The last con of the year is always emotional. I am filled with gratitude that we still have these conventions to celebrate a show that’s been off the air for three years, but that I still love dearly. I used to think that for sure they’d be done by now, so every year that we still get to have these fandom reunions with fellow Supernatural fans and the cast feels like a gift. They’ve expanded now to include the actors’ other projects, but the core of the cons is still Supernatural, and I’m thankful.
My friend (and talented photographer) Kim Prior was supposed to come with me, but was sick unfortunately, so I staffed the vendor table mostly by myself – and thus missed a lot of panels that I would have loved to see. On the plus side, this was the first con with Supes Ain’t Always Heroes, our new book on The Boys, so that was exciting to share. And, as is usually the case, there were many friends to catch up with and toast the holiday season and the New Year.
I met up with my friend Sadie on Friday at an amazing little restaurant called Rosemary and The Queen. One of the best things about cons in Nashville is that the food and drink are AMAZING!
All the ambience (their playlist even included some classic Lou Reed!), great drinks and food, and an outdoor patio twinkling with multicolored lights. Some good conversation and what more could you ask? (Stay tuned for more on season 2 of Sadie’s ‘In Defense of Fandom’ podcast coming up)
On Saturday I finally caught a panel – Misha Collins, whose panels I never ever miss. Misha is following the post-SPN tradition of being long-haired and bearded and it’s working well on him just like it is for Jared and Jensen. (Though I’m probably in the minority of being ready for the beards to be gone. Luckily it is not at all up to me!)
Misha’s panel started late, but he promised to pack a lot into a slightly shorter panel – and he did!
He kicked it off with a hug for Rob. Awwww.
As for what’s keeping him busy right now, Misha let us know that he’s writing – something that might be a novel, in fact! (I like to think I kick started his return to writing when he wrote a chapter for ‘Fan Phenomena Supernatural’ almost a decade ago. He also has a heartfelt chapter on fandom in ‘Family Don’t End With Blood’ and of course his beautiful book of poetry and his cookbook.
It was nice to have the strike over and the actors able to talk about their work, past and present.
Misha: Now I can say SUPERNATURAL SUPERNATURAL SUPERNATURAL!
There are only a few cons that I can drive to, and the one in northern New Jersey is one of them. I hate driving, so this is both a blessing and a curse – but I also hate paying for airfare, so of course I drove to this one in scenic Whippany. (I don’t actually know if Whippany is scenic, tbh). It’s a familiar drive from many trips to Rutgers, and this hotel was conveniently right off the NJ Turnpike, so I got there with less stress than last year – and last year’s parking lot debacle had left me with the coveted knowledge of where the extra parking spaces were too. What last year’s debacle did not tell me was that somehow this parking lot does not have an elevator from the lower floors – so I ended up dragging suitcases full of books up multiple flights of stairs and just about had a heart attack by the time I actually got to the hotel. ARGH.
Sweaty and exhausted but a few dollars richer at least from not flying, I got there on Friday afternoon and managed to catch some of the Friday people onstage, so there’s that. Jared Padalecki was unable to be at this con because he was at Matt Barr’s wedding in Cancun – we missed him ALOT but I’m so glad he could be there with all the Walker Independence cast celebrating such a joyous occasion.
David Haydn Jones and Gil McKinney were onstage when I finally got to the ballroom.
The two were contemplating the possible impact of AI on acting when I arrived. (More ARGH). (Not Gil and David).
David: My favorite episode was when Ketch and Dean were on the mountain. Jensen and I tried to add to the scene.
And apparently it snowed just long enough for them to film – the snow melted right after their scenes were done!
I love that David always tries to dress the part of wherever the con is, looking kinda Bruce Springsteen for Jersey. And love Gil’s stylish hat!
David: When I got the role of Ketch, I watched the Supernatural top 20 episodes, and I was like whoa, they’re really leaning into the absurd comedy.
(Mystery Spot and The French Mistake cases in point!)
Gil pledged to go back and watch all of David’s episodes. David pledged to do the same.
Gil: I only have two!
Gil told the story of finding out that Henry Winchester’s name was in the pilot of The Winchesters, and then getting the call from Jensen to ask if he wanted to play Henry again.
(You can read the whole story in our exclusive interview with Gil here on Fangasm last month)
David: At the wrap party (that they were finally able to have in Vancouver years later), Jensen and I were spitballing about Ketch’s granddad in The Winchesters.
He then proceeded to do an Austin Powers Ketch imitation lol
What weapon would David have taken from SPN?
David: The grenade launcher! It actually had a quarter charge in it, and that was a practical explosion with real fire and glass!
Gil reminisced about having to break Baby’s window on SPN.
Gil: That was really fun, but I didn’t know how much that would upset people. I nailed it on one take, like F yeah!
Another memorable scene was when Henry and Dean took that drive in the Impala.
Gil: Jensen and I got into the Impala, and he did a full 180 in the middle of the street – I didn’t know it was closed off! Jensen was like, do you need new shorts?
(Yes lol)
David said that Ketch was originally supposed to sound more like Billy Butcher on The Boys.
He also reminisced about some pranks, like trying to say his lines while someone was holding the mic like this and “fondling the balls in my hand” which I can imagine was… challenging…
As actors with experience on lots of other shows, they both had heartfelt positive things to say about working on Supernatural.
Gil: I’ve never worked on a show so nice and professional as Supernatural, and that’s because of Jared and Jensen. The Winchesters felt like a continuation of that.
We finally had Richard Speight, Jr. back as emcee for this con – he’s been so busy directing that it’s been a while – and he joked when he introduced Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster and Kim was like ‘who are you?’
Richard: Hi, I’m the new guy.
Lol
A fan asked about the Wayward Podcast, which they now record live at cons with some fans joining them. So you never know what you’re gonna get.
Briana: When we think of something we want to talk about on the Podcast, we usually do!
I have enjoyed every Supernatural convention that’s been in New Orleans, which is one of my favorite cities in the US. The food is incredible, the history and architecture are fascinating, and it’s a place where people are determined to relax and have fun – which makes it a great place for a con. This year was the first time it was a Road So Far Creation con instead of an official Supernatural con, but it was once again a wonderful time, in part because I had lots of friends there.
And because – New Orleans!
My friend Tedra brought a bunch of free postcards to put at my vendor table, from artist @sfwFandD, which were needless to say very popular.
I love when fans do things for other fans just out of wanting to share the joy – so much of what makes fandom special!
(Also they made great bookmarks for the books)
I had to work later than usual, and then flights were wonky, so I didn’t end up actually getting there until Saturday late afternoon – which meant I missed a ton of panels and people that I really wanted to see. First Misha panel I’ve ever missed, I think. Boo work.
I did make it in time to have dinner with friends, and for the Saturday Night Special, luckily!
This was a uniquely awesome SNS because the stage at this venue was very very far from the first row of seats (which makes no one happy) so the ever resourceful Creation tech team constructed a catwalk to bring out a portion of the stage – and every single actor and musician seemed to love it as much as the fans did!
Kim performed one of my favorite Blondie songs, which is a perfect fit for her.
Creation’s own Stephanie Dizon performed, which she used to do a lot back in the day, so it was great to have her (and her great voice) onstage again.
It’s also great to have Gil McKinney back – at the cons and at SNS singing. (Check out our exclusive interview with Gil recently here if you missed it)
And look at those fabulous back up dancers aka Kim and Briana!
And newcomer to the cons JoJo Fleites also joined in the SNS.
They absolutely blew everyone away with their beautiful rendition of ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’ which was also performed this season on ‘The Winchesters’. Wow!
‘The Winchesters’ cast is as talented as Supernatural’s actors have always been apparently – Meg Donnelly also performed, showing off her onstage experience.
As we wait to find out whether the Supernatural universe’s ‘The Winchesters’ will return for a second season, I talked to one of the show’s guest stars for its first season – Gil McKinney, reprising his role as Henry Winchester, patriarch of the Winchester family. One of the exciting things about ‘The Winchesters’ was having some of the cast of the ‘Mothership’, aka Supernatural, make an appearance – including Gil. He has also been doing the convention circuit again recently, so it’s been wonderful to see him in person as well as onscreen.
Lynn: How did you find out that you’d be playing Henry Winchester again? I’m assuming you didn’t have to audition for the part!
Gil as Henry with Jared and Jensen as Sam and Dean
Gil: It’s kind of funny, I remember exactly where I was when I caught wind of it. I was driving around running errands and got a text from Alaina Huffman, who played Abbadon on Supernatural. She left LA years ago, but she reached out to me and said hey, are you doing The Winchesters pilot, because your name is in the script?! I said, wow that’s pretty cool. No one had reached out to me yet, but I knew the pilot was in the process of being cast. She had been sent the script, and I don’t think she would mind me telling the story that she had an audition for Josie.
[Who we didn’t end up seeing on the series – at least not yet.]
Gil: I asked her to send me the script – not the whole script, but the audition material.
Lynn: The sides.
Gil: The sides, exactly. It was the scene in the pilot where they’re reading the letter from Henry, and it says Henry Winchester played by Gil McKinney in the sides, and I was like, that’s cool! That’s never happened to me before, but also kind of strange because no one had mentioned anything yet. That casting office knows me fairly well, I would say they’ve cast me in more shows than any other office. They’re wonderful. They’re called UDK, Ulrich Dawson and Kritzer, and they’re fantastic, some of the kindest casting people you’ll ever meet.
Lynn: They cast Supernatural too, right? I’ve heard many of the actors talk about how great Robert Ulrich is, and how great that agency is. I keep saying someday I need to buy them a fruit basket. A GIANT one!
Gil: So I called my manager, just to let him know, and then weeks, if not a couple of months, went by and I remember exactly where I was – in my garage putting together a motorized tractor trailer situation for my son – and I get a text out of nowhere from Jensen. We’re very friendly but we don’t communicate regularly or anything, but I got a text from him out of the blue saying hey, do you have a minute to chat? I was like, yes Jensen, I’ve got a minute for you! So we chat and he tells me they want me to come play Henry on the show again, and I was just floored, I was so happy.
Lynn: I can imagine!
Gil: You know, I can only speak for myself, but as actors, the disappointments pile up so the victories become extra special, and that was just really cool. We had a really nice conversation – he was on a boat somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana. I want to say he was with Robbie Thompson and they were looking at alligators or something cool like that. I was like, that sounds nice man, I’m putting together a motorized tractor for my one year old. I said, this is the best call I’ve gotten in a long time and of course, anything you need.
Lynn: That’s awesome.
Gil: I’m over the moon because, you know, conventions and Supernatural are one of the best things that have ever happened to me, but I did one episode in Season 8 and one in Season 9 and they never got back to Henry. I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the world doing conventions and the one question I got more than any other is when is Henry coming back, are we going to see Henry again?
Gil answers questions at a Creation Supernatural convention
Lynn: I think we all thought we would. He’s part of the core family, the Winchesters, so I really thought we would.
Gil: Well, you know, I’m not in the writers room, I don’t know why decisions are made one way or the other. All I do know is I spoke with Adam Glass somewhere during the course of those years – Adam basically created and wrote the Henry Winchester character and introduced it and cast me, which I’m forever grateful to him for. He also flew me back to LA to do an episode of Criminal Minds Beyond Borders that he was writing on, he offered me a guest star on that. One day we were sitting in my trailer at CBS studios and talking about everything and he expressed to me that he fought and fought to have Henry come back in a much bigger way, but for some reason, in the writers room not everybody was on the same page. They wanted to go in a different direction. One producer just felt like Henry should stay dead, which is hard to hear. So I didn’t lose hope but as season 14 and 15 came, I just had to kind of accept that Henry likely was not going to be back on Supernatural. And that was a tough pill to swallow.
Lynn: I’m sure it was. It was a great character, and I think a lot of people wanted to see more of Henry.
Gil: I’ve done a lot of guest stars on shows, and hands down that role is my favorite, because it’s such a cool show and such a great character. Especially in that first episode I did, As Time Goes By, when Henry is in almost every scene. So as an actor, I spent a couple of weeks in Vancouver, on set pretty much every day. It was so much fun to shoot!
Gil with Serge Ladouceur on the set of Supernatural
Lynn: And it was such a great episode.
Gil: So fast forward to this call from Jensen and I was like, wow, it’s finally happening – Henry is gonna get to come back finally, after all these years!
The season finale of The Winchesters was called “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye,” a nod to the fact that it’s some kind of ending even if we don’t know what kind yet or how final that ending might be. If it doesn’t get picked up by the CW, which seems unlikely as it’s not picking up many scripted shows, Chaos Machine has said they will shop it to other networks and streamers, so who knows what will happen. Showrunner Robbie Thompson, in his finale week interviews, made it clear that it was their goal and priority to deliver a solid season ending that could work if the show went forward and also work if it did not – which is no easy task, I’m guessing!
The Supernatural fandom has a lot of big feelings about endings.
I know I do, and most of my fellow fans and fandom friends do too. I loved the series finale of Supernatural and feel protective of it when misinformation about it gets passed around. So I’m sure that plenty of people will feel protective of the ending of this show as well. I’m sure too that, like OG Supernatural, emotions around this finale will be mixed.
Some of my closest friends didn’t love the Supernatural series finale because they had a very hard time with Dean dying, and for some of those people somehow this episode of The Winchesters felt healing. I confess I don’t entirely understand why, since Dean was just as “alive” at the end of Supernatural as he was at the end of this episode, which is to say not alive at all but very much existing, as Jensen said to me long ago, on another plane of existence. This episode didn’t change that; Dean was happy and at peace at the end of Supernatural, and he was more or less the same at the end of The Winchesters. In fact, one could argue he had more peace at the end of Supernatural than at the end of The Winchesters, after finding out about Chuck’s fail-safe plan instead of believing that he and Sam had defeated Chuck, peace when you are done, end of story. But if some people felt they needed healing and they got it from this show, I am all for it! Most of us are very motivated to get back to some kind of equilibrium when it involves something we care deeply about, and if you can figure out a way to do it, go for it.
For fans who ultimately found Supernatural as Kripke created it too dark, The Winchesters may have felt healing in that sense too. It was a 2023 show, with a more diverse cast of characters and hunters who aren’t averse to therapy or meditation to try to cope with their anger issues and trauma instead of enacting them and periodically taking them out on other people unintentionally. In a sense, Robbie Thompson wrote a sort of fix-it fic for those aspects of Supernatural, with an ending that parallels 15.19 instead of 15.20, with John and Mary driving off into a hopeful new life, as Sam and Dean did at the end of 15.19. I didn’t need a fix-it fic; for me, ‘Carry On’ was the ending that made sense and felt right for a show that was a 42 minute horror show, dark and disturbing and sometimes hard to watch but ultimately incredibly inspiring. Its heroes were flawed and nuanced and not black and white, ever, and they lived through tragedy and always kept fighting. I felt – feel – incredibly grateful that we got the bridge scene after the barn, a far more happy ending than I ever thought we’d get on Supernatural. But I can see why people who didn’t feel that way about the finale could have found The Winchesters healing, like the best fix-it fics are undeniably healing. Again, if it feels that way to you, please revel in it and feel better. Fandom itself will certainly be the better for any healing that brings.
For me, I felt a mix of things as I was watching, and still do now after taking a week to let it all digest. I was entertained for sure – I’ve said in my last few reviews that the show seemed to be finding its feet in terms of its look and timing – and I felt relieved that my tentative theories about what was going on were mostly correct. (I’m protective of Supernatural canon, so while I trusted Robbie and the EPs to be protective also as promised, I still felt a sense of relief that this was indeed an Alternate Universe John and Mary who we were getting to know this whole time, which made the inconsistencies nothing to do with canon and everything to do with this not being OUR John and Mary.) The cast were all able to bring their characters to life in a way that made them unique and provided enough backstory so that we felt like we were getting to know them – and they are all delightful in real life.
I’m still a bit confused about the progression from the pilot to the finale, since it started out sounding like Dean was trying to figure out his own parents’ past (not another world’s John and Mary) and that their epic love would save the world – it turns out that Baby sort of saved the world (again) with some help from all the characters plus one Dean Winchester. Most of us pretty much knew that Dean Winchester would make an actual appearance in this episode. Anyone who has ever met me knows that I love Dean Winchester like I love breathing. I can’t wait to have him and more Supernatural back on my some-kind-of screen again and more of the adventures of Sam and Dean. We didn’t get alot of Dean in The Winchesters, though intended or not, Dean’s appearance was a big part of why many people tuned in – but we got more in the season finale than in any other episode. I think because I was satisfied with how Supernatural turned out, I didn’t have a burning need to see Dean in this show, and thus his appearance in the pilot didn’t feel like relief, it just felt like having an old friend back for a bit. Without Sam, it also didn’t feel like Supernatural, so the pilot gave me a confusing Dean, the story left intentionally murky about what he was up to and why.
The rest of the season gave us Dean Winchester bits of narration as he (we now know) added to the hunting journal that I don’t think we ever saw him keep on Supernatural but he apparently did – it seems a bit more like a Sam thing to do, but hopefully this AU John and Mary benefited from it. (ETA: Apparently we did see Dean have a journal back in Season 1 episode 18, which I totally did not remember!) I still have questions, but by the end of this episode it did feel like Dean Winchester himself was on my TV screen, albeit not in an episode of Supernatural. That was the intention for this show, to stand on its own two feet and introduce a new cast of characters that would hopefully intrigue fans enough to keep going – and Robbie has said that if that happens, it won’t be the Dean show, but the newly minted hunters in this AU world who will ‘carry on’. The show’s future is still up in the air, but I think the show succeeded in creating some memorable characters in this world’s Mary and John and Carlos and Lata (and Millie and Ada too). It doesn’t hurt that the cast is absolutely lovely – it was a pleasure meeting many of them at New York Comic Con for interviews and at a recent convention.
So what actually happened in this episode? A LOT. Phew. We start off earlier in 1972, as John buries his friends after serving in the war, traumatized and unsure where he belongs or what he wants to do.
He sits down in a bus station, looking lost, and a mysterious man approaches and gives him an envelope – who John calls “Sir” because he’s clearly older than John himself.
Me: Jensen Ackles?!
I still can’t rewatch the episode and see that as Dean Winchester, it looks too much like Jensen. (I’m not quibbling, because the reason he needed the long hair and beard is, I’m guessing, to return to playing a character that I’m really freaking excited about! And yes it’s Heaven, he’s dead, he probably can look however he wants, so there’s no canon issue, but I still can’t see that person as Dean Winchester of Supernatural no matter how hard I try). But I’m okay with it, and the merchant marine lighthouse keeper Ernest Hemingway Robert Redford look, unsurprisingly, totally works for him.
(It worked for Redford too…)
Anyway.
He gives John the letter from his father and disappears; we see him looking down on a confused John from the balcony.
gifs justjensenanddean
The plan worked, as John buys a ticket back to Lawrence, Kansas. And then the show pulls off a well-kept secret as we pan out and see none other than Bobby Singer standing next to Dean-who-does-not-look-like-Dean.
Bobby: We’re not supposed to meddle with things, ya idjit!
The penultimate episode of The Winchesters’ first season was what Supernatural used to call a ‘Monster of the Week’. The open is frankly terrifying, two guys out to have a good time – at a closed carnival at night? Uh oh.
Not-very-happy guy finds a ticket, hears music that his friend doesn’t, and heads right toward the creepiest looking carnival tent you can imagine because of course he does. Limbo’s Hall of Happy – and here he is, Limbo himself, waving and beckoning the guy to come right on inside. WHY, DUDE? Who would follow a clown that looks like this???
First he’s trapped in a hall of mirrors (look, those things were terrifying when I was a kid – not fun!) and then confronted with Limbo and his own face in clown makeup staring back at him. Somehow he manages to smile anyway and AAAHHHHH I am totally with Sam Winchester and his fear of clowns!
Kudos on a truly creepy scary opening, The Winchesters!
‘Tears of a Clown’ is a classic song that makes a good episode title. Dean Winchester narration kicks off after that.
Dean: Hunting’s a dishonest business. You gotta lie all the time, about who you are and what you do. But the hardest lies aren’t the ones you tell other people, they’re the ones you tell yourself.
Yes, that was a predictable ending to that sentence that I spoke right along with Dean, but it is something that Sam and Dean learned the hard way. It’s also, as I’ve written before, a big theme of this show. Who are you? Is reality what you think it is?
John and Mary are pretty good with the musical aliases, just as their sons will be. (It is so confusing that this is a prequel, and that John didn’t know any of this in the OG show, constantly making my head hurt!) Even Karen Carpenter got a shout out here, very 70s.
John is channeling his inner Dean Winchester (I know, I know, it’s gotta be the other way around), snapping at Mary when she questions if he’s okay after he was ‘overly aggressive’ with apparently more than one person. He just wants to put what happened with Kyle in the rear view, but Mary’s not so sure that’s possible. I am still not totally sold on the John-has-anger-issues thing – we don’t see a lot of it, and just hearing about it isn’t as convincing. I can understand the John has PTSD thing more, and perhaps anger is one of the things that he’s dealing with as a result, but I wish we saw more than we have. I imagine having only 13 episodes to get to some revelations in the next episode has made things more compressed than they wished they could have been.
Last week’s episode of ‘The Winchesters’ starts right off with the Dean Winchester narration.
Dean: Being a hunter means always being on the move. And no matter how hard you plan, no matter how hard you work, at a certain point we all run out of road. It’s what we do at those crossroads that define us.
The crossroads certainly defined Sam and Dean’s lives in multiple ways – literally, and at those points where a hard decision had to made, one that would impact other people too (or maybe even the whole world). Is Dean facing one of those decisions again?
Back to the story, John shows up at the club house covered in blood, Mary asking in shock where he’s hurt. John echoes his eventual son (or is that really Sam echoing his dad….never mind…brain hurts…) in Born Under A Bad Sign, one of my favorite episodes.
John: It’s not my blood.
At least he doesn’t turn out to be possessed by a demon! But yes, he’s in alot of danger…
He is pretty traumatized by what happened to Kyle, and feels extra guilty because he was a friend/one-time-date of Mary’s. Millie, of course, much like her eventual grandson Dean, believes her son no questions asked and helps him escape.
In a common horror trope (because it’s endlessly terrifying, playing on our very human need to be able to predict when there’s danger around us), there’s no way to know who the Akrida are controlling – which Lata suddenly remembers could be rectified by Maggie’s magic bracelet that can pinpoint anyone harboring a dark secret or “being a monster”! Why Lata didn’t think of this before and why Maggie kept it hidden is a mystery. I mean, that could be handy, right? Carlos and Lata head off to search Maggie’s room for it, with a reminder to John from his meditation guru (aka Lata) not to forget to do his breathing exercises.
Lata later: He hasn’t meditated in weeks.
Fandom (and echoed by Drake Rodger on twitter): Most terrifying thing about this episode: John hasn’t meditated in weeks omg!
Mary to John (just as all Winchesters say when they’re in serious trouble): Hey, we’re gonna figure this out.
Lata and Carlos find some old photos of Maggie and Lata on their way to see Alice Cooper (I would have picked Bowie or Mott the Hoople or Lou Reed, but to each their own). And within a minute that photo and the resulting conversation quickly clues Lata in on where to find the bracelet. I really wish these kids had to struggle a bit more!
It’s in a box of Toastettes that’s Maggie’s private stash (in the rat poison box which seems like a terrible idea – hopefully she washed the box really really well!) I would say they must be super stale by now when Carlos eats one, but if they’re anything like Poptarts they apparently last forever).
The bracelet is supposed to uncover your enemies’ hidden secrets, but unfortunately it immediately clasps itself around Lata – and some totally scary shadow monster locks them into the house and blows out all the lights. I do like that the show is learning how to be scary with the less is more rule.
They find out from the lore books (that are locked in there with them luckily) that if someone wears the bracelet who is harboring a dark secret of their own, the bracelet will force them to reveal it – or the shadows will consume them.
Oops.
Carlos (incredulous): You have a dark secret? What, like overdue library books?
The Supernatural convention in Dallas is always fun because it’s the closest we get to the boys’ hometown (until next year, when the con moves to their actual hometown, Austin!). That means they’re rested and have friends and family joining them and everyone is in a really good mood. That was the case for this con too! And it was equally fun for me because I had lots of friends there too.
I was excited to escape from the Philly winter to warmer Texas, only to arrive just as the giant Texas ice storm was ending. There were still piles of ice along the streets and slippery patches, and many people had stories of digging out their ice-encased cars that morning.
The convention center and the surrounding area was turned into a magical place, looking like a fairy corridor instead of a pathway through a parking lot.
And every branch or railing was a work of art if you looked closely enough.
Climate change, not fun. But really pretty for Liz’s camera to capture for posterity!
My intrepid friends came to pick me up at the airport anyway. #SPNFamily.
Friday was hosted by the lovely Jason Manns, as Fridays often are, in his comfy Mr. Rogers-esque sweater.
I caught some of David Haydn Jones’ panel on Friday – I love that he always dresses the part of wherever the con is, and this time was no exception. Cowboy David!
He’s working on a new song for karaoke, which is still a secret, but I’m looking forward to it.
He had only good things to say about Supernatural.
David: On my first day, Jared, Jensen and Misha were so collegial. Then they gave me a Bentley and a grenade launcher – I was a kid in a candy store!
What’s not to like? Well, actually the fire in that scene – which was real!
David: When you see that fire behind me, that’s real. Jared and Jensen were like, I’m outta here!
David is a great story teller. He told a hilarious story of that gag reel moment when he was attempting to say ‘chupacabra’ over and over, which was funny enough. But when he was saying ‘chupa chupa’ apparently in Spanish that means ‘sucky sucky’ so… very dirty.
David: There’s a whole fic on Ao3…
Also David, though I can’t remember context: You can always trust this audience for testicle humor.
David said that Ketch was originally conceived of as a sort of East End brawler – who sounds a lot like Billy Butcher on The Boys. He did have some more serious things to say too, including how being onscreen can exacerbate any kind of body dysmorphia someone might have. On the other hand, dressing up for a living is fun.
David: One of the fun parts of this job is getting to cosplay for a living.
Briana Buckmaster couldn’t be at the con because she’s filming a movie, but Kim Rhodes had her join the panel a bit through Facetime anyway!
Kim told the amusing story of her favorite memory from filming Kung Fu – which wasn’t actually from filming at all. Richard Speight, Jr. was directing, and they were walking back from lunch when a guy stopped Richard and asked for a selfie with him, proclaiming himself the worlds’ biggest Supernatural fan (and never noticing it was Kim there). As he walked away, Richard scoffed: “Not the biggest!”
They also apparently had a lot of fun on the Kung Fu set voicing the actor lobsters who were sometimes more well treated than some humans lol.
Like David, she had all good things to say about Supernatural.
Kim: I’ve been fortunate to work on shows where people who are at the top of the food chain make sure that no one gets fucked. Jared and Jensen were the same way. I’ve been so lucky to work with generous, lovely human beings. There’s not an atom less on Supernatural that it felt like my birthday.
She had kind words for the fandom too.
Kim: The greatest gift this fandom gave me is permission.
I love the way Kim greets fans, so full of joy each and every time.
It’s what she writes about in her chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood, powerfully.
She also had a visit from a tiny but awesome fan who joined her onstage – adorable!
We all had a delicious home cooked meal at a friend’s house on Friday night (and some homemade cherry cobbler which, mmmmm) and then I collapsed like I almost always do on Friday nights at cons – which meant I didn’t get to go to karaoke. The problem with the con being at a convention center is that it’s a little difficult to get back and forth, so once I was dropped off at my hotel, that was it for me!
On Saturday, we had a panel with Smallville’s Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, which I’d really enjoyed at the last con too – this time they had a table, which confused me when I came in because it looked for a moment like I’d wandered into a conference instead of a convention. Michael played his guitar in between the two answering questions.
‘The Winchesters’ has three episodes remaining in its first season after this one, so I expected things to ramp up as far as finding the Big Bad (aka the Akrida queen). That ramping up did happen, it turns out, in both expected and unexpected ways.
The Akrida have apparently been wreaking havoc since the 1950s, killing poor Dorothea who was only trying to be helpful by fixing a car (I love all the women on this show who are so mechanically talented, even if that is so not me).
The Men of Letters didn’t manage to send all of them back to their own universe, so some have been hiding out ever since – including the Queen.
I’m not as invested in the Akrida as I’m probably supposed to be – this show is more interesting when it’s telling me something about these characters that I know and love from OG Supernatural, assuming it feels like it can connect the two. So as soon as John finds a letter from a university amongst the pile of mail on Mary’s table and asks her about it, I was instantly thinking of Sam Winchester getting a similar letter – and having to hide it from his family.
Mary has been paralleled to Sam in wanting to have a “normal life” and get out of hunting in this show and in the original, and in this episode that’s made explicit. It made sense in the context of this show, so I enjoyed the parallel – it’s only when it seems like a stretch and doesn’t make sense that they don’t work for me. Mary is luckier than her son, who clearly takes after her. In this time (or this world), Mary opens it and John shares her excitement about being accepted – unlike the John Winchester of Supernatural. By this time, even her dad is somehow on board with her getting out of the life – that would have meant so much to Sam!
We get the Dean narration early on, a bit of a warning about expecting happy endings from this show (just as we were warned in Supernatural, and if you didn’t heed that warning, you probably had a tough time with November 2020).
Dean: Hunting and happy endings don’t usually mix. So when you get your chance, you’ve got to ask yourself, how far will I go to get it?
Last week’s episode of ‘The Winchesters’ was extra fun – because I got to watch it with my friend Nightsky from The Winchester Family Business. We’ve been friends since the early seasons of Supernatural but we live in different cities, so getting to watch anything “live” together is rare. We went to the premiere of A Knock At The Cabin in New York City the night before (it was awesome fyi), so were both at my house on Tuesday – which meant viewing party for The Winchesters! Here’s our morning after thoughts on the episode….before coffee, so keep that in mind….
Let’s start with our OG Supernatural fave, Dean. Here’s his narration from the episode:
Dean: This isn’t how I saw things going when I pushed over that first domino. Thing is, I’ve had more than a few dances with free will and fate, but as my dad used to say, “fate is what you make it.”
Lynn: Wait, did John Winchester actually say that on Supernatural?
Nightsky: I don’t remember him saying that, and if he didn’t, this is huge! It means that Dean is changing the timeline.
Lynn: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I don’t want OG Supernatural’s timeline changed!
Nightsky (not at all rattled by the outburst): Including Dean’s narration, fate is mentioned fifteen times in the episode. The gem is the Gem of Ursitoare, the Roman gods of fate.
Lynn: Okay, so it’s about fate. That’s a Supernatural theme for sure. But what was it trying to say about fate?
Nightsky: Lata says, “fate has a different meaning for the undead… It shows the next fated moment in your destiny. According to the legend, the leader saw he was fated to die and chose to save himself over the clan… Once the object reveals your fate, it is sealed.” But John proved that the context of fate is unknown, and within his control. Dean is “undead” in a way, so are they hinting that Dean is trying to change his and Sam’s fates, and maybe even the entire Winchester clan’s fate?
Lynn: That makes me nervous. I didn’t necessarily see this as John changing his fate though. In this episode’s climactic scene with John and the vampire, I saw the fact that the outcome was not what we first expected as made possible because John didn’t know the full context of what was happening in that vision of the future – it didn’t necessarily show that he was being killed, only that the vampire was biting him, and we don’t know what happened before or after. What if that is exactly what happened before and after, and he just figured it out? That would mean John didn’t change anything. The combination of time travel and changing fate makes my head hurt though.
Nightsky: Even though Dean remembers his dad saying “fate is what you make it”, going back through the episode, it was Millie who said it, not John. Maybe this is where John learns that lesson from his mother.
Lynn: A lot of this show is about where John or Mary learned things from their parents, that’s for sure. (What’s also interesting is that Nightsky and I both thought that John DID say it, but it’s not in the transcript we’re looking at over breakfast…)
Nightsky: In the pilot of The Winchesters, Dean says “I know this story might sound familiar, but I’m gonna put the pieces together in a way that just might surprise you, and in order to do that, I have to start all the way at the beginning.” In this episode, that’s exactly what John did. He was shown a vision of one version of events, but he put together the pieces of that puzzle in a way that wasn’t initially what he thought it would be. Maybe that’s what this series is doing – putting a context around the Winchester story that we know. They’re not changing anything, but fitting it into a larger, more complete, paradigm.
Lynn: Maybe, though that still makes me a little nervous. It still feels like change, even if it’s not going to change those goalposts they talked about not moving.
Nightky: In my reviews, I’ve been noting how I’m getting a much deeper understanding of all of the Winchesters because of the context of their history. It’s not changing anything in their personalities but I’m understanding so much more about them than I ever did before. It’s giving me “aha” moments that are enriching my love of Supernatural.
Lynn: There are some times I can fit them into the canon of Supernatural and then I can feel them as expanding my understanding of them, but there are those other times when I can’t make them fit, so I’m just left scratching my head. One of my hopes for this show is that it doesn’t change anything I know and love from Supernatural – hence my persistent concern – but instead fills in some blanks. There are moments that make me go, huh? That doesn’t sound like anything this character would have said or done in Supernatural! Times when I can’t see Samuel ever saying that, or Mary, or even Dean in his narration. It’s only sometimes, but those times are confusing – hopefully they will all make sense in episode 13!
Nightsky: So besides the theme of free will versus changing or contextualizing fate, what were the highlights of the episode for you?
Lynn: There was a lot of Millie, and that always makes me happy. Bianca Kajlich is amazing, and I believe every single ounce of her portrayal of Millie. Whenever she and Drake Rodger get a chance to interact in an emotional scene, I’m captivated by it because it feels so genuine.
Lynn: You can feel her anguish there, having to do that to her son. I can’t imagine… I love her toughness, and the fierce love underneath, maybe because it appeals to the mom in me, but I also love how we get only little glimpses of that reluctant vulnerability. Hmm. Am I saying she reminds me of Dean? Because sometimes she reminds me of Dean. We haven’t heard her say “no chick flick moments” but that’s one of those things that I can trace forward to Dean and it feels like it makes sense.
