Grief and Supernatural
The answer to the question, “what I love about Supernatural” is a long one, the focus of which changes depending on my mood. One thing I connect with is the show’s focus on, and way of portraying and exploring, grief. I wrote this today because it is the anniversary of the death of someone in my life. So yes, this is part meta, part therapy.
On most TV shows, the impact of death and loss is rarely portrayed as being experienced for maybe one or two episodes. As is often the case in life, there is no space for the ongoing effect that loss has on a character. So few shows allow the sort of emotional continuity grief deserves. And it’s harder, because grief is about the absence of something, and that’s not easy to show.
In Supernatural, death and loss are there in the foundations of the show. Mary's death shapes the lives of John, Dean and Sam, each in different ways. That moment on the bridge, in the Pilot, when we see how differently Sam and Dean experience the loss of their mother, sets the standard for a show that refuses to simplify or generalize grief. We see it explicitly again in Scarecrow when Sam says to Dean “How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?”
This is such a painful exchange, but it highlights what we know - that grief is an intensely personal experience, and that sometimes having someone say “I know how you feel” feels as if it robs our pain of its uniqueness. In this case I suspect there is also an echo of bitterness, from the years when Sam was growing up and felt excluded from John and Dean’s grief because his experience of losing Mary (a mother he wouldn’t remember) would be so different from theirs.
Of course grief is not only about death, it’s about other losses. In Season One, we have a continued acknowledgement of Sam’s loss of his life at Stanford, there’s Dean’s struggle to deal with the loss of the family life he wants (hunting together) even before John’s death.
Supernatural doesn’t portray grief as some sort of soft focus sadness. In IMToD, the reaper speaks about the power of grief, the inability to accept death, to send someone mad - and worse. In so many episodes we see the spirits of people, who have been destroyed and turned evil, by their grief.
Dean and Sam experience their grief over John’s death in different ways. For Sam it is colored by guilt and the loss of the opportunity to ever have a better relationship with his father. For Dean it is compounded by his anger at John’s final instructions. That last scene in ElaC is a powerful portrayal of how grief is often mixed up with guilt and rage.
And they cope in different ways - Sam does want to talk about it, Dean won’t - or can’t. In "Bloodlust", Dean says he “has to keep his game face on for Sammy”. This is part of what I think of as the hierarchy of grief -the way we feel that certain people have a ‘right’ to be more upset than we do. Dean feels he must sublimate his feelings, so he can look after Sam. This backfires of course, Sam wants to Dean to share his grief.
WIAWSNB is an episode that in some ways is about the fantasies we all have when we lose someone, of life would be like if they were still here - about that love and remembering that is part of grief.
The finale confronted us with the unbearable pain that can accompany grief, the desperation to want that death undone, at all costs. The fact that sometimes when someone we love dies we wish we were dead too. And with the reunion with John the show let s us know that grief can change, and move to something that maybe like acceptance, or maybe just a lessening of the pain.
Becasue grief changes and shifts, and sometimes its overwhelming and oppressive - and sometimes its not. And in the midst of it we love and fuck and eat and laugh and for the most part, get on with our lives.
Season Three - more grief to come for both of them, dealing with Dean’s year to live. And Mary, and John and Jess’ death will continue to resonate. Because this show honors grief, and doesn’t shy away from the fact that it is part of our lives.
So let me know what you think about grief on Supernatural Or any other show. I thought The Doctor’s reaction to the loss of Rose was dealt with wonderfully through the last season, but no others really spring to mind.
On most TV shows, the impact of death and loss is rarely portrayed as being experienced for maybe one or two episodes. As is often the case in life, there is no space for the ongoing effect that loss has on a character. So few shows allow the sort of emotional continuity grief deserves. And it’s harder, because grief is about the absence of something, and that’s not easy to show.
In Supernatural, death and loss are there in the foundations of the show. Mary's death shapes the lives of John, Dean and Sam, each in different ways. That moment on the bridge, in the Pilot, when we see how differently Sam and Dean experience the loss of their mother, sets the standard for a show that refuses to simplify or generalize grief. We see it explicitly again in Scarecrow when Sam says to Dean “How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?”
This is such a painful exchange, but it highlights what we know - that grief is an intensely personal experience, and that sometimes having someone say “I know how you feel” feels as if it robs our pain of its uniqueness. In this case I suspect there is also an echo of bitterness, from the years when Sam was growing up and felt excluded from John and Dean’s grief because his experience of losing Mary (a mother he wouldn’t remember) would be so different from theirs.
Of course grief is not only about death, it’s about other losses. In Season One, we have a continued acknowledgement of Sam’s loss of his life at Stanford, there’s Dean’s struggle to deal with the loss of the family life he wants (hunting together) even before John’s death.
Supernatural doesn’t portray grief as some sort of soft focus sadness. In IMToD, the reaper speaks about the power of grief, the inability to accept death, to send someone mad - and worse. In so many episodes we see the spirits of people, who have been destroyed and turned evil, by their grief.
Dean and Sam experience their grief over John’s death in different ways. For Sam it is colored by guilt and the loss of the opportunity to ever have a better relationship with his father. For Dean it is compounded by his anger at John’s final instructions. That last scene in ElaC is a powerful portrayal of how grief is often mixed up with guilt and rage.
And they cope in different ways - Sam does want to talk about it, Dean won’t - or can’t. In "Bloodlust", Dean says he “has to keep his game face on for Sammy”. This is part of what I think of as the hierarchy of grief -the way we feel that certain people have a ‘right’ to be more upset than we do. Dean feels he must sublimate his feelings, so he can look after Sam. This backfires of course, Sam wants to Dean to share his grief.
WIAWSNB is an episode that in some ways is about the fantasies we all have when we lose someone, of life would be like if they were still here - about that love and remembering that is part of grief.
The finale confronted us with the unbearable pain that can accompany grief, the desperation to want that death undone, at all costs. The fact that sometimes when someone we love dies we wish we were dead too. And with the reunion with John the show let s us know that grief can change, and move to something that maybe like acceptance, or maybe just a lessening of the pain.
Becasue grief changes and shifts, and sometimes its overwhelming and oppressive - and sometimes its not. And in the midst of it we love and fuck and eat and laugh and for the most part, get on with our lives.
Season Three - more grief to come for both of them, dealing with Dean’s year to live. And Mary, and John and Jess’ death will continue to resonate. Because this show honors grief, and doesn’t shy away from the fact that it is part of our lives.
So let me know what you think about grief on Supernatural Or any other show. I thought The Doctor’s reaction to the loss of Rose was dealt with wonderfully through the last season, but no others really spring to mind.