I was asked what made me cry watching Supernatural. Lots of people mentioned the closing scene in Heart, and I agree, and wanted to share how it affected me enough to make me an SPN fan. Here’s the story:

I loved the tear at the end of Heart from Dean, which is what got me into SPN. Before then…well, I had resisted SPN like a drunk on the wagon, not wanting to fall off.
My sister tried to get me into it since day one 2005, and, not having liked her previous TV loves, heard all about the boys, the roadtrips, the car, the hunting, the heavy metal music, and I said no, no, hell no, and then tried it anyway, just to be nice. (She is my sister, after all.)

My first ep that I saw was the pilot. I lasted ten minutes. Got to the point where Jess is kissing Sam and I thought, wow, this is just another OC or Friends or one of those dorky romance shows that I don’t like.

Next, I watched Windigo because Callum Keith Rennie was on there. He used to be Ray #2 on Due South (a show I adored), and I was so mad when he died halfway through the episiode. I was like, who are these guys? Besides, the ep creeped me out.

Then I tried one more. Unfortunately, it was the airplane one, Phantom Traveller, and I hate to fly. I’m already suffering through it, and get to the part where Sam goes to Dean, you’ve got to make it flinch by invoking the name of Christ. Then Sam instructs Dean to say it in Latin. Christo. I turned the TV off right then and there because I thought, how the hell do they know THAT? They can’t possibly be THAT well versed in stuff like that. Sheesh.

Flash forward to February 2007 (having ignored SPN for that long).  I’m at Escapade. Swimming in my mundane life, I need an out and have this feeling I’ll find it at Escapade. One of the women meeting me at the airport indicates in an email that she will be wearing her Sam Winchseter outfit. Like I know who that is! And why, why? (Completely denying my own habit of showing up at the airport dressed like a current favorite character, which I’ve done more than once.) And then when I get there, my leather jacket, which I had assumed to be a likeness to the leather coat that Hutch wears, is pointed out and exclaimed over, like, as in, wow! You’ve got Dean’s coat! I’m like, Dean who?

I room with Sharon. She’s very cool, and has lots of friends who are into…yeah, Supernatural. (Among other things.) I get invited to not one, but TWO evenings of SPN immersion. I’m bought pizza, I have my six pack, and I’m shown Skin. (The girls discussed this issue for a good five minutes, which ep do we show her first, so I know it was done with a purpose.) I’m still like, Dean who? Why? Why? Why?

The girls (in the darkness) are extolling the virtures of Sam’s hair, and whether it looks better first or second season. (This kind of talk I understood and it made me feel comfortable. ) But Skin….there was some argument between the brothers and it was discussed around me, and it was pointed out to me how much the boys get thrown or tossed or tied up or smacked….( I love h/c so this was also good). But I didn’t get it. I’ll be honest. It was the beers, I just sort of floated and let the show float over me. That was fun and very relaxing, but it didn’t hook me.

Sharon shows me some SPN songvids, one in particular, Carol of the Supernatural, which raised the hairs on the back of my neck without me even knowing why. I made her show it to me twice (we stayed up way too late to do this), didn’t understand why it affected me so, but I remembered liking the effect of the blood on that one guy’s face (turned out to be the aforementioned Dean)…and then, when the convention was over, I went home to my still mundane life.

I get home. I’m looking at the coat hung on the back of a chair, thinking about Dean…and I watch Heart on network TV, commercials and all. I’m bored through the whole thing. Okay? BORED. I don’t get it. Sam and Dean are brothers, dad is missing, they kill evil things, there’s a werewolf problem, yadda yadda yadda…and then the end of Heart comes. Sam is blubbering. He’s so out there with his feelings, I’m almost uncomfortable. He goes off with the gun, and the camera is on Dean.

I’m astonished. What kind of show is this – the action is about to happen in the bedroom, right? So the camera should be in there. Right? No. The camera is on Dean. Slow and still and there. And wham. A single tear shoots down Dean’s face. Like it was shot from a rifle, like it’s cutting into his flesh, it hurts him that bad. And THEN he jerks when he hears the pistol go off. Not, I instantly knew, because he’s startled by the gun, but because he knows his brother is changed, irrevocably, forever, by what he’s just done.

I could not get that image out of my head for days. So…by the calendar, I was a dyed in the wool SPN fan, mundane life over, the night Heart was on TV. It was that tear that did it to me.

(Previously posted on my LJ account on 6/18/2007)