Category: Season 10

Holy Crap, Show! Supernatural Brother’s Keeper

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tweet j2 mark (2)

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.

Tweet spn_sil
Tweet spn_sil

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

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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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Sticking Together or Stronger Alone? Supernatural’s Angel Heart

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WB/The CW
WB/The CW

I knew that streak of “OMG fandom all agrees about the awesomeness of this episode” wouldn’t last forever, so it wasn’t that shocking that this week’s episode split fandom down the middle once again. Half of my social media compatriots loved it and half hated it – or at least one line of it. I admit that particular line caused me to go “Huh?” – actually out loud, while scratching my head – which isn’t the reaction they were probably going for. I had to make a little cognitive detour to figure out what the hell it meant, or at least to come to my own way of making sense of it, which threw me out of the story for a minute, but then I found my way back in. Other than that glitch, and putting it aside for the moment, the rest of the episode was solid and touching, even if it didn’t quite leave me breathless or scrambling for tissues.

This was the first episode in which I found myself really liking the character of Claire. Kathryn Newton has done a credible job playing her throughout, but she was written to be annoying and that’s how she came off. This episode gave us a more mature Claire, some of her defenses partially dismantled as she searches for her mother. No coincidence that it’s her 18th birthday. Sometimes reaching that ‘legal adult’ status just brings up all the losses of childhood and makes us want to be parented all over again. I could understand Claire’s determination to figure out what happened to her mother. To find her, or at least to make sense of her abandonment. To make the chaos of her life somehow have meaning. I think Dean can relate to that need, which plays into what he says to her later.

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The Winchesters “Always Keep Fighting”: Supernatural’s The Werther Project

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WB/The CW
WB/The CW

I went into this week’s Supernatural episode already feeling very emotional, thanks to Jared and Jensen’s posted videos celebrating the last day of filming their tenth season of the Show. Seeing them so emotional about the ten years and about how they’ve only grown closer during that time – not to mention sharing some good whisky with their neckties as headbands – was the perfect way to mark that momentous occasion. That they shared what was originally intended as a video just for them with US only made it better.

Jensen: Just finished season 10!!!! 10 years. Same show and same ugly co-star. But damn is he lovable. Here is my post season interview with my boy Jared Padalecki. Cheers everyone!!!

There was a lot of cheering in response to both those videos, that’s for sure.

ten years celebration J2

The ending episodes of this season feel extra special because it’s such a ‘big year’ for the Show, and it seems like everyone is amping up their game in response. I usually have at least SOME things to pick apart, and there’s usually a whole contingent of fans who dislike any particular episode, but in the last few episodes? Not so much. Supernatural is always good – but recently? It’s off the charts good. It’s like everyone wants to close out the tenth season with a BANG.

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That’s The Show I Love! Supernatural Gets Real with The Book of the Damned

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WB/The CW
WB/The CW

I was so unspoiled for this week’s Supernatural episode, thanks to an insane few weeks at work, that I didn’t even know who had written it. About three minutes in, I was already pretty sure I knew. Thank you, Robbie Thompson, for an episode so good that even fans who are rarely in agreement are standing up and cheering. I don’t even know where to start. And that’s a good thing.

I guess I’ll start at the beginning, since the opening scene grabbed me immediately (partly because for a second I thought that Stephen Amell’s suggestion about an Arrow crossover had actually happened!) But no, it’s Charlie (clue number one that this is a Robbie episode). I have loved the character from her first introduction, so much that I’m only a little taken aback by her evolution from scared and geeky to scared and badass. And geeky. The evolution seems alarmingly quick from a viewer standpoint, but Charlie spent time in Oz kicking butt with Dorothy, and time passes differently there. Which is to say that her fighting skills are therefore believable. That little niggling taken care of, I’m free to just enjoy who Charlie is now and the meaning of that in a broader sense. She’s who Becky could have become if she wasn’t hijacked in Season 7 – she’s the fangirl who never apologized for her geek ways or her fannish enthusiasm, instead putting all that passion and knowledge to good use to become a heroine herself. She’s the fangirl who is every bit as smart and capable as the Winchesters, in her own way. And every bit as courageous. That’s a really important message, both for the Show and for a culture that struggles with depicting female characters who are real and human and yet able to be truly heroic. We don’t see it enough and we need to see it more.

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