As this week’s Supernatural episode ended, I found myself very emotional. Not just from the episode, though the last line hit me hard, but from the realization that I had just watched the 199th episode of the show that changed my life. In two weeks, we’ll all celebrate the amazing milestone of the 200th, hopefully with cast and crew joining in the online celebration. When we fell in love with Supernatural and decided this would be the show we’d research and write books about, we thought we’d be lucky if it stayed on the air another year. That was 2007. Here we are, with 2014 almost done, and the Little Show That Could is still going strong. Forgive me if I needed a few extra tissues.
I really enjoyed this episode. The story line played out in a linear fashion instead of jumping around, and the pace was even throughout. And oh how I loved the interaction between the brothers. I’ll wax poetic over that in a minute. Most amazing thing about this episode? My daughter and I agreed. On everything. Is the moon blue instead of paper??
Supernatural is on a roll. Once again, I was swept along by this week’s episode, the hour going by way too quickly – and that’s exactly how I like it. Adam Glass’ script and Misha Collins’ directing were a heady combination, with the rest of the stellar cast and crew all bringing their A game for the first-time director.
When we spoke to Misha at VegasCon, the first thing we asked him about directing was, “So, do you have the bug now?”
It’s almost impossible to review this episode as a single thing. There was the Monster of the Week episode, which had to do with Garth and the definition of ‘monster’ that SPN has often considered. And there was the last three minutes, which was something completely different.
First, the MotW portion. I’ve liked Garth well enough in the past, but not so much that I was clamoring for his return. I liked him in this episode, though. He’s more interesting as a werewolf – sorry, lycanthrope – than as an unlikely (often comic relief) hunter. Adam Glass let us get to know Garth a bit better, and DJ Qualls gets to invest the character with some emotional vulnerability. His relationship with his new wife comes off as touching, even if it did apparently get very serious very fast (I suppose becoming a werewolf and then having one sniff you out and save your life will move you to the alter pretty quickly).
Photo Op! SPN Writers with Jared and Jensen – photo Chris Schmelke
We’re quoting Supernatural writer Adam Glass in that title – but we’re also feeling very lucky to be part of the SPN Family today. For those of you who missed it, there has been a lot going on in the Sherlock fandom for the past few days, after a journalist at the screening of the new season printed out some racy Sherlock fanfic and then got the show’s stars to read it aloud, apparently trying for some cheap laughs at fandom’s expense. (Ironic for a television show that is itself – literally – fanfiction). We’d be the first to stand up and say that fans shouldn’t be ashamed of however they participate in fandom – that’s the whole point of Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls after all – but it wasn’t the fan author’s idea to share and in fact she was mortified. We reached out to her and offered to send her a copy of “Fangasm” and “Fandom At The Crossroads” – which she graciously said she appreciated but wanted to purchase for herself in fannish solidarity. We wish we could send a copy to the entire Sherlock fandom!
The Sherlock actors were respectful (unlike the journalist), but the whole kerfuffle got us thinking about how much the Supernatural cast has embraced the fandom – how much they respect their fans, how the term “SPNFamily” is used by the cast and crew and writers as much as it’s used by the fandom. We thought about Jared’s words at Burcon about how fandom lets us all be ourselves, that we shouldn’t let anyone else tell us what to like; Misha’s joyous and inspiring way of bringing us all together to do good in the world through Random Acts; Jensen joining fans and family in this year’s Buddy Walk for Downs Syndrome in Dallas; Osric cosplaying along with fandom and writing his own Kevin Tran fanfic; Kim Rhodes’ passionate defense of the Sherlock fan and all fans; the writers, actors, producers and crew members –virtually everyone involved with the show — joining fandom for live tweets of episodes. We’re lucky – and so are they. And I think we all know it.
As we blogged at the time, we invited a bunch of the SPN writers to ‘crash’ our photo op with Jared and Jensen at Burcon. It was wonderful to see the surprised looks on the boys’ faces when so many of the writers walked in! Some hadn’t met the actors before, so the whole thing was warm and wonderful (and we’re still really glad we lured them in with us!) We got the jpeg from super-photographer Chris yesterday, and sent it on to the writers. Adam Glass tweeted it out with the message “feel privileged to be part of this Supernatural family.”
Happy holidays from Fangasm! Whatever other holidays you’re celebrating this season, we hope you’re also celebrating what we all have in common – our love of Supernatural. And we hope you’re celebrating something else that we think is unique, special and important: Fandom.
