Wherein I squee about things in the show in addition to the boys.
Missions, mirrors, and mytharcs: a meta on Playthings
Without a doubt the boys have never looked hotter. People investigating global warming - this is the cause right here! Please refer to picspam meta by deirdre_c.
But also without a doubt the show has never looked hotter - set, lighting, framing direction. The whole swimming pool sequence. Beautiful set. The way the tension was built. The cutting between Sam and Dean trying to break their own doors (and some great symbolism right there - they are both trapped in their own ways) The plastic on the pool - stunning imagery, plus it made me really feel the panic of drowning. Slomo bits - I believed she could be dead. Wet!Sam. Wet!sam looking at Dean.
Also the visual shoutouts to The Shining. Instead of Dean quoting Jack we got the director Charles Beeson quoting Kubrick, esp with the long one take corridor shots.
The creepy has never been better looked better either. Antique dolls. Children. Old people. Yep they all creep me out. Dead guy with mouth moving like a goldfish on the floor. Love those gory details (like when the Sarge got his throat cut in Croatoan, and the neck wound kept pulsing).
Now a rave about symmetry and mirroring. I love how this show takes things from a past episode and flips them over. In Playthings we have Sam being the one insist on saving as many people as possible as his motivation for going on with hunting. Back in Wendigo that’s exactly what Dean said to Sam in the speech that included the Family Business line (Saving people; hunting things). That was what kept them hunting when Sam really wanted to find Dad, get revenge. But then it was Dean saying he wanted to kill as many of the those evil sons of bitches as possible. This time Sam wants to save as many people as possible.
And why is the Family Business line repeated nearly every episode? Because it’s the show’s mission statement. What ever happens in the mytharc, this is what keeps them hunting. It gives an internal logic to the show, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense if every ep wasn’t mytharc.
And it’s a two part mission - saving people; hunting things - which allows for the mission to continue with different emphasis and interpretation as the boys emotional situation and circumstances shift.
Also - we know there is crisis when the mission is abandoned or challenged. And that’s what Croataon and Hunted were - times of crisis. And we know that because there was no real saving of people or hunting things in those two episodes. People died, the evil wasn’t defeated. In Playthings we start getting back on track - Tyler is saved.
More mirrors with the first season - each has a point where Sam leaves, and then chooses to return and states his need for Dean. What’s flipped over is that in Scarecrow, Sam says he and Dean are all they have (So, if we’re gonna see this through, we’re gonna do it together) and they are stronger together - Dean teases him (Hold me Sammy). The dark twist is now Sam needs Dean to see it through with him - and to kill him if necessary.
And within Playthings we have the mirroring of charcters. Two sets of siblings, whose fate is entwined, one of whom has gone darkside and th eother who sacrifices herself to stay wiht her sister. And in the pool scene we see Tyler being drowned by evil - exactly how Sam feels (and then we get wet!Sammy sorry just - uyum)
In terms of dramatic structure we are at the beginning of the Second Act of the Season. The next few eps things will just keep piling up as the things attack the boys - the demon, Sam’s fears about himself, other challenges. In about episode 16 or so there will be an event that seems to take everything from the boys, perhaps introduce some conflict between them, but certainly put them further from their goal of defeating the demon than ever. In Season One this episode was Shadows. (BTW this is not based on spoilers.)
And finally to the gay jokes. Having a show meta* itself is not new. X-Files did it, most famously in Jose Chung’s From Outer Space. The Shatner/Spader vehicle Boston Legal often does it in ways that break the fourth wall. I’m talking about the moments when a show comments on itself in some way.
When Dean sends up Sam’s usually angtsy behaviour, there’s a layer of meaning there that acknowledges that in the show Sam’s usual reaction to something is to be angsty. Same with the gay jokes. And the times when the boys comment on how weird their lives are. It’s important to the show because it connects us to the characters, By acknowledging these things in the show, the viewer doesn’t have to wrestle with them (ie surely two attractive guys checking into a motel room together is a bit gay, wouldn’t they, and the hospitality industry think that) . And in this show it also allows another point of connection because it keeps these guys in character as ordinary guys in weird circumstances. We can save our suspension of disbelief for the supernatural, not for the boys.This is not the world of Prison Break or 24 where we have to suspend disbelief for everything.
And hey, its funny.
Of course we (fandom) are not the average viewer. We’ve already dealt with all these things - hell we’ve made icons about them. We’re ahead on some things eg drunk!Sammy, but then considering the millions of collective hours we put into this its not surprise. And so we get giddy and gleeful when there appears to be a blurring between the show and what we’ve created around it. I don’t think Kripke and the writers are reading our fanfic or discussion boards for ideas - that’s our conceit, but what its really expressing is how close we feel to our show. What a level of ownership. we feel. There’s no doubt this show, and the CW and are very aware of fandom, and we are seeing the effect of this. Not in the show’s writing, but in changes to things such as having the show available for free download - and therefore recognizing the value of encouraging engagement with the show.
I’ve said too much and most of it possibly the result of too many margaritas last night. So tell me what you think?