After a pilot that caught my interest in some surprising ways, the second episode of the new CW show ‘Walker’ managed to sustain that interest, mostly by continuing to explore the characters’ psychological reactions to loss as well as give us more insight into their relationships. There was also a case-of-the-week, which gave us some exciting moments, and a little progress on the main mystery of what happened to Walker’s wife, Emily (Gen Padalecki), but what sticks with me most are the emotional beats.
And an odd craving for queso.
There was again a flurry of articles and interviews about the new show, including Keegan Allen (Liam) taking over the CWWalker Instagram account for the day. He clearly had a lot of fun doing that, with many of the cast also getting into the act, and even including some fanart. I’m only including one because I saw @StabGigi say she was thrilled to have her awesome art included. It’s clear the cast and crew are getting along great, and the same sort of cooperative atmosphere that Jared and Jensen established early on for Supernatural are something that Jared has clearly taken to Walker.
Art by @StabGigi
Before we get to the emotional moments of the episode, a brief case-of-the-week synopsis: A man is killed by a falling beam in a raging horse barn fire, along with some hapless horses, which Micki (Lindsey Morgan) is assigned to investigate (interrupting her romantic interlude with boyfriend Trey (Jeff Pierre), alas). She pulls her partner in, though we quickly find out from Captain James (Coby Bell) that Walker is technically not a Texas Ranger at the moment, since he needs to be re-certified. Walker (Jared Padalecki) and Micki ace the shooting range part of the partner recertification, but Walker freezes when it’s time for the riding portion, spiraling into memories of Emily gifting him with a custom tooled saddle and saddlebag with their initials carved into the leather. Despite Walker being ‘off the case’, he and Ramirez have already begun to think of each other as partners, so she consults with him on the case anyway. They eventually figure out that the stable owner burned it down to kill his injured racehorse for the insurance money before anyone knew Texas Nightshade was hurt and losing value. The jockey, however, couldn’t go through with it and let the horse run free to save it. Walker is able to find the horse and overcome his hesitation just in time to ride in to save the day, pulling Micki up behind him so the two of them can stop the bad guys from getting away. Captain James counts the heroics as Walker passing his riding test, which I have to agree with. Pretty impressive!
Meanwhile, in the emotional part of the episode, Walker is still having frequent flashbacks to happier times with his wife, remembering when she gifted him with the beautiful saddle that he can no longer bring himself to use. It’s poignant and painful that he carries it around in his pickup truck but can’t bring himself to ride with it. When he goes back to the house that he and Emily shared, he pictures them there as a family when the kids were young, establishing a home with the kids’ handprints in the concrete on their front walk. The handprints are still there today, but much like the saddle, it now brings Walker more pain than joy.
The CW
Once again, I appreciate the way this show explores grief. It is painful, and while we want to hang onto the things that help us remember our loved ones, it also hurts to do so. I get the feeling that Walker’s past year has been spent mostly avoiding those memories and the feelings they bring, so now that he’s back, he’s finding them all fresh and raw and overwhelming. I feel for him, even when he’s screwing up and hurting other people with his not-so-healthy coping mechanisms. He’s suffering, and Jared Padalecki shows us that vividly.
Walker’s ongoing struggle to reconnect with his family continues to be excruciatingly slow and difficult – which also seems realistic. The fact that he’s constantly distracted by his own emotional turmoil and thoughts of the past means that he’s not very good at being present for his children – which is exactly the problem they’ve had with him for the past eleven months. Instead of joining the family for breakfast, he goes to his old home first (finding beer bottles and a window pushed out, evidence of Stella’s propensity to come back and party there in an effort to deal with her own grief) so he arrives late to family breakfast. He hasn’t been there to be part of their established routines – which are so important to children who’ve experienced loss and trauma – so his parents and brother have stepped into all those roles. Liam is the one who knows that Stella has a game that day and the one who takes the kids to school. It’s clear that Walker wants to do those things now that he’s back, but he’s still not paying the kind of attention that those responsibilities require, and the kids are reluctant to trust him and depend on him.
Next up in the Supernatural Rewatch, it’s time for the scariest episode of Supernatural EVER – Bloody Mary! The only episode to leave me and my daughter screaming and clutching each other hysterically on the couch because we were foolish enough to watch this episode in the dark with just the two of us at home. I’m still in awe of you for pulling off so much scary, Supernatural!
As usual, I did this rewatch with four friends over Zoom, because that’s the way we do things in the midst of a pandemic. For this episode, that was a good thing, because I still don’t think I want to watch it all alone! The episode opening is scary right out of the gate. Teenage girls at a slumber party in Toledo playing truth or dare, and of course one of them dares the other to say Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror three times. The room is dark, lit only by candlelight, and the girl is nervous but peer pressure pushes her to do it anyway. She closes the bathroom door and all of us watching start yelling “Don’t to it! Lie to them! They can’t even see you!” Alas, she does not listen, and honestly, I don’t even like HEARING her say it!
The dad of the house says goodnight to the girls and walks up the stairs, and as he passes by a mirror, we catch a glimpse of a dark figure in it and I literally want to scream, it’s so scary. He looks in the mirror in the bathroom, his eyes begin to bleed, and he collapses. The older daughter comes home later and finds him dead in a pool of blood and screams.
Cut to Sam also screaming, in a well done edit, having another nightmare about Jessica (Adrianne Palicki), who keeps asking him “Why, Sam?” It’s clear at this point in the show that Sam is tormented by his own guilt and sense of responsibility. It’s a common thing with trauma, unfortunately. One of the things that makes trauma and sudden loss so unnerving is that it makes us feel like the world is out of control. By taking responsibility in some way for what happened, even if that makes no logical sense, that allows us to feel a little more in control – and like next time, we’ll maybe be able to stop a future trauma from happening. Of course, there’s the big down side of leaving you with a whopping helping of guilt and self blame, which Sam is dealing with.
Dean, ever the big brother, is concerned. Dean wakes him up and tries to get Sam to open up to him – note that Dean is not really the stereotype of ‘no chick flick moments’ that he pretends to be, from the very start. He knows Sam is struggling and wants to help, but can’t if Sam won’t confide in him.
Dean: Sooner or later we’re gonna have to talk about this.
The brothers visit the morgue, which is also oddly dark and creepy, posing as med students from Ohio State and faced with an unimpressed and uncooperative morgue attendant.
Dean: (under his breath to Sam): I wanna hit him.
Sam bribes him instead, which works.
Dean protests: I earned that money!
Sam: You won it in a poker game.
Dean: (insistent) Yeah!
I love their banter. Dean refuses to feel guilty about how they ‘make a living’, while Sam is still clinging to ‘normal’ and thus judging it. He’s going along, but he’s not fully on board.
Next they go to the dad’s funeral, where younger daughter Lily insists that her father’s death was her fault (the broader theme of the episode, since it’s what Sam is struggling with too). Sam assures her that it wasn’t her saying Bloody Mary three times that did it, since it’s her dad who died. The brothers try to figure out exactly what is happening, since kids play the slumber party game all the time and no one dies.
You know how they say you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone? Or that you don’t know how much you love something/someone until you don’t have them anymore?
Yeah. It’s true. I’ve known for fifteen years that I was madly in love with Dean Winchester, but even knowing that, I truly didn’t know how much I was going to miss him when he was gone. I took for granted that I’d always be able to “see” him, that I could keep discovering his character and his story, little by little as time went on. I underestimated how wonderful it was to be endlessly fascinated by a fictional character and have the privilege of learning who he was, in bits and pieces and often-covered-up glimpses of the ‘real’ Dean Winchester, over the course of years and years and years. There was a reality to that discovery, in that it played out gradually, just like it does with people in our actual lives. And thanks to Jensen Ackles’ brilliant portrayal, there was a reality to everything about Dean Winchester that made him real to many of us.
That made him very hard to lose.
I thought that 2020 would be the last time I wished Dean happy birthday; I knew that he wouldn’t exist in the present by 2021. But right now I find myself needing to write about him again. It’s part of grieving the loss of something/someone important, that we want to hang onto our memories of them and remember why they were so important to us. I don’t want to forget him, not ever. And since fictional characters never needed our real-life validation, it doesn’t make any difference whether Dean ‘exists’ in the present or not – remembering him is for me. I miss him, and reminding myself of all the reasons why I love him helps me feel just a little bit better.
This could be a really long article if I tried to make an exhaustive list of what I love about Dean Winchester, so I’ll keep it short. Top five reasons why I will always love Dean Winchester.
One, I love his complexity. That’s due to Eric Kripke, who created him and wrote him for the first five seasons, and to Jensen Ackles’, who brought him to life in a way that was even more vivid than what was written on the page. It took me a whole season to fall for Dean Winchester; at first, I dismissed him a little as a stereotypical ‘bad boy’ type, a little too brash. Pretty on the surface but too stereotypical underneath. (Forgive me, I was only watching because a friend insisted, so clearly I wasn’t paying enough attention!) When Season 2 began, I suddenly realized that I had misjudged the show, and the brothers. I remember watching Dean, leaning against the Impala, break down and confide to Sam that he was not at all okay, tears glistening in his eyes, voice breaking. I let the papers I was grading slide to the floor and said out loud, “how did I not realize this show was amazing?” But it was also Dean, and Jensen’s willingness to show his character’s vulnerability, that made me fall head over heels for Supernatural.
For Supernatural fans, who are still grieving the loss of our beloved show after 15 years on the air, the premiere of the new CW show ‘Walker’ on Thursday brought a lot of complicated feelings. Many of us weren’t ready (and to be honest, would never have been ready) to say goodbye to Sam Winchester, so seeing Jared Padalecki inhabit a brand new character was exciting but also brought a fresh sense of loss, as though the new character made the loss of Sam finally real. On the other hand, it was wonderful to have another television show to anticipate, and for Thursday nights at 8 pm EST to be something special once again instead of a time I tended to wander around the house lamenting that ‘it feels like something’s missing…’). In the midst of continuing controversy about the way Supernatural ended, and a hashtag campaign to tank ‘Walker’ before it even began, the show itself managed to air with considerable fanfare anyway – making it the CW’s most watched Thursday in three years, even topping NBC’s airing in its time slot!
Despite being brand new, Walker didn’t get left out of the Bernie meme going around, which must be some kind of pop culture litmus test, right?
Graphic: quickreaver
The network went all out in its promotion, with billboards and articles in every mainstream publication and Jared making the talk show rounds. That meant a fandom that’s accustomed to constant content and had been going into withdrawal was ecstatic to finally get some new photos of Mr. Padalecki – and oh, what new photos they were!
The Supernatural cast also went all out, with most of Padalecki’s former cast members sending him best wishes for his new show. On premiere day, former onscreen and always offscreen brother Jensen Ackles posted an Instagram message of support, telling Padalecki to “Go get ‘em, cowboy” and Jared and wife/costar Gen gave a shout out in return to Jensen and Danneel Ackles’ Austin-based brewery, Family Business Beer Company, on their CWWalker Instagram takeover. For Supernatural fans making the transition to new shows, the reminder that in real life they’re all going to remain good friends was somehow comforting. Padalecki has also said that he’s set on getting former costar Ackles to guest or direct on Walker as soon as his filming schedule for Amazon’s ‘The Boys’ allows.
I did not watch the original ‘Walker Texas Ranger’, nor am I a big fan of either westerns or cop procedurals, so Walker wasn’t a show that would have been on my must watch list if it wasn’t for Padalecki. That meant I went into it with measured expectations, and still feeling a bit sad about missing the Winchesters. There were mixed reviews from the media who received advance screeners of the pilot, but I like to make up my own mind anyway, so I sat down to watch figuring I’d just see where the show took me. I didn’t expect to feel as much as I did, and for me, that’s a very good thing. I didn’t even fall in love with Supernatural, my favorite show of all time, right away; I had to get to know the characters. They had to pull me in, make me want to know more about them. Fascinate me. And while I’m not pulled in entirely yet with Walker, I am interested. I want to know more. And that bodes well for a brand new show.
I have to admit, the second that I saw Padalecki back on my tv screen again, I teared up.
Next up in our series rewatch of Supernatural, the fourth episode of season 1, ‘Phantom Traveler.’ I believe this is the first episode directed by Bob Singer, who would remain with the show throughout its 15 season run and be pivotal to its evolution, as a director, a producer and eventually a showrunner. The Season 1 DVDs have an episode commentary by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles for this episode, so from time to time I’ll include some of those priceless comments too. They were so young in Season 1, and still new to being the leads of a TV show, but you can tell that their friendship was already clearly solid.
The show is still dark and scary in Season 1, so the opening sequence is scary too. An anxious flyer prepares to board a plane, then some ominous looking black smoke comes out of a bathroom vent and goes right into his eyes. His eyes turn black, and now he’s calm as ever.
Pivotal moment – this is the episode where we’re introduced to demons, who will become so important to the entire series. VFX may have been more primitive in 2005, but the smoke is actually surprisingly well done – and creepy. The black-eyed man momentarily freaks out the flight attendant, then calmly wrenches open the door hatch and brings the plane down, exactly 40 minutes into its flight.
[Jared: I’m really proud of this episode. Good job, Bob. I really enjoy Sam’s relationship with his brother Dean.]
Me fifteen years later: Me too!
After the opening sequence, we always switch to the boys, and this episode is no exception. Well, boy in this case – Dean is asleep, luckily for us on top of the covers and not wearing multiple layers as is way more usual. Singer, perhaps already understanding that the show’s audience was not the mostly male demographic that the WB was expecting after having laid eyes on Jared and Jensen, gives us a slow pan up Dean’s boxer-and-tee-shirt-clad body. The stills and later the gif of that shot became an instant classic in the fandom, for obvious reasons.
I’ve written about this in several of our books, but the show didn’t just lean into the traditional ‘male gaze’ – in this shot, the show turns the tables, something surprising and a little bit subversive for 2005. It’s also something that fandom has delighted in and one of the things that makes fandom such a different type of community, with different norms – a powerful change from what most of us are used to. Especially then. Okay, I’ll move along. I’m just typing to keep this gif in frame…
gif dizzojay
A shadowy figure enters the motel room and for a moment we’re all on edge. Dean too apparently – he surreptitiously reaches under his pillow – and then Sam wakes Dean up with a too-cheery “Mornin’ sunshine!”
Dean has adorable bed-head and is worried because Sam still isn’t sleeping well and having nightmares. He bristles and denies it when Sam realizes his big brother is worried, though.
Dean: No, it’s your job to keep my ass alive so I need you sharp!
(Forgive the number of caps of said ass, it’s just a really nice scene. Like, well lit. Yes, that’s it.)
It’s no secret that Davy Perez is one of my favorite Supernatural writers. If you read my episode reviews regularly, you’ve heard me say that more than once, and he’s the only writer who wrote a chapter in the new book There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done: Actors and Fans Celebrate the Legacy of Supernatural, all about his journey as a writer and his experience on the show. There’s an online book club that’s currently reading Peace, and they’re inviting the contributors to join in their discord chat when they’re discussing that chapter. I pop in when I can, so I joined them when Davy’s chapter was the topic of conversation – and so did he!
It was Davy’s first time using Discord, so the only emoji he could find to try to express himself was the watermelon – which has remained the Book Club’s favorite emoji and is now used for all kinds of positive expressions in Davy’s honor.
The book club always has great questions and Davy had some great answers, so I’m sharing them here with the rest of the fandom (with Davy’s permission of course).
BC: What was it like to write an episode for Supernatural?
DP: I used to watch a lot of shock horror (in the) 80’s and kinda channeled that.
BC: How much influence did the network or the studio have on the writing?
DP: The network and studio give notes, but don’t mandate or dictate anything. They are more there to
guide you toward the ideals that they want the show to always be (striving) for. The writers/producers are still in charge of the story in the end.
BC: You said in your chapter that you had only watched a few episodes of Supernatural when you were hired, so you were not overly influenced by what had come before and had fresh takes on the characters and story line direction.
DP: In general, writing an episode is a lot like doubting yourself every step of the way (while also having
to) believe in your own genius. Also, specifically with SPN and with any show, you always do the work, from beats on the cards, to outline, to then just working on the scenes. I aim for an act a day when
(working) on a script. I actually found that whenever I watched an old episode, I found inspiration for
bringing something back, or looking at something from a new angle. I was hired to bring in fresh ideas, for sure, but I like innovating from existing stuff vs. just fabricating from thin air.
BC: What do you think have been your most significant contributions to the characters’ development?
DP: My most significant contribution might be either the glasses or the sweaters (in Mint Condition and American Nightmare).
I wrote an article here on New Year’s Eve about how I’m dealing with Supernatural ending, because I’m still having lots of feelings about the loss of my favorite show ever, especially in the midst of so much stress – political and social upheaval and a raging pandemic. We need our comfort shows more than ever! One of the things that’s helping is going back to the beginning and rewatching from the start. In a way, it’s giving me new content, because watching those early episodes now is completely different with the perspective of knowing how the story plays out and how it ends. I understand Sam and Dean more deeply than I did when I watched these episodes for the first time 15 years ago. At the same time, I’m struck by how well they hold up and how truly ingenious the writing, directing, acting and cinematography was, right from the start.
Today’s episode rewatch is the third one that aired, and the first directed by Kim Manners, who would come to have such a significant impact on the show’s two young stars, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. ‘Dead In The Water’ is one of the most well known episodes, giving us some iconic scenes as well as some of the first memorable gag reel moments. The episode was written by Raelle Tucker and Sera Gamble, who would go on to be showrunner when Kripke departed at the end of Season 5 (and would also helm another of my favorite shows, The Magicians). So, let’s dig in…
Kim Manners and Serge Ladouceur during filming. Cap mckaysangel
The episode opens on a cabin that’s familiar to most fans, and I had to take a moment right away because I now realize that it’s a cabin that I think I’ve actually been to in real life – on one of the location tours given by Supernatural’s locations supervisor for many seasons, the one of a kind Russ Hamilton. I’m notoriously bad at remember things like locations, though, so somebody correct me if the ‘Russ bus’ never in fact visited this particular Vancouver cabin. At any rate, it’s striking, and beautiful in its own way. There is so much atmosphere provided by locations and set dec for Supernatural, making it so much memorable than it would be otherwise.
I don’t think, at the time I first watched this episode, that I realized that the show customarily opens with the guest stars of the week being attacked by the monster of the week, especially in the early seasons. But director Kim Manners does a great job of setting up the sense of foreboding even if you didn’t know something bad was about to happen. The family in the dimly lit cabin is a dad and a sister and brother, with no mom around – because many of the guest characters are parallels for the Winchesters in some way. The girl opts for a swim in the gigantic deserted lake, out there all alone, which seems like a terrible idea even if this wasn’t Supernatural. We see her from beneath, highlighting her vulnerability, as she begins to get scared, hearing unintelligible whispering all around her even though no one is there. Uh oh. It’s scary as hell even before anything happens thanks to Manners, and then whoosh, she’s pulled under.
The lake looks peaceful once again, no sign of the girl. Uh oh.
And then, customarily, the show pivoted to the Winchester brothers, in this case at the Lynnwood Motel, which I’m totally taking as a shout out to me even though I was entirely unknown to any of them at the time. Hindsight. Dean flirts with the waitress, who flirts back, understandably, and Sam cuts that right off with a “Just the check please.”
Dean sighs, put upon.
Dean: You know, Sam, we are allowed to have fun every once in a while. That’s fun.
In the midst of turmoil of all kinds and way more stress than most of us hoped we’d be enduring for long periods of time, our comfort shows are even more important. While Supernatural ended its fifteen year run in 2020, the show and its fictional characters are still very much my comfort show, so I’m going back to the beginning and doing a series rewatch from the pilot on – which could keep me busy for quite some time! It’s a way to keep the show alive for me and it’s also a brand new experience, because I’m now watching it through a very different lens than I did fifteen years ago – with the full knowledge of what will happen to these characters for fourteen more seasons. That’s therapeutic for me at a time when I need help dealing with the loss of Supernatural, and hopefully will be helpful to other fans who are also trying to deal. We also put a book out in 2020 about the end of Supernatural and the legacy it leaves behind, with chapters from the show’s actors and fans. We hope There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done and our previous book, Family Don’t End With Blood, with chapters written by Jared, Jensen, Misha and many other actors, will be a help in dealing with the loss too. You can find more information about those books at the end of this article, but for now, let’s go back in time to 2005.
The second episode of Supernatural. How I wish I could go back to that long ago time, when the show I would fall so deeply in love with had just started airing. When the question was, would the show live up to its intriguing pilot?
Spoiler alert: It did.
Wendigo is an iconic episode in part because it is the second one. The first one to be filmed in Vancouver after the pilot was filmed in LA. When Supernatural ended six weeks ago, Jared and Jensen reminisced in an interview about how they felt fifteen years ago when they set off to begin what would turn out to be a fifteen year adventure. The boys – because that’s what everyone would soon come to call them – made the trek north to Vancouver together, road tripping to their new workplace and starting the adventure together, as they would continue it for so long. It makes me emotional now, thinking about how excited and anxious they must have been, in their twenties and taking on the lead roles of a show that would rest on their shoulders.
You did good, boys.
behind the scenes cap: lipglosskaz
Wendigo was directed by David Nutter, which probably helped maintain the momentum of the pilot and keep the continuity tight. The episode starts out just as scary as the pilot was, in the dark woods of Blackwater Ridge with a couple of clueless guys in a tent as something growls outside and shadowy figures move past the semi-transparent canvas. One of them is played by Cory Monteith, later to be famous on Glee, who is already gone, for real. The sense of how much time has passed since this episode hits hard just knowing that.
David Nutter does a great job of showing the young men’s vulnerability – how much more vulnerable can you feel, trapped in a tent that clearly won’t protect you and unable to see what’s coming for you from outside? We see shadows pass by outside the tent and I already want to start hiding my eyes. Nicely done, Show.
Cap Dahne TV
Meanwhile, Sam, looking unbearably young and adorable in a suit, brings flowers to Jessica’s grave. It seems like a tender and sad scene, then suddenly a hand claws its way up from the gravedirt and grabs for Sam. Pretty sure I screamed the first time I saw that. Early Supernatural really was like a 42 minute horror movie each week.
Chad Lindberg is one of the first Supernatural actors that I got to know well, way back in the early seasons of the show. When Kathy and I were researching and writing Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls, we sat down with Chad to chat one day at a very early convention, and immediately hit it off. In fact, in the middle of our interview, after we’d gotten into a deep discussion of fandom and why it’s so compelling, Chad jumped up and said “You have to meet my friends – they’re making a movie about the same thing you’re writing about in your book!”
That’s how we met Tony Zierra and Elizabeth Yoffe, the filmmaker and producer behind the film “My Big Break,” which starred Chad Lindberg and Wes Bentley among others. We partnered with them and Chad to screen the film and share our thoughts on fandom and stardom in multiple cities, which meant some wonderful dinners and a wild time on Bourbon Street and lots of great conversation. Some of our adventures with Chad are in the pages of one of our first books, Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls. On occasion, he’s even helped us out at convention vendor rooms and with impromptu livestreams!
So let’s just say, I really miss Chad! He contributed a chapter to the new book by the actors and fans of Supernatural that celebrates the legacy of the show, There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done, which was released in 2020. I hadn’t spoken to Chad since he put that chapter together, so we connected by phone near the end of the year.
Chad: Good to hear from you!
Lynn: OMG you too! When I talked to you last year about writing your chapter in There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done, the world was a completely different place.
Chad: It certainly was. Every day continually astonishes me. And not in a good way.
Lynn: I know what you mean. I’m wondering, because you wrote your chapter a year ago and it’s about your personal journey with Supernatural and how it impacted you, how has your journey continued over the past year?
Supernatural ended six weeks ago, but the cascade of emotions its ending brought to its fans is still feeling pretty raw for many people, including me. One of the most difficult things for me is that my emotions are all over the place – I’m devastated about losing the show, missing it painfully, wishing I knew it was coming back, and dismayed at the fandom infighting that’s been happening for six weeks. At the same time, I’m excited about Jared’s new series and Jensen’s new role in The Boys and Misha’s new movie part – and happy for all of them that they’re being productive and sinking their teeth into new roles. (At least a big part of me is; there’s another part that just wants to be a two year old and stomp my feet and say NO you can’t move on from the characters that I love!)
It’s not that often that we have conflicting emotions about something that’s truly important to us, so we don’t have a lot of practice with it, and it can feel jarring. Supernatural was a television show, but it was so much more to so many people. So those emotions we’re processing are a big deal and it takes time to work through them. Maybe that’s part of why there’s still so much contention going on about the finale – it’s like a bad breakup that’s got some ambivalence around it. As long as you’re still arguing with your ex, is the relationship really over?
Whether the emotions that are lingering for you are sadness, grief, anger, or fear of more losses (combined hopefully with some anticipation for the new things coming our way), Supernatural fans head into the New Year with a lot to process. So I thought I’d do myself a favor and try to sift through my own conflicting emotions and not-always-rational thoughts here, and try to figure out some ways I can deal with those emotions and find as much joy as I possibly can in 2021. Sharing my thoughts and feelings here in the hopes that it might help you do the same.
So, what am I feeling? First and foremost, there’s sadness. Supernatural ending is a loss for me, and not a trivial one. Whenever you care about something deeply, losing that something hurts – and unfortunately there are no real shortcuts to get around feeling that pain. Instead, I’m allowing myself those feelings – telling myself that it’s okay to mourn. Whether you’re mourning the show itself or the death (temporarily anyway) of one or all of the main characters, those feelings are valid. Experiencing grief isn’t dependent on how you felt about the final episodes – we are ALL losing something important to us so we’re all grieving. Even if you loved the finale, you’re still losing the show and the fictional characters that enriched our lives and inspired us for a very long time. So, I’m reminding myself that my feelings are valid and letting myself feel them.
We all grieve differently and on our own timetable. For some fellow fans I know, avoidance and denial are still the most commonly used ways of coping. For me, I need to titrate my exposure to the things that make me feel that loss the most. I find myself alternately wanting to distract myself with other things, from work to zoom chats with friends or family, to little forays into the new things the Supernatural cast is up to, and then feeling pulled to sink back into Supernatural and remember why I’ve loved it so much and do some grieving. That might be with a tear-jerker of a finale fan vid, or a nostalgic one from 2007. It might be reading some fanfic that leaves me sobbing or indulging in some posts on Tumblr that are devastating yet validating in how much they ‘get it’. Whatever ‘puts me in my feels’ as we used to say back in the day. I need to feel it for a while, cry a few tears, and then I need to pull myself back out. Maybe by sharing what I’ve watched with a friend who I know will validate my feelings. Maybe by watching some gag reel videos or one of my favorite convention moments that will make me smile. Maybe by reading the actors’ words in Family Don’t End With Blood or There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done, to remind myself that they love this show and these characters too, and that this has meant just as much to them.
As we grieve, it’s helpful to go back and forth between really ‘feeling it’ and then backing away and escaping and avoiding for a little while. Your brain knows you can only take so much before being overwhelmed, and tries to help you forget about loss and grief for a while as a coping strategy. I’m trying to relax and let the healing process happen, little by little by little. There’s always a part of us that’s reluctant to let go of our grief for something we’ve loved and lost, as though if we start just being happy again, that will mean we have truly lost it. That’s not true though – when you love something, that love doesn’t have to go away. It just gets integrated, but it’s always there to be celebrated. That was our reason for putting together There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done, so we never have to forget and can hang onto something tangible to always remember how special this has been.
Graphic Offlarjun
It’s not just sadness. I’m also feeling fear, and in a way, that’s more upsetting than the sadness. As humans, we all fear the unknown, and that’s what 2021 brings as far as the Supernatural fandom. For 15 years, this has been such an important community for me, one I’ve been happily immersed in. I could hop on any social media at any time of the day or night and find other Supernatural fans there and plenty of new posts and photos and content. I am perfectly aware that I’ve been spoiled in this fandom, with so many of the actors being active on social media and conventions happening so often and so many talented, creative fans putting out such amazing creations. It’s inevitable that this will change now that the show is no longer filming and there are no new episodes to conjecture about and analyze ad infinitum afterwards. No more behind the scenes photos from set or fans on filming locations or PR events. I worry every day that the Impala emoji that temporarily graces the show’s hashtags will have disappeared, knowing that – like so many things we wish we could hang onto – it won’t be there forever and there’s nothing I can do about it. I know that the fandom won’t disappear, but that will change too over time, as fans find other things to love and post about and create for. That’s as it should be, I know, but it also scares me. I tend to be a one-fandom-at-a-time type of fan, and that’s been Supernatural for a very long time. I don’t fall in love easily, in any sense of the word.
So far my strategies for dealing with the anxiety are mostly using a little cognitive behavioral therapy on myself, challenging irrational thoughts like OMG I’m gonna lose all my friends or OMG nobody will ever make a video about Supernatural ever again! I have to keep reassuring myself that while some changes may not be wanted, change itself is inevitable – and that this particular change isn’t as catastrophic as I sometimes start to imagine. Three zoom get-togethers with my fandom friends in the past week helped a lot to calm my catastrophizing. (At least temporarily – alas, anxiety has a way of creeping back in – and then it will be back to CBT for me!)
There’s also some anger and disappointment, as I know there is for many fans. For me, that’s not about the last episodes themselves – and I feel very lucky that they worked for me, because there’s extra anger and disappointment for those who didn’t like them – but more about the relentless arguing and infighting that the fandom devolved into post finale. All those feelings people are having are valid, but it’s been hard to see fans attack other fans or the actors or writers of the show itself. I know how proud Misha was of episode 18 and how proud Jared and Jensen were of episode 20, and they’re real people who are impacted as well. That said, one of the things that keeps us all sane is knowing that other people’s feelings aren’t our responsibility. So I’m trying to focus on my own feelings and leave others to their own as much as possible – we all loved this show for different reasons, and our own histories both with the show and in our own lives determine our reaction to the story, so of course those reactions are going to vary widely. That’s okay. Let’s just give each other room for our diverse feelings as much as we can, because we’re all dealing with lots of emotions.
And finally, there’s that incongruous feeling of anticipation – incongruous because I never feel it without it being tied up with simultaneous grief. I’m so happy for Jared, Jensen and Misha and their success in taking on new projects so quickly. I know in their business, that’s crucial, and I genuinely care about them, so I’m relieved. I’m so glad they’ll be on our screens again so soon and that they aren’t going to disappear never to be heard from again. That would be a whole other loss on top of the loss of the fictional characters and the show itself. I never watched Walker Texas Ranger, so I’m going into the new Walker without any preconceived notions. They seem to be very thoughtful in putting it together, in terms of representation and diversity not just in front of the camera but behind it as well. The teaser was not only beautifully shot but intriguing in the emotional arcs it sets up. And Jared is putting his heart into it. So I’m excited to see where Walker takes me. I’ve been watching The Boys since the start, because I usually love whatever Eric Kripke creates, and this show is no exception. I was already a fan, so Jensen joining the cast is super exciting and I cannot wait to find out what insane adventures Kripke and company have in store for Soldier Boy. I don’t know much about Misha’s new film yet, but it’s got a great cast, so looking forward to that too.
That’s all good. At the same time, the selfish part of me that isn’t ready to let Supernatural go keeps wanting to be irrationally annoyed with J2M for moving on and becoming some other character, and leaving Sam, Dean and Cas behind. It feels like some kind of weird betrayal, as though they should have given up acting for a year to mourn the character they left behind or something. Yes, I’m totally aware that this isn’t rational (and wouldn’t have been a good idea), but grief isn’t always rational. It’s emotional, and sometimes illogical, but that doesn’t mean you can easily talk yourself out of those less than rational feelings. My strategy here is to acknowledge that flash of annoyance as the understandable thing that it is, and then try to find some enjoyment in the pure anticipation of all these new things and to feel good about being happy for those three real people.
Which, I guess, brings me to the last thing I’m feeling. Gratitude. No matter how much sadness or grief or fear or anger I’m dealing with, underneath there is always so much gratitude. If I had never had this amazing, incredible, life-changing show to love, I wouldn’t be feeling any of those things right now. But I also would never have had the past fifteen years that have been full of so much joy and inspired so much creativity. Supernatural and its unforgettable characters enriched and expanded my life in countless ways and brought me experiences I would never have had otherwise. Friends I wouldn’t have met. Books I wouldn’t have written. Travels I wouldn’t have gone on. Inspiration I wouldn’t have had. I became more me than I’d ever been thanks to this show, and nothing can ever take that away. However Supernatural has changed you and whatever it’s meant to you, that’s here to stay.
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There’s always the question of, do I let myself love this thing, knowing that at some point, I’ll have to let it go in one way or another? I’m so glad I took a chance on Supernatural and let myself fall head over heels. In spite of the pain of losing it, I’m so thankful I had something so special – and I fully intend to never forget it and to keep right on loving it.
My guess is that in 2021, while it may not be how it was in the 15 years prior, Supernatural and its actors and fans will still have something important to teach me.
Happy New Year, SPNFamily!
— Lynn
You can always remember Supernatural with There’ll
Be Peace When You Are Done and Family Don’t End
With Blood, links here or at peacewhenyouaredone.com
