About Town

You know you want to!

The show is designed to have people jump on at any point. It starts up again tonight after a 5-week hiatus, so this is a good opportunity. Here's what you need to know about the series myth arc going in:

- Sam and Dean Winchester are demon-hunting brothers.

- Sam, the younger one, found out a couple of seasons ago that a demon dropped blood into his mouth when he was a baby. Now he's manifesting some scary demon powers, and he's trying to use them to fight full-on, evil demons to stop the apocalypse. He's being encouraged by Ruby, a demon with benefits, who has an agenda that we're not too sure about.

- Dean, the older one, spent the summer in Hell. Not a metaphorical po-dunk town for a summer job, nope. He was in the fiery pits for reals until he was plucked out by an angel, Castiel. Apparently, Dean did really bad things in Hell, and Heaven has plans for Dean. These plans might involve stopping Sam. 

- None of the angels or demons have seen God or Lucifer: heck, they might not even exist, which makes all this apocalypse talk extra interesting, as in, what is it, really?

That's really about it. Other pertinent details are shown in the brilliant little summary trailers before each episode. The episodes are usually full of funny and mind-tickling references. Tonight, we already know that they'll reference The Sandman, the Bergman film "The Seventh Seal," and the "Meet Joe Black" precursor, "Death Takes a Holiday."

And really, how can you not put eyeballs on this:

heh heh...

Sure I'll check it out! I did watch an episode last season. And I enjoyed it. Mainly for the eye candy. I think the older one fooled around with someone in a car?

And I hear that The Comedian from Watchmen is or was on it?

 

The older one fooled around with someone in a car in the fall. Did you see that one?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan played John Winchester, the boys' crazy-ass, obsessive dad. He does that well! He was actually on Supernatural, Weeds and Grey's Anatomy in the same season. He died in every one, just like he died at the beginning of Watchmen. So I guess he specializes in playing dead guys!

Speaking of eye candy, these surfaced today, from a spring 2008 photo shoot (confession: in Supernatural fan terminology, I am a SamGirl):

http://a2j2.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/this-shit-is-too-ridiculous-for-a-title/#more-4396

Oh, if you watch the show tonight and post about it, either here or the TV forum, I won't check it until Saturday because Supernatural doesn't air until Friday night in Canada :(

Yes, that's the episode I saw.

I don't think I'll see the episode before you though, because I will be seeing it on the CW website, not on TV.

 

Oh, that was the episode where Dean, the "bad boy", had sex with and angel. Meanwhile, Sam, the nice guy, is doing it with a demon. Hee.

They don't have full episodes up on the site yet, but I watched a couple of previews and this very cute outtake starring Jensen:

http://cwtv.com/cw-video/supernatural/short/?play=404-4629

I think I'm on his team as opposed to the other guy. What do they call that?

 

I'm trying to keep away from spoilers, but it's killing me! 

Sounds like you're more of a DeanGirl!

Oh, there's also Team Jared / Team Padalecki or Team Jensen / Team Ackles. Padackles if you can't decide.

I just realized this is in About Life instead of Pop / Lit. Well, I have been spend a lot of time on Supernatural. I write about it every week in Sequential Tart.

So far I seem to be Team Jensen!

 

Heh. My roommate is also Team Jensen, but Jared's phenomenal physique and willingness to take his shirt off on the show is starting to win him over.

I think us SamGirls are still in the minority, but that's okay. Less sharing!

Well, I haven't seen the show yet, so maybe that will change. But Jensen singing "Eye of the Tiger" was very cute!

 

That was great! I guess it was spontaneous. I guess there was a conspiracy for Jared to deliberately miss a cue and see what Jensen would do. I wonder how many times they have to listen to classic rock songs. He must have them all memorized by now!

I watched "On the Head of a Pin" and then "Death Takes a Holiday" which seemed to be from last season. And then I watched a whole lot of web exclusive clips and interviews which were fantastic. I especially liked that they both had the same favorite music cue and affectionate way of describing Kim Manners.

They are both much more funny and charming off-camera in their interviews than on the show itself. But I did enjoy the show.

As for who I'm into... I think I lean towards Castiel actually.

 

Actually, Death Takes a Holiday and On the Head of a Pin are both current; I like to think of them as a two-parter. But DTAH does call back to Season 2 (hence the kiss-induced flashback).

Dean has been in a deep existential funk this season, and Sam's been going down an angry and obsessive road, so they have not gone to their charm well as often as they have in the past: a lot of fans aren't happy with that, but this season's myth arc totally fascinates me, so I'm fine with it.

BTW, you might have seen previews for the next ep. I'm avoiding them, but I do know they find themselves in alternate reality where they're not hunters and they don't know each other, and have regular jobs. It promises to be very funny!

The guys do seem to be charmers in real life. I just did an interview with a prof who specializes in fan fiction about the show, and she had hilarious things to say about how fan fic writers use the boys' personae in their writing. I'll link it when it's published (April 6th, I think).

You're not alone with Castiel love! He got to be so popular, they're making him a regular next season, so I figure he'll continue to play a prominent part this season. I harbour hopes that the appeal of a guy in a suit and trench coat eventually turns into a Hellblazer series, as long as it's a good one.

 like to think of them as a two-parter

I mean, they did air one after the other, but even though they weren't labelled a two-parter, they did constitute one!

The suit and trenchcoat actually made me thing of Fox Muldar a bit. Along with the earnestness.

 

I bet that's also an influence. A lot of the producers of SPN worked on X-Files.

Apparently "Castiel" is the Angel of Thursday- http://www.sarahsarchangels.com/C.html

 

From the same site here's Uriel:

Uriel(Ministration)A patron angel of literature and music, Uriel bestows upon us the gift of creative fire, as well as the power of prophecy. We appeal to him for foresight into the future and for help in developing our psychic abilities. Uriel is an angel of transformation, archangel of salvation, regent of the sun, overseer of Tartarus, and is the spirit of ministration and peace. He helps turn our worst disappointments into our greatest blessings. He is one of the angels of chance, (as in gambling), emergencies, judgment, scroll. More on Uriel here:

http://www.sarahsarchangels.com/uriel.html

 

Heh. People have made much of the fact that Supernatural is on Thursday, and now stars Thursday's angel!

The Uriel info is great! Supernatural's Uriel had a lot of those traits: although he's a villian for being Machiavellian and lying to the angels and wanting to kill Dean, he did have those psychic abilities, an independent imagination and a thing for gambling.

I didn't know about those associations, but I called upon some Wikipedia stuff to make some observations/predictions about Uriel. I turned out to be right about some things!

http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1203

After watching ALL of the creator interviews on the website, now I REALLY want an Old West prequel episode!

 

I know! I'd love to see one! I wonder if they could work a Western ep into the show. Jared Padalecki keeps saying he'd love to do a Western.

The first part of my Supernatural Noir series is up now:

http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1303

Heh, I was thinking that while it would be cool to see SPN do an Old West version, doing a full-on film noir would be redundant! It's a film noir pretty much all the time!

Wow, that's a pretty detailed analysis! Very interesting read.

 

Thanks!

I really enjoyed the "It's a Terrible Life" episode! You were right. They were using all the humor I saw on the web interviews. That moment on the elevator when Dean assumes Sam is hitting on him and says, "Save it for the health club," was a bit of Wincest squee!

Oh, and the minute I saw that Dean's last name was Smith, I knew that Sam's last name would be Wesson!

One question: Did the events of this episode only happen to Dean? Why wasn't Sam around for the dénouemont?

 

I think I saw this episode three times! They're really batting a thousand this half of the season. 

The events happened to both Sam and Dean, but Dean's the only one who needs to be taught a lesson. And you can't teach a lesson to Dean without involving Sam. So I think Zachariah's thinking was this:

• Uriel messed up and I have to fix this.

• Dean is a useless whiner right now, but we need him at the top of his game, or he'll never be able to stop the apocalypse.

• Dean doesn't listen to angels at the best of times, and now there's even less of a chance that he'll listen to us because of what Uriel did. And he won't fall for a simple ruse from Castiel again, so I'm going to go in myself and put Dean in a complicated scenario that he'll  have to use his ingrained hunter skills to get out of.

• When Dean falls into a scenario, he goes all Zelig. It's disturbing. (In the past when the boys have gone undercover, Dean has become caught up in his alias and takes on his role as prison card shark, high school gym teacher, etc. with great relish.) So I need an interloper who will push him out of his comfort zone. Oh, here's Sam!
  

So I imagine that when Zachariah lifted the spell from Dean, Sam was instantly released as well. He was probably just leaving the Sandover building and wondering why the hell he was dressed like an IT dork. Then he and Dean would have reconnected via cellphone and Dean would explain the whole thing to Sam.

That middle section above was supposed to be bulleted. I don't know what happened!