There is so much great television coming up this fall that there’s no way I can do the kind of deep dive reviews I relish doing for all of them – but there’s also no way I can not post at least a little squee about Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles’ new role as Sexy Sheriff Beau Arlen. There’s also no way I can not post some of the gorgeous screencaps from the episodes that CappingQueen created. So each week I’ll trace the evolution of Beau here just for fun as we discover who this new character is – which does not mean the show doesn’t have other great characters and an intriguing mystery going on. I mean, Reba is on this season! And her oh-so-creepy (spoiler alert!) son who hangs out in the woods being menacing is already living up to Big Sky’s tradition of creating characters that make you go eeeeek! So yes, all that’s happening and I appreciate it when I watch.
But this little review? It’s all about Soldier Beau… I mean Sheriff Beau…
He’s handsome, that goes without saying. And we’ve seen from the season 2 finale that he’s charming as hell. Season 3 kicks off with reminders of both those attributes. And then we get the show’s slightly meta acknowledgement that Big Sky was maybe a little caught off guard by the passion of Ackles’ fans at first, but they catch on fast and they sure know now! The show’s social media been courting what they’ve picked up on as the ‘Ackles Army'(though that has some interesting connotations in the fandom that they are likely unaware of…). They’ve also been parrying back and forth with The Boys social media (the show Ackles was on last season), as both shows have clearly realized they have a PR goldmine on their hands.
The Boys is a whiz at social media, so it’s been fun watching the two networks go back and forth. Talk about meta!
In this episode, Big Sky brings the acknowledgement of (a small part of) Ackles’ appeal right into the show, as Beau returns a casserole dish to Denise with a good-natured complaint that if he keeps eating like that, none of his clothes will fit. Seems like Beau has a little bit of Dean Winchester’s hedonism when it comes to food.
Denise unselfishly offers to take him shopping, assuring him she’ll make sure his pants fit just right, especially in the back – leading to lots of peach emoji use by the fandom. Deservedly so.
Sheriff Arlen is anything but put off by Denise’s generous offer – or her sincere appreciation of his assets. His cheekiness is charming…and oh wow, that was totally a Freudian slip on my part…
We get some nice conversation between Beau and Jenny in this episode, some of it just for fun and some of it more serious.
We also start to learn more of his backstory, as he advises Jenny to do what he’s done to handle the reservoir of anger he’s carrying around – make a ‘punch list’.