validated. There is rejoicing in the streets that the elephant in the room was addressed for all the normies to contemplate without pointing and laughing or coming right out and saying that it's a thing.
However, the cynic in me feels that points don't get awarded for not making fun of something. And ultimately, Destiel was treated with the most amazingly limber ambiguity I have ever seen. In fact, they keep bringing it up- I count five points- and yet not a single concrete thing is said about it. I mean, someone, for a million dollars, what isthe 'issue' Dean ahd with Destiel, in his own words?
It's interesting how Destiel was introduced though Siobhan and Kristen. Rather than seeing it as something rehearsed in the show, as with Wincest, Robbie Thomas chose to aquatint Dean with Destiel via some real-life lesbians who happen to be playing he and Cas. It's Dean who spots the duo, codes them into a romantic situation and checks to see if their behavior is performed into the show. I approve of seeing more gay here, but that the girls are in a canon relationship I don't think validates Destiel particularly. I do think their relationship was a device to gently introduce Dean to Destiel in a healthy non-fetishistic way.
Dean's faaaaaace, however. As has been written many times before, Jensen is a master of showing Dean's mental process. Through the series he does several fantastic schticks where you can see his thoughts unraveling before your eyes. Please feast your eyes below.
I would argue though that this is the first time in the episode that Dean looks mad, rather than shocked or stupefied or vaguely nauseous. When he suspects 'he' might be in the show hugging 'Castiel', he actually looks really upset with the idea, as compared to his eye-rolling annoyance with seeing Wincest, which, of the two, is arguably more offensive.
For my money, this does bug Dean, but so does most of the musical that isn't the truth. Here is the first point where the show gets hella ambiguous with Destiel. Dean could be annoyed he's being slashed with another dude after Marie snorted over Lisa. Dean could also be defensive of what is a very complex relationship, romantic or not, being appropriated by people who don't know the first thing about it. And, Dean could also be a little freaked that something he's been actively repressing is there, right in front of his face WHERE PEOPLE CAN SEE IT, OMG. I've seen people make a deal that Dean didn't tell them to step back, but this is a completely different context. Then, he was looking at blocking for a show. Now, he's watching people having a real relationship. There are no specific details to which he can protest, except Marie's nebulous statement that they 'investigate the nature of Destiel'.
Dean's in-camera look: I know Jensen improvised this, but I honestly don't know what it means, besides smacking the fourth wall. The look is very kind of 'really?' and follows the line 'but then, you can't spell subtext without sex'. Frankly, I think he looks annoyed, and I would be perfectly happy never to talk about Destiel again, if the show would stop writing lines like 'No, no, this is a story, Neil, a marvelous story, full of love and heartbreak and...love.' and 'Oh, that's right -- to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right? Well, guess what. He's dead, too. ' which are intentionally provocative. I would understand this look in correlation with Wincest, but when the other actor in the paring effectively says 'these dudes are in love' you kind of lose any ground upon which to proclaim shippers as idiots.
Cut to Dean and Sam at the Imapala. Dean is distressed by this revelation. Sam is amused. He suggests alternate ship names for himself, but Sam is not surprised or confused or even somewhat resigned, as he was when faced with Wincest. Sam doesn't question that lots of high school girls think Dean and Cas might be boning. Sam turns the talk back to the case, but cannot resist poking his brother one more time. However, when Dean orders him into silence, Sam does make a particular face. He isn't laughing, so Dean's antagonized expression was clearly not Sam's goal, or else he would be enjoying making his brother squirm. Instead, I would call Sam's look almost resigned at being told to shut up.
However, Sam's lack of questioning, or even his final concerned expression does not mean he thinks Dean and Cas are already kind of gay for each other. Don't get me wrong, I like to think it's exactly what I put in that final box there, because that's what I personally read. 'Dude, just deal with it. BUT, it's ambiguous, like many things in this episode. It could also mean that, as Sam has proved over this episode, he knows how fandom works. He finds the production charming, and if fans were to slash Sam and Castiel, well, he'd just find it funny. Dean is taking it to heart, so it could just as easily be that Sam finds his attitude about the whole thing kind of a killjoy. It was a whole scene with no one saying what they thought of Destiel existing.
This could have been the end of it. Detiel has been addressed, they don't need to bring it up again.
Then Dean fixes girl!Castiel's tie and I have a small a squee attack, but again, this is really ambiguous. On the one hand, Dean selects 'Castiel' of all the cast to touch and interact with, he knows exactly how Cas's tie should be, so he corrects it … On the other hand, Dean is not strictly comfortable with this version. He could also be fixing Cas's tie because of all the inaccurate things heading onto that state tonight, Castiel's appearance, which is something Dean can control, is going to be perfect.
He also directs his line about putting subtext into the work to girl!Cas.
Now, of all the things we could see re-imagined for the musical- and there are five seasons worth of material folks, plus girls we saw in certain costumes for characters who have not had any lines- instead we have a re-enacted phone call and the most ambiguous ballad ever written.
I'll Just wait here then
That's what I'll do.
I'll just wait here then,
Wait for my cue.
I raised you from perdition
to be God's ammunition.
And now you need some rest
So I will do what's best
And Just wait here then.
That's all I'll do
I'll just wait here then
I'll wait for you.
It's a beautiful, haunting and sweet piece of music, and as I said, Nina Winkler does a beautiful job with it. It's notable that the episode kind of stops to enjoy the ambiguballad, even though Dean is not currently watching it. ALl other scenes in this chunk of the episode are intercut and juxtaposed, but not this one. It has no real impact on the story at large, and yet, compared to the earlier scene it is getting much more coverage as a legit scene, rather than a scene around which other things are going on. The audience is enjoying it, and there are several shots of them, which I did find strange. THe show jsut atops so 'Castiel' can sing. WHY?
At the end of the day, I have to come down to saying that with the ambiguity here, it depends upon how future episodes handle the idea that Dean knows his relationship with Castiel has a romantic interpretation. Because all of this is so pointed and it comes back when it doesn't have to, a part of me wants to think it is trying to be more blatant for casual viewers, particularly if you consider it in tandem with Castiel trying to gently tell Hannah it ain't gonna happen. The cynic in me, however, doubts this will be brought up. Dean is good at repressing. The show has made a career of not bringing up issues, and once you make Destiel something that Dean knows- hell, that SAM knows- it should really come up again in some form or another...and yet, if it comes up, it actually has to be dealt with, either legitimized or discarded, and I still don't think SPN has the ovaries to do it. I suspect it will go back into the closet
So, yet again, Supernatural manages to overflow with Destiel...without actually overflowing with anything. I AM IN AW OF ITS CAPAITY TO NEITHER TINKLE NOR GET OFF THE POTTY.
Random Notes BECAUSE I HAVE TO STOP
- Did we know Dean was a Knight of Hell? Was this a thing?
- Are the remaining six muses gonna come get the boys?
- I feel like someone scrolled A03. Tentacles? Dean as a woman? Robots? SOMEONE HIDE THE OMEGAVERSE. I have too much omegaverse to hide. Someone help, there is not enough room in my closet.