Sunday was another rather emotional day thanks to the recent election.
In the morning gold panel, Jared said that he had messaged Misha when the results came in and was worried when he didn’t respond right away. Forty eight hours later he got back a sad frowny face. Both Jared and Jensen applauded Misha for his efforts to get people to vote, saying how proud they are of him. I’ve said it before, but I just love how supportive they all are of each other.
In response to some fans whose lives have been changed by the show, Jared reminded us all that #AlwaysKeepFighting is also a metaphor for the show – that it’s important to make a difference that lasts.
During the gold panel, a fan asked Jared and Jensen what their most elaborate prank was.
Returning to Burbank for what is, for now at least, the last Supernatural con that Creation has planned there, was both festive and emotional. Many of the actors live there, so that means their families can come see what they do for a dozen or more weekends out of the year, and even actors who aren’t making paid appearances sometimes show up to join in the fun. That means a con in Burbank is usually a very good party.
Even as an East Coaster, I love Burbank too. It’s such a nice little airport and a lovely hotel with a convenient little convention ballroom attached. There’s a handy bar to meet up with fellow fans, and there’s all of Burbank a few minutes away with its great restaurants too. I hated not being there last year, instead stuck at the giant Pasadena convention center, so I was thrilled to be back.
It was the weekend after the election, and emotions were running high for both guests and fans. Somehow the con felt like the best place to be, surrounded by a lot of love and support. There were fliers throughout the hotel letting fans know that this was a safe space, and that they were accepted here. It made me proud to be a fan and a member of this SPN Family – and to sort of want to stay there in that fandom bubble for as long as possible!
Sunday morning happened early as it always does, with the boys’ morning Gold panel. Jensen was clearly as tired as me, because coffee was a repeated theme all day. He thoroughly owns being grumpy without it – Jensen turns into grumpy Dean apparently. He was pretty bummed that his hotel didn’t have coffee makers in the rooms, which I found entirely understandable after the kind of weekend I was having!
The boys were entertaining as usual, despite the lack of coffee. Jared said he really liked last week’s episode, which was old school SPN – the reason why he fell in love with Supernatural.
Jensen: (pouting) I thought I was the reason you fell in love with Supernatural.
I guess you can tell that things have been busy around here – between family and holiday stuff and finishing up the new book, I didn’t manage to find time to write up my NJCon adventures until now. I think that’s a record, but I can’t promise it will stand for too long…. At any rate, here’s my recap of NJCon. Take a little break from Black Friday shopping and peruse the pretty pictures. And stay tuned for part two later today!
Finally, a con I can drive to! It was gorgeous weather and my GPS took me through scenic Pennsylvania countryside with beautiful fall foliage and past pastures with Shetland ponies and lots of antique stores, so I was in a really good mood by the time I got to the hotel. Which was a good thing, because New Jersey is such a weird state (no left turns, everything’s a complicated jug handle or a traffic circle that’s totally not working) that my GPS couldn’t even FIND the hotel. Luckily the friendly staff at Barnes and Noble could, so I made it in plenty of time to set up in the vendor room.
Like every other aspect of Supernatural cons, the vendors who regularly do these cons have become a sort of surrogate family too. Everyone watches out for each other, helps each other set up, lends out tape and markers and scissors and whatever else is needed. Shout out to my fellow vendors!
Thursday was a lot of people coming by to find out what ‘Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls’ and ‘Fan Phenomena Supernatural’ were all about, or coming by to tell us that they had already read them and enjoyed them. Which makes my day every time. I had a lovely late snack with my friend and fellow fangirl, Hansi, who is also the director and producer of the upcoming web series, ‘Squee! The Fangirl Project’. I’m co-writer and associate producer of this celebration of fangirling, so needless to say I’m ridiculously excited about it – the first cut looks amazing!
Friday kicked off with Richard and Rob and Louden Swain, and rules and regulations which now include no live streaming.
I still haven’t managed to find the time to post my con wrap up for this year’s Supernatural NJCon – suffice it to say, it was a whirlwind weekend and the whirlwind hasn’t slowed down since. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was sitting down with one of my favorite people in the universe, Osric Chau. His amazing new show Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is on tonight, so I wanted to share our chat in celebration.
The first part of our interview, as often happens with me and my interviewees, was not an interview at all. I was flustered and rather miserable, since my beloved phone had died right smack in the middle of the Kim, Briana and Osric panel that day. In between trying to work the vendor table for the books and cover the panels, I raced to the nearest Verizon store, only to be told “oh yeah it’s broken.” NO KIDDING! The replacement would be delivered on Tuesday, which needless to say, did not help me at the con. So I wasn’t my usual upbeat self when I sat down with Os.
Gotta say, I feel very lucky that the Supernatural cast is pretty much the only cast I ever interview – because when you sit down with one of them and you look miserable, they are suddenly your friend instead of your interviewee. Osric is wise beyond his years, and empathic as any therapist I know (and that’s what I do, so I know a lot), which was lucky for me – he spent ten minutes calming me down, talking me through the remnants of my technology-failure-induced panic attack and just generally reminding me that the world won’t end because I can’t live tweet a convention. I don’t like feeling like I’m letting people down, but he also reminded me that the Supernatural fandom is a family, and that means everyone understands when bad shit happens to you.
Of course, he was totally right.
He then proceeded to fix my iPad, which was also malfunctioning that weekend. (You see why I was a bit panicked, right? Multiple technology failures in one afternoon? Too much for me!)
Fixing my ipad…
Interestingly, that’s not the first time Osric has had to fix my technology in the middle of an interview. Have I mentioned I feel lucky??
Lynn: Thank you for the therapy and fixing my technology. Ok let’s talk about Dirk Gently.
I was nervous about having so many new writers on my favorite show this season, but Thursday’s Supernatural episode proved once again that the new writers are doing their homework. Welcome to the family, Steve Yockey!
This episode had some great 80s rock, some remarkable VFX, some gorgeously lit scenes, and some amazing acting. And yes, the writing was great too. Let me list all the things I liked about this episode (nothing makes me happier than having an actual list!)
Those Are My Boys
I love having a plot that makes sense, and an emotional arc that makes me either reach for the tissues or bite my nails to the quick (or both) – but none of that is satisfying if I don’t recognize the characters I love. The risk with having new writers is that they won’t get it right – after all, eleven seasons of character development is a lot to catch up on! But Yockey clearly did his homework, and fandom very much appreciated it.
This week’s Supernatural episode was by another new writer, Meredith Glynn, but directed by a returning fan favorite director, Nina Lopez Corrado. The Winchesters once again come up against the Thule, Nazi necromancers who are determined this time to resurrect Hitler himself.
The first half of the episode was a bit oddly paced and choppy, but it had some wonderful scenes. This season we’re getting more domestic Winchesters than we usually do, which makes me incredibly happy. Robbie Thompson was onto something when he wanted to show us more of the brothers’ lives in between cases. That lets us see the people they are, and lets us see the bond between the two of them in a different way than we see it on a hunt. We know they have each other’s backs, and that’s wonderful to see as well, but part of the reason they’re so close is that there are all those little moments in between – the little moments that bond all of us to the people we care about.
Supernatural fan favorites Rob Benedict and Richard Speight Jr. premiere their new web series, Kings of Con, on ComicConHQ on November 15, which is only a few days away. Both Rob and Rich play fictionalized versions of themselves, and if the trailer is any indication, it’s going to be hilarious. I can’t wait for that, but in the meantime, I had some questions for Rob about his work on last season’s Supernatural. His return to the show as Chuck/God made a lot of fans very happy, including me. And he really had a chance to show off his acting chops in some of those pivotal episodes!
Lynn: Toward the end of last season, some of those episodes you were in were just so powerful. I talked to Curtis Armstrong (who played Metatron) about some of those scenes and to Jensen [Ackles] as well, so I’m eager to hear your thoughts. Curtis said that he got unexpectedly emotional in the scene where God is telling Metatron that he was just the angel closest to the door and Metatron replies that he doesn’t care. To his great surprise, Curtis started to cry in rehearsal and then teared up again when filming the scene. What was your reaction to his emotion? Were you surprised?
This week’s episode was like a return to old school, classic Supernatural – and I am SO on board with that! I watched the episode while at a Supernatural convention in New Jersey with a fellow fangirl, which meant a lot of shared exclamations during the ‘THEN’ opening.
Me: OMG psychic kids!
Both of us: OMG baby Sammy with bangs!
Then the episode went very dark very fast, which should surprise no one who’s ever watched Supernatural. Some poor woman gets flayed alive by an invisible force in front of a horrified priest and churchgoers and once again I’m a little queasy. Supernatural has been even more graphic than usual this season and I think I flinched every time a new gash opened up on her back. OUCH.
I’m so excited for the new web series ‘Kings of Con’, which premieres on Comic Con HQ on November 15. Not only are its two stars, Richard Speight Jr. and Rob Benedict, talented actors and musicians, they have been making Supernatural fans laugh until it’s painful at conventions for the past eight years. I have a feeling Kings of Con is going to be equally hysterical.
I’ve known Rob and Rich since their very first Supernatural conventions back in 2008, so I was thrilled to sit down to chat with them a few weeks ago about Kings of Con. They had just done a ‘Kings of Con’ panel at the convention, in fact. Rob was still working out some arrangements for the band, so Richard and I started chatting.
Richard: So, the panel was good?
Lynn: OMG so good – you guys are always funny, but my stomach was literally hurting from laughing so much.
Richard: Awesome. I liked being on earlier in the day, we had more energy.
(That’s really saying something – nobody has ever accused Richard of not being energetic!)
Richard and Rob onstage at a convention
Lynn: Fans have been very excited about Kings of Con, but that interview that you did on the morning show today (in Toronto) has made everyone even more excited. Because you really get fandom.
