As my friends and I make our way through a Supernatural series rewatch, I am so struck by the quality of these first few seasons. Season 2 is one of my favorite seasons – maybe my favorite of all. There are very few episodes that don’t feel like classics now, and this is certainly one that fits that description. Hollywood Babylon is extra special because it’s the first “meta” episode of Supernatural – something that the show would become known for over its 15 year run. I LOVED its wink wink nudge nudge making fun of itself and the industry when I saw this episode then and I loved this episode just as much rewatching it now.
Written by the brilliant Ben Edlund, also the mind behind ‘The Tick’, and directed by the venerable Phil Sgriccia, of course Hollywood Babylon was going to be both entertaining and creepy and just plain weird. Which is ALL good in my book!
The opening teaser is a stereotypical horror film, so dimly lit it’s almost black and white, a young woman (Elizabeth Whitmere) with a flashlight searching for her friends in the woods in front of a creepy looking house, the porch swing swaying, scary music playing.
And pretty terrible acting as the woman (searching for her sister, because Supernatural) is deserted by her cowardly male friend and then hears a twig snap behind her. Slowly she turns….and unleashes a bloodcurdling scream into the camera.
That…fades out.
We hear a rather annoyed “cut” and realize we’re on a film set as the camera pans out. She’s been screaming at a suspended tennis ball, which at least partly explains the lack of conviction in her scream.
The meta kicks in instantly, as we meet the director, named McG after the very real producer of Supernatural and many genre shows. He’s as insincere as can be, critical behind her back and then fake oh that was great but let’s do it again and dial up that scream to Tara Benchley’s face. He assures her that the tennis ball will be replaced by a monster and look great “once Ivan and the FX guys are done with it” – an in-group reference to Supernatural’s real life VFX supervisor Ivan Hayden.
For fans who were paying attention, the episode was already leaving us grinning – and I have no doubt it did the same for the cast and crew who were also in on the jokes. Showrunner and creator Eric Kripke has loved playing with meta and in-jokes from the start, and he’s still enjoying doing that on his new show The Boys – and I’m still enjoying it too.
A long-haired crew member named Frank wanders around the set spreading suspicion that there’s some kind of real haunting going on, adding to the fun. At least it’s fun until poor Tara is walking through the fake woods trying to master that scream and is confronted with a dead and bloody Frank up in the scaffolding.
She screams for real, and on the other end of the set, McG happily announces “now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
Enter Sam and Dean and our title card. The meta picks right up again, Sam and Dean on the Warner Brothers studio lot taking the trolley tour that many of us have taken in real life, myself included. Dean is in excited fanboy mode, telling the unimpressed kid next to him that ‘Creepshow’ was filmed over there.
The camera pans up to Sam as the tour guide announces that Stars Hollow is to the right, the setting for the TV show, Gilmore Girls.
Tour guide: And if we’re lucky, we might even catch one of the show’s stars.
Close on Sam, who looks suddenly wary and hops right off the trolley.
The joke, of course, is that Jared also played Dean on Gilmore Girls, so he could have been that star she was mentioning. Poor Dean is upset not to be able to finish the tour, but reluctantly follows his brother. He’s convinced he sees Matt Damon on the lot, undeterred when “Matt” is pushing a broom and insisting he’s probably researching a role while Sam rolls his eyes. Sam’s trying to work the case while Dean just wants to have fun, saying he wanted to come to LA for a vacation, swimming pools, movie stars.
Sam: Does this seem like pool weather to you, Dean? It’s practically Canadian!
The 17th episode of the second season of Supernatural is one of the best, most emotionally impactful episodes of the series. That’s no surprise when you realize it was written by Sera Gamble and directed by Kim Manners. Together, Manners and Kripke and Gamble shaped Supernatural in essential ways, and the team of Gamble writing and Manners directing was bound to be incredible. Add to that Ackles and Padalecki knocking it out of the park and guest star Emmanuelle Vaugier keeping pace with them every second and you have one of the episodes that fans often use to lure unsuspecting new fans into the Supernatural fold. I’ve seen this episode many times, and it still brings tears to my eyes and breaks my heart a little every time. That’s good television!
The episode begins in San Francisco, an attractive woman named Madison (guest star Emmanuelle Vaugier) laughing in a bar with friends. She blows off some guy Nate who wants her to come back to the office with him, and then sees an even more creepy looking guy staring at her through the window. It understandably freaks her out and she leaves – though walking out into the dark alley to get to her car seems like a bad idea to me, but what do I know? I would have at least had someone walk me to my car!
Nothing happens, though, other than the creepy guy watching her drive away. And some gorgeous Kim Manners mirror shots.
The next morning Madison makes coffee in her office when she notices a smear of blood on the wall – and then more on the floor. She walks with trepidation toward Nate’s office, and we see his hand covered in blood before we see him. When she rounds the corner, Nate is lying dead on his desk, torn apart. She drops the coffee pot, screaming. The pot shatters.
All of us: Now that’s a Supernatural opening if I ever saw one!
It’s pure Kim Manners brilliance, from the way Madison at first sees just a small smear of blood and isn’t sure what it is, to the tentative way she comes closer. The shot of just Nate’s arm and hand, bloody, all she can see as the realization of what this is slowly sinks in, and then the full on shot of Nate very very dead, torn apart and bloody. The close up slow mo shot of the coffee pot dropping and shattering is just perfect. Chilling.
Teaser ended, we cut to the boys, as we always did especially in the early seasons. They view poor Nate’s corpse in the morgue, Sam using his puppy dog eyes to charm the attendant into saying that off the record it looks like Nate was attacked by a wolf.
Attendant: But unless I know that the zoo is missing one of their lobos, I’m going with pit bull. I like my job.
Sam: (smiling) Yeah, I hear you. One more thing – was this guy’s heart missing?
Attendant: Yeah, how did you know that? I haven’t even finished my report.
Sam: Lucky guess.
These boys though, who could resist giving them the information they’re after? I mean, look at them!
Then we get a little glimpse of Winchesters on the road, iconic in its simple familiarity. Early seasons Supernatural life in motel after motel, sleeping in the Impala in between, is the stuff that fanfic is made of. It warms my heart today, fifteen years later.
Dean cleans his guns as he and Sam discuss a new case – “hookers” murdered in the week leading up to the full moon, their hearts missing.
Dean: Awesome.
Sam: Could you be a bigger geek about this?
Dean’s excited about the prospect of “badass” werewolves, which they haven’t seen since they were kids.
Sam: Okay, Sparky. And you know what? After we kill it, we can go to Disneyland.
Gamble was so good at exploring the dynamic between the brothers – the affection beneath their bickering and teasing especially. Sam and Dean are very different, but at this point in the series, they’re accepting their differences and starting to appreciate each other’s strengths more. Most of the time anyway.
Rewatching this episode now in 2022, we all started giggling as soon as this scene began – because it is also one of the iconic gag reel moments, as Jared and Jensen start bickering just like their characters while Jensen has trouble with the prop gun.
Jensen: I’ve got a line, you moron!
The truly wonderful thing is that there’s just as much affection beneath Jared and Jensen’s teasing as there is Sam and Dean’s. At this point, they had already become brothers on and off set. And that chemistry powered the show for 13 more seasons!
The Creation Supernatural convention tour returned to Orlando for the first time in a long time last month, in a new hotel with a very lovely pool and lots of palm trees. I got there just in time to catch some of David Haydn-Jones and Adam Fergus, David looking very Florida indeed. Without any context when I arrived, Adam was saying to David, “you like to go deep!” and David was agreeing. They like to joke that their panels are mostly innuendo, but I for one enjoy that thoroughly.
Someone asked who their characters were closest to on the show, and Adam said that there was a special bond between Mick and Sam – but that Mick also wanted Dean’s approval.
David said that Dean and Ketch grew close – after all, “I’ve tended Dean’s wounds…”
Kim and Briana were up next. Kim said she’d started watching Supernatural again and was up to season 4.
Kim: I forgot how much I loved the Ghostfacers!
What was the first time they met Jared and Jensen like?
Kim: The first time I saw them, they were riding mini bikes around the set playing catch with each other.
She thought oh god, they’re not going to be helpful at all when she had to do a big emotional scene after Jody lost her family, but the boys surprised her.
Kim: But when my scene started, they were both like, “what do you need?”
Briana: Jared and Jensen are amazing hosts. They’re so aware that they’re only as good as the people they work with.
Briana: I was introduced to Jensen and I just kept on walking because I saw his face and said, uh oh, that’s pretty…
Understandable.
Kim: For some reason, Jensen makes my upper lip sweat and all I hear when he’s around is mmmmmmm.
Also understandable.
Briana: Phil Sgriccia told Jensen that I was a professional comedian, so he took it as a challenge to try to make me break in the donut scene.
He failed.
Kim said that her character Jody had a special bond with Sam, because he saved her from having to shoot what had been her son.
Kim: That was the foundation of her trust in those boys. She would have died for Sam.
They both talked about how knowing the Supernatural fandom taught them that being on the ‘celebrity side of the fence, they still saw fans as loving – and that, for Kim, let her feel okay about loving Neil Gaiman as a fan herself.
The caption: weapon of choice or sex toy?
I’ve been watching too much of the boys, so my instant reaction was: both??
Friday night I had dinner in the outdoor courtyard under the palm trees and then joined a bunch of other fans in the ballroom to watch the Supernatural pilot. It was so much fun to watch it all together, everyone clapping at all the iconic moments. Damn, I love this Show.
The season 3 finale of The Boys was a tour de force for the entire cast and crew, from the writing to the directing to the effects to the score, and certainly the performances from every single actor. I’ve been a Jensen Ackles fan since Supernatural premiered way back in 2005, so I know how powerful his acting is, but to see him bring to life an entirely different character in this season, who is so very not Dean Winchester, has been eye opening nevertheless. He brings to Soldier Boy not just the toxic masculinity we were expecting, but a vulnerability that is unexpected, with subtle expressions and gestures and tone of voice, showing us so much more than we would have understood from the dialogue alone.
SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE SEASON FINALE!
In the finale, Soldier Boy opens up to Butcher as the two drink together, perhaps sensing that they share some big time daddy issues. As a manufactured superhero who’s had to hold up a fake persona for literally a century, Soldier Boy seems relieved to tell the truth – the Soldier Boy Story movie was BS. He wasn’t a poor kid with a heart of gold on the streets of South Philly who woke up with abilities; his father owned half the steel mills in the state.
Soldier Boy: I went to boarding school. Got kicked out of boarding school. Because I was a fuck up. But he made sure I knew it.
This Butcher can relate to, intimately, asking if he used a belt (like Butcher’s father did).
Soldier Boy: Never laid a hand on me. He couldn’t be bothered. Said I was a disappointment. Not good enough to carry his name. So I went to his golf buddies in the War Department and they got me into Dr. Vought’s Compound V trials. I became a superhero. Strongest man alive, fuckin’ ticker tape parades when I came home.
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He says it all with bravado, trying to keep the persona up even as he’s finally telling the truth. What did the old man say then, Butcher wonders.
Soldier Boy: Ah. He said I took a short cut. That a real man wouldn’t have cheated.
That toxic masculinity that Soldier Boy has been embodying all season laid out in his father’s brutal, intentionally cruel accusation, fueled with misogyny and homophobia, cut deep. That disgust that his son wasn’t a ‘real man’ and that complete rejection, even after Ben had transformed himself completely into what he was certain his father wanted him to be, must have been devastating. He must have thought that his father would surely love him then, only to be rejected once more.
The pain he still carries from that rejection is clear on Soldier Boys’ face, the way he hangs his head, suddenly feeling vulnerable.
I spoke to Jensen Ackles in an exclusive one on one interview about that scene in the finale, which is one of my favorites of the entire season. In typical Jensen fashion, he gave credit to all the talented people who collaborate to make the show so special.
Lynn: Hearing the backstory of how his father treated him, I felt like I started to “get it” a little. Not that it excuses his behavior, but it starts to explain it. And you made the decision to play the character with a lot of nuance, vacillating between vulnerability and trying to connect to others, and then just erupting in rage. It’s dizzying to watch all that happen within the space of seconds, but the best part of the character is that you really pulled that nuance off. Was that an explicit note to make that nuance part of the character or something you inferred?
Jensen: A lot of that is in the script, it’s just really good writing. Kripke is such a vivid storyteller with his words, and he does it in such a precise, almost surgical way, that in reading it – not just Kripke but his whole writing staff is so talented – that a lot of that nuance is either right there on the page or certainly implied. And they allow us to kinda navigate it and find it. So I definitely was looking for that, and that’s a note that he’s been giving me since the beginning of Supernatural.
Lynn: It was so much a part of Supernatural also, yes. A big part of why I fell for Dean Winchester so hard.
Jensen: It’s nice to know he’s still encouraging us to find the nuances of the scenes and make those moments in between the moments count.
Lynn: Well, you did. I was a little angry at you, like damn it, I knew he was gonna put just enough vulnerability in there that I was not gonna be able to just outright hate this character. And the entire fandom has been flailing along with me with the same quandary, so good job, good job.
Jensen: It was fun to play those colors, to be just such an outwardly gross character, but to play him in a way that you do feel bad, you feel bad for this big guy’s journey even though you shouldn’t.
Lynn: I think that’s exactly it. I felt bad even though I kept saying, what are you doing? It got to the point when I thought he might die and I was yelling at the screen no no no no don’t die don’t die!
Jensen: (laughing)
Lynn: This episode was painful to watch because of all my conflicting feelings. But Supernatural was also painful, so I guess maybe that’s just me…. Don’t judge.
Jensen: (laughing) Maybe that’s what we should be delving into, Lynn. What does this say about you?
Lynn: Oh no, let’s not go there…
Luckily, he let me off the hook.
In the end, Soldier Boy can’t accept what his son is offering, even though he has wanted a chance to raise a child and “do it better”. But Soldier Boy is confronted with a son who personifies all the things he hates most about himself – all the things his father accused him of. It’s tragic that, in the final moment, Soldier Boy can’t shake loose of his father’s brutal definition of what it is to be a man. All he can see is Homelander looking weak. A disappointment. All those things that his father called him, and that he constantly fears in himself, and so he can’t bear to see that in his own son. So he lashes out, recapitulating his own father’s rejection and cruelty.
But he does it with no joy; his face reflects the pain he too is feeling, his inescapable disappointment in himself. And of course, there are tragic consequences.
At least he’s not dead – Eric Kripke has said that Soldier Boy will definitely be back at some point and Jensen has said that if Kripke asks, he’ll come running. I swear, I could hear the sigh of relief from the entire fandom from all over the globe at that moment. Thanks for making us care so much, Jensen and Eric. I think.
Stay tuned for my deep dive on The Boys season finale – coming later today!
The penultimate episode of ‘The Boys’ Season 3, ominously titled ‘Here Comes A Candle To Light You To Bed,’ releases this Friday on Prime Video, and the little teasers already have everyone bouncing in anticipation (per usual). This is my non-spoilery teaser review of my own reaction to episode 3.7 – and as a Supernatural fan, this one is especially for everyone who was already a Jensen Ackles admirer or has joined the party recently and jumped on board in appreciation of Soldier Boy.
The last few episodes of Season 3 are going to be a rollercoaster for Ackles fans the likes of which we have never ridden. My advice is you’d better hold on tight, because this one is like that rollercoaster in the dark at Disney World where it’s extra scary because you never know when there’s gonna be a sudden twist or how violent the turn is gonna be. That also makes it extra exhilarating – for a long time that was my favorite ride there. But when I say my heart was pounding out of my chest and I had to jump up and sort of run around my kitchen a few times to calm down, to the accompaniment of colorful exclamations, I am not exaggerating.
Ackles himself weighed in on Instagram about his character’s wee bit of anger issues….
Ya’ think??
From the perspective of someone who has been a Supernatural fan for 17 years, there are all kinds of things that fandom has imagined a character Ackles plays doing – things that a show on the CW could not include, even if it might have made more sense for hardened traumatized hunter Dean Winchester than his PG vocabulary ever did. Most of those things have played out in fanfiction over the years, for sure, but somehow seeing and hearing a character onscreen who is not limited to the CW standards and practices was more shocking than I expected. No, I am very much not complaining.
Seeing Jensen be able to sink his teeth into a role like this, into a character who is raw and fucked up and in many ways the worst of a swatch of humanity in real life – it was awesome. For someone who’s a long-time fan, it was also a mind fuck, in that I could not help but love the character just a little even when I hated him.
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There’s a reason the fandom calls him Danger Grampa or Sweet Baby Murder Kitten, after all.
We learn about some of the horrible things he’s done in this episode, right alongside more of the things that have been done to him – and right alongside the moments when he lets his guard down a little and says something real and shows some genuine emotion. That is one of the things this show has excelled at from the beginning and why I’ve loved it since Season 1 – it’s always shades of gray, even the worst characters having moments of humanity when I feel for them. But having one of my favorite actors embody that kind of complexity made it so much more difficult for me to negotiate. I kept wanting to sympathize with him – especially when the traumas of his past are laid out – but each time there’s a punch to the gut that reminds me that I can’t get too pulled in. Talk about a mindfuck!
Chicago was the very first Supernatural convention, way back in 2007. I was there, overcome with anticipation to see both Jared and Jensen together and to be in a room full of my fellow Supernatural fans. Kathy and I, along with our friends Laura and Karen, had stalked the Creation website for weeks to get the best possible seats, and we couldn’t wait to all be together to celebrate the show that was already changing our lives.
It’s 15 years later, and so much has changed. Kathy, my partner in crime who I went to all the early cons with, and to the Supernatural set, and who I wrote the first four books with, passed away unexpectedly several months ago. Going back to Chicago, where this unlikely fifteen years and counting adventure began, without her was emotional. I felt lucky to have so many of my friends there to remind me how much love I have in my life and what incredible friends I have still here with me. I’m so grateful.
Chicago con always seems special because it’s the site of so many memories. Even though this year’s was in the convention center instead of the familiar hotel where so many cons have been held, I still stayed in that hotel so the nostalgia was real. It’s also the con where I met or became closer to some of my best fandom buds, and making new memories with them this year felt extra special.
Also Jared was back and that was something to celebrate for sure – he missed the last convention in New Jersey after his very serious car accident. He’s still on the mend, but it was wonderful to see for ourselves his smiling face and have his banter with Jensen back to normal. It felt healing to all of us, I think.
Chicago had a great line up of guests, and I caught most of their panels since I flew in at a ridiculously early hour. Free shuttle to the hotel, yay!
DJ Qualls was back for the first time in a while – I always enjoy his panels, and he’s incredibly friendly. All weekend long, every time I walked by his autograph table in the vendor room to get to my book table, he was happily chatting and selfie-taking with fans and enjoying it immensely.
DJ: Jensen is good at everything. For the dance number that we did, he had like a 15 minute head start and knew it all.
A fan asked what his craziest dream was, and DJ started to laugh.
DJ: Heh heh, no. I had one after Jared’s accident…I think I was worried about him… and it was like fan fiction…
So no, he didn’t share it!
I enjoy hearing DJ talk openly about things like gender roles and the pressures of masculinity. He said that he got hurt every single time he did some stunt work on Supernatural, but the expectation was that you just “walk it off” so he did.
Next we had what for me was a real treat – a panel with Katie Sarife and Joy Regullano, who played Marie and Maeve in the Supernatural 200th episode, Fan Fiction. It’s one of my favorite episodes and they were brilliant in the parts. I had coffee with Joy in Vancouver years ago and so enjoyed our chat – it’s linked below if you want to get to know her a little.
Joy identifies as a fangirl herself, wanting to represent fans as “smart people with a passion”, and Katie said that her ex-boyfriend was a huge Supernatural fan. He’s the reason she already knew “Carry On”, in fact.
Since they are Vancouver based actors, they knew the show – and Joy had auditioned before.
Joy: The first role I auditioned for was K Tran – which became the character of Kevin!
Both said they loved the episode and the way it ended, except that they would have loved to come back. Understandable.
What was the most fun working on Supernatural?
Joy: Well, Jared is like 6 foot 15, so it was fun being able to boss him around and like, be mean to him. (In the show!)
She also had a scene in which she adlibbed to Jared (Sam): “Look with your eyes and not your mouth” but unfortunately it got cut. I would like to have seen Jared’s response!
Katie: I learned a cool trick from Jensen, of crossing my eyes and the moving just one of them.
(This made me cringe because Jensen has done that to me to tease me and it’s the only time I have ever run away from him lol)
They also enjoyed the comedy in the episode, right down to the “you can’t spell subtext without S-E-X.” Classic Robbie Thompson.
Joy and Katie were asked if Jared and Jensen pranked them, but they said no.
Katie: I think because we were playing teenagers, there were no pranks. Jared and Jensen were really sweet. And not creepy.
I love that everyone who ever worked on the Supernatural set has nothing but praise for the main cast.
Joy: It was like a master class in acting, watching the experienced actors just snap into character like that.
(I’ve witnessed it too, and to a non-actor it is nothing less than amazing!)
Friday also had a great trio panel of Gil McKinney, Adam Fergus and David Haydn-Jones. They joked that it was the “grumpy old men of letters panel”! It was Pride month, and David had on his Yasssss Queen shirt given to him by a fan and some truly awesome rainbow socks.
I’ve used these words to describe Prime Videos ‘The Boys’ before, but it remains the most accurate description for the show as it moves into its third season – it is a WILD ride! From the start, The Boys has packed so many ups and downs and twists and turns into its eight episode seasons that I invariably end up feeling dizzy afterwards – in a good way. (If you love rollercoasters like I do, you know what I mean.) Once the adrenaline rush has subsided, the best thing about The Boys is that it makes me think. My brain was working overtime the night after watching the first three episodes of Season 3 so instead of sleeping, I was mulling over all the things that happened. Trying to make sense of each character’s evolution, trying to suss out the real life parallels this show makes unapologetically. Where is the story going? What’s it setting up for the rest of this season?
I love getting to the end of an episode and having questions like these rolling around my brain, keeping me awake. But if it just made me think, I probably wouldn’t have been bouncing in anticipation for this season. I think for a living as a psychologist, and then try to make other people think as a professor – so sometimes I just want to sit back and be entertained. One of the teaser trailers for this season of The Boys was set to Imagine Dragons and asked repeatedly, “is this entertaining?” Well, the answer is a resounding YES. Watching the eight jam-packed episodes of Season 3, I laughed, I was sad, I was horrified. I had to turn away a few times when it was too much. I scratched my head with a hypothesis slowly forming, and then sometimes did a triumphant fist bump being right – and sometimes gasped out loud being wrong. This is one of the few times when I’m happy to be fooled. Surprise me, Show, and I am here for it!
For those of you who haven’t been reading my reviews of The Boys for the past two seasons, I came to the show via Supernatural. Eric Kripke, the showrunner behind The Boys, was the creator and first five years showrunner of Supernatural also. He changed my life with that show, and I will basically watch anything he puts his creative touch to and at least give it a chance. Was I ever glad I did that with The Boys! From the very first episode, I was intrigued. And then I was hooked. When Supernatural’s own Jensen Ackles joined the cast for Season 3, I was beyond overjoyed.
So let’s just say I could not wait for this season to drop!
Without giving away any of the truly gobsmacking events of the first three episodes, because you need to experience those yourself (so NO BIG SPOILERS), here’s a synopsis of where we find the characters as Season 3 begins and as they progress through these first few episodes. Alot of time has passed in real life since we’ve been in this universe, and the show includes a time jump as well. It’s a year later – a year that, unlike the constant turmoil that we’ve experienced in real life – has been relatively calm for the boys. It’s heartbreaking that the calm, as is inevitable for this series, is mostly on the surface and about to be shattered. Somehow that makes it all the more devastating when that happens.
In the first episode, ‘Payback’, on the surface at least, things are going well for most of the boys. Mother’s Milk has a warm relationship with his daughter again, which is what he wanted most. His exploits with Butcher and company haven’t left him unscathed, though, when it comes to his marriage or his OCD. He still feels compelled to line up the forks at his daughter’s (painfully supe-themed) birthday party. And it turns out obsessions with revenge aren’t all that easy to walk away from either – MM has got an entire walk-in closet papered with old newspaper articles about a supe who died decades ago – Soldier Boy. It looks a lot like John Winchester’s hotel room walls, yellowed newspaper clippings proclaiming Soldier Boy cleared of various – and yes, we already doubt that.
Frenchie and Kimiko have been together for the past year. They can communicate seamlessly now, Frenchie fluent in her unique sign language and Kimiko also using her phone to text messages to him and express herself. They seem closer than ever, but we get a clearer look at how much the trauma of Kimiko’s past has affected her. She might not have words, but Kimiko can be eloquent, whether it’s carving FUCK into the furniture or playing an increasingly discordant melody on a laptop keyboard piano as other members of the team argue. There’s a poignant scene at an amusement park where Kimiko glimpses a brother and sister sharing cotton candy, smiling sadly knowing that she and Kenji never got to live that life and longing for it still. Sometimes this show is brutal with the “we don’t get to have nice things” and you just know this is gonna be one of those times.
Hughie and Annie have also been living a relatively quiet life. They’re spending most nights together, having a lot of sex (with the euphemism of don’t forget the AquaFresh), and getting along fine. Hughie finally feels like he’s getting some respect too, working alongside Victoria Neuman at the Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs. His coworkers are a little bit in awe of him, giving him accolades for helping bring down supes, and he looks dapper in his well-fitting suit. He has a collegial relationship with Neuman, the two of them eating lunch together, joking, supporting each other. United in their mission. Even Butcher reluctantly plays by the Bureau’s rules, deferring to Hughie though it clearly grates on him.
When you think of how far Hughie’s come, how shattered he was after his girlfriend’s death and how helpless he felt, it’s easy to imagine just how heady his new life must be. He doesn’t have to get his hands bloody and he genuinely feels like he’s doing some good in the world.
Unfortunately he’s on the wrong show. Of course we all know that Neuman is the one who’s responsible for all the exploding heads of the past season, so watching how close she and Hughie have become was immediately ominous. Poor Hughie. Like I said, on this show you really can’t have nice things.
Even Butcher has been living a relatively calm life, following the Bureau’s rules as far as who the boys can go after and how (no murder or dismemberment) and visiting Ryan at Grace Mallory’s heavily guarded and hidden away house. Though it’s a painfully awkward fit on Butcher, there’s a clear affection between Butcher and Ryan that makes even Mallory acknowledge that maybe Butcher isn’t a total asshole after all.
Or is he? As we move through the first few episodes, the line between Butcher and Homelander is more and more blurry as the differences between them narrow. They are both rage-filled, on a hair trigger, capable of brutality. Neither puts a scorched earth policy off the table. Is there a line that Butcher won’t cross to get his revenge on Homelander? Is he willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone to do it, including in a very real sense, himself and who he is?
Time will tell.
Once again, because this is The Boys, things fall apart dramatically and all of the boys are drawn back together, reluctantly understanding that in order to effectively fight a system that is much more vast and integrated than they suspected, they can’t keep playing by the rules. We’ve all seen Butcher’s laser eyes in the trailers, so it’s no spoiler when I say things go south in a dramatic way.
For all of them, but for Hughie especially, I found that evolution heartbreaking – because it requires him to turn off his natural empathy and sacrifice some of his humanity to do it. From the beginning, Hughie has been the one hanging onto that humanity, being the canary in the coal mine, willing to speak up even if he got punched in the face for it to try to find the elusive balance between morality and power. Can he keep hanging onto it this season?
That’s painful to contemplate. However, that’s one of the things I like best about The Boys – it makes me feel.
Things are changing rapidly on the other side of the fence too. Most of those things I won’t spoil, but suffice it to say some of them are jaw dropping. It’s no secret, since it’s been in the trailers, that Homelander is becoming even more unhinged than he was before – which is really saying something considering what we’ve seen him do. The more alone he is, the more unloved he feels, the more desperate he becomes, the thin thread keeping him from just doing what he wants – whatever the hell he wants – fraying with every loss.
Like any narcissist, he magnifies and tantrums over every perceived slight, no matter how small. He threatens and snaps and lashes out – verbally with the perfect words to go straight to a rival’s self esteem – and physically if they don’t back down quickly enough with their tail between their legs. The brutality with which Homelander abuses his supe colleagues is one of the most sickening things about him. He torments A Train and The Deep ruthlessly with targeted comments about their appearance, with words like ‘disgusting’. (The gender roles continue to be flipped alot this season – we don’t often see men ridiculed for their weight or subject to control over their appearance. Except of course celebrities, which all these actors are, which makes the whole thing really meta and even more disturbing).
Homelander excels at putting supes in the position where they have to do something they very much do not want to do, with others watching so they’re forced to go along with it. He knows each of their vulnerabilities and exploits them with precision. For Annie, it’s a familiar trauma, being forced to “go out there and smile” when you want to cry or scream or say no. Those well-done moments are when the show makes me sick to my stomach, not the blood and guts everywhere.
The hate that boils inside Homelander is more and more obvious, and more and more terrifying. He’s a loose cannon who doesn’t believe he has anything left to lose, and there is nothing more dangerous than that. The other supes are afraid of him, stumbling all over themselves not to offend him and to put themselves in a one down position that might keep them alive, but they are also increasingly resentful of his abuse and control. (Ironically, Homelander is also sick of being controlled, not wanting to tow the company line anymore).
Mirroring what has been happening with the boys, as this show often does, the other supes have also been living relatively quietly. A Train reconnects with his brother, the voice of reason in his life. The Deep is maybe-supported-maybe-controlled by his cult-arranged wife Cassandra, who quite literally puts words in his mouth to try to get him in Homelander’s good graces.
And then there’s Soldier Boy. It’s Queen Maeve who finds the yellowed file with the description of his demise and kicks off the search for answers – and hopefully for the weapon that was powerful enough to kill him (and thus Homelander). I admit to gasping out loud when that report and photo appeared on screen, even though we had already seen it in a teaser. Still – this is it, Jensen Ackles has arrived on The Boys! I think I was entitled to my scream.
You’ll have to watch the investigation with its unexpected twists and turns and revelations for yourself, but by the end of the third episode, Barbary Coast, the boys have enough clues to know where to look for those answers. We also get some flashbacks of Soldier Boy and his team Payback that are absolutely priceless. I mean, horrifying. Ahem. But priceless. Ackles’ Soldier Boy is a misogynistic asshole who apparently treated his sidekick like shit, but he’s a charming one. And I cannot wait to see more of him!
There’s a lot more going on in these first three episodes – in fact, so much happens in one episode of The Boys that it leaves my head spinning. The American Hero search for the next supe is going on, with Starlight’s old boyfriend Supersonic competing, which means a little bit of the song and dance that we’re apparently getting a lot of this season (also cannot wait because Chris Lennertz never disappoints – I mean, the second episode has a ballad called ‘Chimps Don’t Cry’…)
There’s plenty of humor too. Kripke excels in the unlikely combination of horror and emotion and humor, which is one of the things that made me fall in love with Supernatural too. That combination works well here. The character of Ashley carries much of the humor that delights me, and Colby Minifie is brilliant in portraying her. It’s often Ashley’s reaction that is the audience’s reaction, and Minifie makes it so obvious with her priceless facial expressions that I laugh every time. Ashley gets an assistant this season. Also named Ashley. You cannot make this up. Oh, and there’s a Payback supe named Swatto. Who flies, with comically small wings. Again, you cannot make this up. But Kripke and company can.
And this would not be The Boys if we didn’t have some graphic violence and some explicit scenes of various flavors of sexual depravity. I tend to be in the ‘hey to each his own’ camp, but there were times I laughed out loud at the poking fun at the lengths people will go to in order to get off. No judgment though! I could probably write a whole psychoanalytic article about the sexual acts the show likes to depict and the consequences of those acts and what that says about the people who came up with those ideas, but I’ll spare everyone that. Some of the sexual humor doesn’t work for me, but I admit to laughing at times. You’ll know those when you see them.
Kripke kept saying he pushed the envelope this season with the most out there scene ever on television in the first episode, and I can confirm that yes, that envelope was pushed so far it fell right off the desk. That’s not really why I watch the show, but I appreciate their guts in going wherever the hell they want to go. It works best for me when it’s a scathing parallel for the things that are happening in the real world that are upsetting every single day, from the old adage ‘power corrupts’ to the outcomes of racism and homophobia and misogyny. From mass media manipulation to political corruption to the NRA – I mean, the Vought Rifle Association – I frequently find myself nodding in response to something going on in the show. It feels cathartic to see that reflection, validating.
And when I say that Jensen Ackles is gonna knock your socks off as Soldier Boy, in the most disturbingly complicated way possible? I am once again not exaggerating.
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So, three episodes in and I am not disappointed. AT ALL. There are plenty of surprises that I didn’t see coming, and some subtle dropped hints that have me intrigued. In fact, I cannot wait to see what the rest of Season 3 brings us!
Check out the first three episodes tomorrow, and hold on tight. New episodes drop each Friday on Prime Video.
I definitely could not have anticipated how eventful the NJ Supernatural convention a few weeks ago would be! It’s my “home con”, which means I can drive to it. I hate driving by myself so I was happy to be able to drive with a friend, and we headed out early, full of gleeful anticipation. All went well until we got there and drove around the parking garage – and could not find a single spot. I am not a fabulous driver on my best day, and an unfamiliar garage that was nearly impossible to navigate was not helping. My friend was equally nervous, so I couldn’t convince her to take the wheel either – so we gave up and parked at the hotel entrance. She stayed with the car while I went inside and asked what I should do if there were no spots.
Lovely security guy standing nearby: Ma’am, that’s not possible.
Me: I can’t swear that I didn’t just miss them in my panic, but I did not see any.
Lovely security guy (sighing): Okay, come on.
He rode in the back seat as we drove back into the garage, and patiently navigated our way to the entire wing of the garage that was hidden in the back. Oops.
Anyway, I’m a fan of the con hotel for life thanks to that lovely security guy.
In between being in the vendor room, which still feels like a family reunion after we all missed cons for so long. I caught a little of Kim and Briana’s first panel.
They’ve talked before about how much they loved doing some of their own stunts (and would have done more if Wayward Sisters went to series), but Briana also said that she didn’t really know how to move for some stunts. She did an imitation, laughing at herself the whole time.
Kim said she was inspired by the film Wonder Woman, especially how she looked out for her little sister, which was a very Supernatural thing to say. Similarly, they talked about how important it is to “get back on the horse” when you’re had a setback.
Briana: Just make sure you have your people around you. Fandom is a great example.
Kim and Briana together are always magic. There are so many lifelong friendships that were forged from this show and this fandom. They gave us some examples by reading their most recent text conversation aloud. Complete with emojis.
Kim talked a bit about shooting the scene of vamp Dean biting her, which she didn’t mind one bit – except that Jared and Jensen were busy making all kinds of jokes, including yelling for condiments!
I personally would not have wanted the Supernatural finale to end any other way, but I know some people found it really hard to have Dean die so young. Kim had an alternate ending: Sam and Dean turn out to actually be little kids playing, with a little toy Jody and Donna… then we pan up a tree to Cas… and Lucifer… in real life. Waiting.
Dark, Kim! But adorable too.
They gave us the good news that they’re about to record more of the Wayward Podcast, which I really enjoy. Yay!
If you’d like to hear more from Kim and Briana, they wrote very powerful and frank chapters in Family Don’t End With Blood – which are also very inspiring.
Adam Fergus and David Haydn-Jones also had a panel on Friday.
Adam said that David is more like Sam and he’s more like Dean in real life, though I can’t imagine either Sam or Dean in that velour track suit even if they were in New Jersey!
To say this was a momentous day in the Supernatural fandom would be a ridiculous understatement. Somehow, Jared, Jensen and Misha have all ended up in new shows on The CW and thus they were all in attendance at the CW Upfronts today, which is a story in itself that I’ll make a separate post about so we can remember the lovely happy-making chaos.
It was also the day that the trailers for the Padalecki-executive-produced Walker prequel, Walker: Independence and for the Ackles-executive-produced prequel, The Winchesters, were released as part of the Upfronts. And that means the Supernatural fandom, myself included, are having A LOT of feelings right now.
Let me just say that I loved the trailer for Walker: Independence (aka Windy) – I don’t have the same kind of emotional reaction to the Walker universe as I do to Supernatural, which means I can sit back and just enjoy both the OG Walker and this new prequel. The cast seems awesome, the look of the show is amazing, and the characters are ones I’m looking forward to getting to know. Add to that director Larry Teng, who I’ve so enjoyed following, and the show’s determination to hire Indigenous actors and get that representation right, and Windy looks like a great way to spend a Walker-intensive Thursday evening.
The Windy cast (Alex Zalben)
The Winchesters trailer left me with an emotional reaction so big and so complex that it’s taken me all these hours to be able to write about it. It should be no surprise to anyone, because I am Very Emotional™ about all things Supernatural, so this was probably guaranteed to destabilize my always-a-little-raw feelings when it comes to this show. Its very existence has been contentious in the fandom since its leaked announcement and Jared being in the dark about it before then, which only served to heighten just about everyone’s reaction today. Mine included. I knew that would be the case. What caught me off guard is how intense my emotions are and how conflicted – it’s not very comfortable to be feeling multiple (and sometimes seemingly mutually exclusive) feelings all at once. Humans are notoriously confused by that; we want to think we only feel one thing at a time, but unfortunately that’s not always how we work. Today was one of those days.
I was expecting Dean Winchester to be in the trailer. So I wasn’t shocked when I heard his voice, or when I saw him, leaning against the Impala, like he’d never left (and truly, he has never left my heart or even my brain since the show ended exactly 18 months ago). (Oh yes, and that just added to my emotionality, btw).
I have MISSED him and thought about him, every single day. So my heart soared seeing him on my screen again, and seeing him with Baby, on a deserted highway, everything that I’ve missed so much feeling so familiar. I’ve missed Dean Winchester like I’d miss someone I’ve ‘known’ for seventeen years, and who has meant alot to me. I am beyond grateful to have him back, even if only as the narrator of this story.
It felt so good. We saw the Green Cooler in the backseat, as it should be. And then the Samulet, hanging from the mirror. In that moment, when I noticed that, I think I gasped out loud for the first time – because the emotions were so strong and so mixed up.
I cherish the Samulet, its history, its meaning. I love the episode Robbie Thompson wrote to bring it back, glowing in Sam’s pocket, and the look on Dean’s face when he knows Sam kept it. I love that it’s there now in the prequel, that Dean has it right there in front of him at all times, reminding him of his brother. I love that it’s there; but it hurts that Sam is not. Supernatural to me is the story of two brothers, and that will never change. There are other characters and stories within the story that I love too, but Sam and Dean, that’s the heart of the show. I know that The Winchesters is not that story, but it is the story of their parents, and it tugs at my heart that Sam is not sitting beside Dean as he goes on this quest to tell their parents’ story.
I understand that the network probably wanted some Sam and Dean involvement if they were going to attempt another spinoff, since they’ve made it clear they understand that’s critical to any success. So I get why Dean needed to be added in as narrator. But I am counting on Jared and Jensen to be able to bring Sam into this show also; I can’t imagine how it will feel if he isn’t in some way. I’m going to trust that they’ll work it out the way Jared and Jensen work things out in real life, even when bad things happen. They’ve both told me how they feel about their friendship, and I believe them. But wow, that mix of emotions left me literally breathless for a while today. The fandom reaction was mixed too, with some fans just plain ecstatic to see Dean, and some really missing Sam/Jared’s presence, and some trying to figure out what to make of the two seconds of Lazarus Rising footage that appeared in the trailer. Supernatural fandom is nothing if not multifaceted.
There’s still so much we don’t know, so today was a day of speculating. Is Dean narrating from Heaven, while he waits for Sam? I’ve been assuming he is, and that’s the reason why Sam is not beside him. He has the Impala with him, and she has her original KAZ25Y plates, so that fits. He wasn’t wearing the Samulet in Heaven, but it could have been in the car – or maybe he wished it into existence because he missed his brother and hey, this is Heaven. On the other hand, I think he’s wearing his watch, and if this takes place while he’s waiting for Sam, Sam’s back on earth and wearing his brother’s watch. See how complicated this is? I usually love when fandom is busy gnashing our teeth and trying to figure things out, but this is too emotional to be very enjoyable right now!
Some fans, no matter how you feel about Sam or Dean’s involvement, were more intellectually confused than emotionally. The Winchesters was going to be an ambitious show no matter what, because while there wasn’t a ton of time devoted to John and Mary’s past in the original show, there was some – and that canon is tough to line up with exploring their early lives if they were hunting together. Fans from all ‘sides’ are wondering just how that is going to be accomplished, and the trailer didn’t answer any of those questions. Perhaps intentionally!
The premise of Dean not knowing his parents’ story – actually of no one apparently knowing their story – isn’t an expected launching point from past canon, where Dean went back in time and witnessed his mother making a deal to save his father’s life and a John Winchester who knew nothing of the supernatural or hunting or the Men of Letters as far as we know. How they got together was less an epic love story and more an angelic manipulation in original canon, with angels bringing them together and not hunting. I wonder why is Dean urgently needing to know his parents’ story now? Is there some imperative that’s related to him being in Heaven?? Why can’t he go ask John and Mary from wherever their house in Heaven is?? Fandom, as always, has its own ideas. The theory that Dean is writing some John/Mary fanfiction to pass the time while he waits for Sam to get to Heaven is currently my favorite. Ah fandom, you never disappoint.
So there’s a lot of speculation and confusion. That said, Supernatural’s universe has always left a lot of room for pulling the rug out and altering what seemed like established canon (and sometimes outright retconning, I know – I love my show, but it’s not perfect. ‘lolcanon’ is a fandom term for a reason, after all). Memory wipes and time travel and angelic manipulation are all part of established canon, though the show has usually shown that there are also serious consequences to all of those. So Supernatural leaves room for a lot of options, and I’m going to stay cautiously optimistic that something like that will be able to reconcile whatever canon divergence happens. I’m an optimist by nature, and I very much WANT Supernatural and its universe and its characters to keep going for a long long long time, so I’m here for the ride and hoping for the best. I’m also sentimental as hell, so thank you Robbie (or Jensen or whoever) for including the Samulet, even if it did launch me into an emotional crisis. I would expect nothing less from anything Supernatural!
That’s my emotional reaction to the trailer. The trailer itself – other than the Dean introduction and my big feelings about that – also was interesting. I like the look of the show and the way it’s filmed, the technical aspects of which I know nothing about but which I’m sure producer Jensen Ackles geeked out over and had some impact on. Other than the hapless demon lady who gets launched into space by a VW bus, I really liked the look of the show and how it’s filmed. I love that it’s set in the 70’s, and yes, it really does have a 70’s vibe, and I love that. I was also instantly charmed by Jojo Fleites’ character, Carlos, who seems to have great chemistry with everyone and be a bit of a smartass.
One of the things I valued about OG Supernatural was that it wasn’t about romance, so the John and Mary romance isn’t a pulling point for me, but the other characters seem interesting outside what I presume will be the central romance. Nida Khurshid’s character Latika is intriguing, and so is John’s mother Millie (Bianca Kajlich) who it appears was the mechanic in the family to Henry’s more bookish Men of Letters occupation. That could be interesting indeed! I wasn’t a huge fan of Mary or John (or their occasionally A+ parenting) in the original show, but Meg Donnelly and Drake Rodger seem up to the challenge of bringing the characters to life, so maybe I’ll feel more positively when I get to know them better.
It’s been an emotional day.
I loved seeing Jared, Jensen and Misha all up on that stage, thriving, and still goofing around together like old times. I feel incredibly proud of them, all with new shows and these young vibrant new casts who are just starting out on their own journeys thanks in part to J2M and what Supernatural taught them. I loved seeing Dean Winchester on my screen again, driving the Impala down a deserted road. I love knowing that Supernatural will never die, because I want that to be true more than anything, and I’m grateful that The Winchesters is keeping it alive. I’m going to cross my fingers, savor what we have, and hope for even more to love!
And in a few hours, I’m gonna settle in to watch yet another show that Jensen Ackles is in, the season finale of Big Sky.
But for now, I’m gonna go watch a few minutes of Dean Winchester again. I really really missed him.
I couldn’t let May 2nd go by without wishing one of my favorite fictional characters of all time a happy birthday. Yes, I’m aware that Supernatural wrapped at the end of 2020. Yes, I’m aware that it’s mid 2022. But in my heart, Sam and Dean are still very much alive (probably driving Baby down the most scenic roads in Heaven). They’re also alive in my brain, which continues to devote significant amounts of time to thinking about the Winchesters and friends and just how much Supernatural will always mean to me.
The things I love most about Sam Winchester are the things that, for me, make him so memorable. So I thought I’d share five of those here.
Before I do that, though, I’d have to be utterly oblivious not to include the fact that Sam is ridiculously good looking. Blame Jared Padalecki. Whoever made this graphic of Sam’s Hair Evolution understood that too – yes, I love Sam’s hair, guilty as charged!
And Sam without a soul may have lost his empathy, but he certainly didn’t lose his ability to be incendiary.
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You’re welcome for the eye candy. But now, five things I love about Sam Winchester.
Number 1. His personality. His optimism, his determination. His wide eyed enthusiasm for life, that floppy haired boy who left the family business and struck out to make a different life for himself. Who dared to go to college when it was seen as a betrayal, even when it was clearly also painful for him to leave his family.
And the grown up Sam, forged in trauma, tested so often and so cruelly, still capable of hope and moving forward despite the odds. Sam often was the one encouraging Dean when it felt hopeless; the brothers did that for each other throughout the series, each taking their turn to keep them both going. And through it all, Sam never lost his capacity to feel.
Number 2. His great big brain. Sam’s a researcher. He’s inquisitive, curious, needs to know how things work and why things happen. I can so relate, since so much of being a psychologist is also needing to know how things work – those things being people in my case. I love the continuity in Sam’s love of research, that he’s not afraid to be the “geek boy” throughout the entire series – and how that helped save the world a time or two!
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Number 3. His empathy and compassion. Sam, who for so much of his life felt like a freak who didn’t belong, was never afraid to reach out to others who might have felt the same way. He instinctively put himself in others’ shoes, and often knew just how to relate to someone else who was struggling and needed reassurance. His candid conversation with Rowena about their shared Lucifer trauma. His gentleness when he reassured Magda.
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Number 4. The flip side of Sam Winchester’s empathy – his fierceness. He personified the word ‘badass’, so much so that I still exclaim “Sam Fucking Winchester” when I rewatch lots of episodes. His rage-fueled taking out of Gordon when Dean’s life was threatened. His cold and confident announcement that there would be no new King of Hell, bearded and still grieving his missing brother. Don’t threaten a Winchester if you don’t want the other one coming at you just like this, just saying.
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Sam showed every kind of bravery throughout the series – striking out on his own to go to school, fighting through the psychological struggles of feeling like a freak to embracing his destiny of saving people, hunting things. Sacrificing himself to save the world, and standing up to Lucifer himself!
