When academics go to Hollywood!
As the last stop in the 2013 convention tour, the Creation Supernatural convention in Burbank last weekend was invested with a lot of emotion, for both fans and cast. It’s been a wild ride, and there’s something bittersweet about the year ending. That gave Burcon an extra emotional punch, and more than a few moments that had us tearing up a bit. Here are some of the highlights of the con for us, including some meet and greet tidbits and pre-con chats.
We’ve been in love with this Show and part of this amazing fandom for eight years. It’s been eight years of incredible highs and more than a few painful lows, but – improbably perhaps — we’re still here. Still in love with Supernatural and still grateful to be part of the best fandom in the world. So we wanted to take a few minutes and say thank you.
Rock and A Hard Place was a great title for this week’s episode, full of double meanings and a dash of innuendo, in keeping with the theme of the stand-alone plot. That is most certainly where Dean is right now, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see him there. Sam too is stuck between a rock and a hard place – he just doesn’t know it. Double heartbreak!
Last night’s Supernatural episode, “Bad Boys”, felt like the Show in Season 1 and 2, when every episode left me literally vibrating with FEELS and bursting with this tremendous creative energy. I wanted to know MORE about what had just happened outside those 42 minutes on my screen. I wanted to dissect every moment and peer into Sam and Dean’s heads and figure out why they did what they did and what they meant by every (nearly unspoken) word and every gesture and every long look. I wanted to read fanfiction and write meta and celebrate Show with everyone else who was blown away like I was. That’s how I felt after last night’s episode. I couldn’t wait to jump onto Tumblr and see the gifs and read the capslocked wails of “CRYING NOW OMG” and scour LiveJournal and AO3 to see if anyone had written an episode coda yet. That’s what Supernatural felt like for me when I fell for Show all those many years ago – that’s what drew me in and took over my life and made me the passionate fangirl that I am. That’s what we wrote Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls about. Thanks, Adam and Kevin and Serge, and Jared and Jensen and Dylan, for bringing all that back.
We’ve been wanting to interview Osric Chau since the first time we saw him at a convention – we literally turned to each other and said “He’s going to fit right in with this fandom!” We’d like to credit our finely honed academic research instincts for that bit of insight, but frankly the entire fandom was probably saying the same thing. Osric seems to personify the “reciprocal relationship” between Supernatural’s cast and crew and its amazing fandom, that we wrote about in Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls – or more accurately, he seems to be redefining it!
The theme of Season 9 of Supernatural seems to be borrowed from its current showrunner’s past – it’s all about ‘being human.’ Castiel struggling to embrace his newfound humanity. Crowley seemingly trying to become more human, for reasons as yet unknown. Zeke, again for reasons unknown, wanting to be human a while longer, by remaining in his human host, Sam Winchester. Kevin proving just how strong and heroic an “ordinary human” can be.
And Sam and Dean, who have always been portrayed as oh-so-very human, with everything that those human flaws entail.
‘Dog Dean Afternoon’ won’t go down in Supernatural history as one of the greatest episodes ever, but I liked it. Just about everyone in the fandom was well prepared for the way we were intended to view it – if you weren’t already spoiled for the comedic intent of an episode where Dean becomes a dog whisperer, then the montage of Supernatural’s greatest comedic moments should have clued you in. Which is good, because if you’d been prepared for a serious SPN ep, you might have been gobsmacked by this one.
It was silly. At times, it was so silly that it veered dangerously close to embarrassment squick for me – Dean lusting after an ultra-feminine pink-ribboned and coifed poodle, and Sam’s dubcon Yorkie petting come to mind — but something saved it. That something was Ackles and Padalecki, who in my humble opinion are comedy geniuses. Especially when they get to be funny together.