A Great Big Beautiful Collaboration: Supernatural ‘Just My Imagination’

WB/The CW
WB/The CW

It’s taken me three days to write up this review, because there was so much to like about ‘Just My Imagination’. I’m not known for my ability to keep things brief when I have a lot to say, so I knew this review might get long. But now it’s a sunny Saturday morning on the East coast, and my Friday night rewatch is fresh in my mind, so here goes.

In case that wasn’t clear from the first paragraph, I loved it! Sometimes it makes me nervous to have a lot of anticipation about an episode – I felt that way about Robbie Thompson’s ‘Baby’ episode too, after hearing about it from Jared, Jensen and Robbie before hand. This time, I had the pleasure of chatting with episode director Richard Speight Jr. several times and with writer Jenny Klein too – not to mention, Jensen told me more than once how much he liked the episode and how excited HE was about it – so let’s just say, my expectations were high. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, but in this case, I think my giddiness worked perfectly to make the first watch even more enjoyable.

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Scary Good! Sheriff Donna Returns in Supernatural ‘Plush’

WB/The CW
WB/The CW

It took me a few days to be able to actually LOOK at the caps from last week’s Supernatural episode, ‘Plush’, without cringing. Damn, I somehow forget just how scary and creepy this show can be! I am totally with Sam in his fear of clowns, and weirdly almost-realistic deer head costumes or entirely sinister court jesters are right up there too. Not to mention bloody giant bunny heads stuck on some hapless innocent! Those eyes!!

Jared played it perfectly when Sam is trapped in the elevator with that ohmygodsocreepy clown – I may have screamed while Sam closed his eyes to steel himself for what was to come. You could almost hear him internally saying, ‘Really? Clowns??’

By that time, I was as terrified as Sam. The image of the clown carrying that knife, drops of blood slowly dripping onto the hospital floor as he walks down the hallway? OMG. Poor Sammy!

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THIS Is Season 11?? Supernatural Just Keeps Getting Better with Our Little World

WB/The CW
WB/The CW

Season 11 is off to a fantastic start. It strikes me as I write this what an unusual thing that is to say. Season 11 and the word “fantastic” aren’t often used in the same sentence. Many long-running shows, even ones who are beloved by fans, often take a downturn in quality as they go on. It has to be difficult to come up with fresh story arcs and keep characters interesting over such a long span of time. Even real people aren’t quite as fascinating after you’ve known them for a decade – how can there possibly be nuances still to discover about fictional characters? How can we possibly still care about fictional characters enough to sustain a weekly television show in its eleventh year?

I’d be the first to say that Supernatural has had its ups and downs. Not every season is stellar and not every episode is breathtakingly awesome. But I still find something to love about this show every time I watch a new episode, and I’m enjoying Season 11 almost as much as I did the early seasons that first drew me into this decade-long love affair. That’s pretty damn amazing!

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Supernatural Welcomes a New Writer with ‘Thin Lizzie’

WB/The CW
WB/The CW

It was always going to be difficult to follow Robbie Thompson’s ‘Baby’, which left me smiling for an entire week. Show was gutsy in giving the follow-up episode to a brand new writer, Nancy Won. But guess what? She pretty much pulled it off! The episode wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty damn good.

Good things? It was SCARY. Old school Supernatural scary. Creepy music and big haunted-looking mansion full of creepy dolls and Lizzie Borden paintings that evoked ‘Playthings.’ Filmed in classic horror movie fashion, so that a simple walk down the basement stairs had me wanting to cover my eyes. That moment when Dean discovered the mark on one of the papers in Len’s house? Truly chilling. I gasped out loud! Love when Show can make me do that.

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Bringing Us All Home: Supernatural’s Baby

Tweet, @zabrinamakeup
Tweet, @zabrinamakeup

It’s the day after the day after as I write this, and I’m still basking in the afterglow of this week’s Supernatural episode. In fact, all of fandom and even some of the entertainment media is basking in the afterglow. It feels, as someone on my twitter timeline said, like the old days. When I’d go online after an episode of Supernatural aired and everyone would be squeeful, unanimous in their gleeful appreciation of the Best. Show. Ever.

It was like that Wednesday night, as post after post after post went on and on about “Baby”. I tweeted that my episode review would be really short this week: Perfection.

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Action Ackles Returns with The Bad Seed

WB/The CW
WB/The CW

Last week’s episode was eagerly anticipated in large part due to the fact that once again Jensen Ackles was directing; just like the cast and crew rally around one of their own, the fandom rallies around too, everyone rooting for Jensen to succeed. It wasn’t one of my favorite episodes on first viewing, but now that I’ve rewatched it (and listened to Jensen’s directing insights about it at Chicon, which will be up here soon in my meet and greet report), I like it more. I definitely think he can count it as a directing success. There was a lot of talking and not as much action as usual, but he made the most of what action there was, and for the most part, the exposition wasn’t too heavy handed. And hey, at least the boys are all talking to each other!

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Supernatural Gets Creepy – 11.02 Form and Void

11.02 cas tied

Well, that was a wild ride! Supernatural’s ‘Form and Void’ (not the catchiest title – I miss Kripke’s provocative episode names) was nevertheless one of those episodes that seemed to fly by, keeping me on the edge of my seat and biting my nails when it wasn’t making me squee over how badass it looked – and sounded. The music was, as one fan put it, ‘jacked up’ – it wasn’t SPN’s usual fare, but it really worked to keep the pace quick throughout.

In fact, instead of dragging, there was so much going on that I felt like my head was spinning at times. And I’m not entirely sure I’m going to remember everything that happened after a single watch, but here are the things that struck me.

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My Show is Back! Supernatural 11.01 Out Of The Darkness

WB/The CW
WB/The CW

There is always so much anticipation leading up to the Supernatural season premiere, that it’s hard to believe anything could actually live up to it. For weeks, fans have been posting countdowns, fanfiction that picks up where S10 left off and imagines where the Winchesters, Cas and Crowley will go from there, fanvids, fanart, and graphics all in an attempt to get through the long Hellatus without going insane from Supernatural deprivation.

When the big night is finally here, the excitement is palpable all over social media. I might have let my grad students go home a bit early last night. Shhhh…

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Holy Crap, Show! Supernatural Brother’s Keeper

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I often refer to Supernatural as a rollercoaster, but this week’s season finale episode felt more like being caught in a tsunami and tossed around until I didn’t know up from down and my heart was pounding so hard I thought I might pass out. A few times there, I didn’t know whether to reach for the tissues because I was ugly crying so hard I was dripping on my slice of pie or to reach for the Tums, I was so queasy. Every time a commercial came on and I paused to tweet something inarticulate and unspoilery (usually WHAT??! NOOOOO!!!) I marveled at the fact that after TEN YEARS this Show can still overload my emotions so much that I’m having a physiological reaction to what I’m seeing. After all this time, I care that much.

The Supernatural fandom had been on pins and needles all day in anticipation of what we’ve come to expect from season finales — an episode that rips our hearts out and then leaves us hanging for four months. Fandom passed around empathic gifs so everyone would know that we’re all in this together.

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Tweet spn_sil

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Stop the Ride, I Wanna Get Off! Supernatural’s The Prisoner

WB/The CW
WB/The CW

I often say that watching Supernatural is a roller coaster – emotional ups and downs, violent twists and turns, screams and shouts and sometimes a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach even though you’re having a great time. The last two weeks were a bit different – Dark Dynasty was just plain dark at the end, and left me with the sinking feeling that Show had gone somewhere it would have a tough time digging itself out of. The Prisoner was dark too, but it was more of a roller coaster. This time, though, it wasn’t always my favorite one (that would be the Great Bear coaster at Hershey Park, btw). That one flies you through the air swiftly and smoothly, your feet hanging free, a gigantic grin on your face as you soar and dip and basically have the time of your life. The roller coaster ride of The Prisoner was more like one not designed quite so smoothly – one that goes at breakneck speed and sometimes jerks you around corners too roughly and leaves you screaming OUCH instead of YAY. One that creates a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, far beyond queasy. One that you stagger off of at the end clutching your heart and asking WHY??

Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. But last night’s episode did have me feeling a bit sick and worse for wear. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a well done episode – it was, especially the amazing acting. But there were parts that were just too painful for me; I haven’t been able to do a rewatch yet, in fact. So this review is from my live watching, which sort of seems fitting for an episode that left me feeling so raw.

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