Writing From the Inside

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Salvation” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

Sam on his own is a lot like a lost child, with his schoolbag and his tan jacket that keeps slipping off his shoulders in the rain. Then he has a vision, which looks like a very bad migraine, but alas, there is no one there to comfort him. But instead of falling prey to his own misery, Sam pays attention to the vision, and figures out that the woman and her baby who are in danger live near the railroad tracks. Out comes his map, and off he goes. I like to imagine that he RAN the whole way, following the line of the tracks, stopping to check his bearings every so often, to pull his jacket up yet again, and then kept on going, regardless of how bad he feels. Sam’s like that, you see. He might whine about the food, or bitch at Dean for no particular reason, but on his own, like he is here, he matures about 10 years, and looks for help from no one. (I notice how badly Sam needs a haircut here. I hope he never gets one.)

The Colt and those Notes

Convincing Sammy

Trained to flirt

Charming the panties off a nun

Lonely man

Stopping the car

At Escapade this year, K’Kathy and I ran a panel called John: Bad Dad. But then we (K’Kathy) changed it a bit to be less provocative, because really, I don’t know any fan who thinks that John was totally horrible. So at the end, this was the description about the panel, and points for discussion, in case we ran out of things to say, which, needless to say, didn’t happen:
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Panel: SPN: John: Good Hero, Bad Dad?

Description: Leave your weapons behind but I think it would be interesting to discuss what kind of father John Winchester actually was. He has so many good qualities and so many bad ones….people get so riled about this subject, it might be nice to hear some debate on it. Read the rest of this entry »

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Shadow” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

Outside, it gets good, and I mean good. Dean is incensed at Sam, asking, “Dude, were you bitching about me to some girl?” For Dean, it’s not what Sam said about the luggage, it’s the fact that he said anything at all. This particular complaint feels incredibly girly to me, because usually it’s one of your girlfriends who will say, “Oh, I can’t believe you told her that about me!” when in fact what she really wants to know is what ELSE you said about her. This is how girls often exchange information, through a third party. It maintains lines of communication, and also includes everyone. Which is how girls talk. So to hear Dean working this line, it’s almost like he asking, “What ELSE did you say about me?” Because what he really wants to know is, “Did you tell her I was your favorite brother?”

A Man Loading His Gun

Aiming For the Bad Guy

Brothers In Arms

Bruised

That Smile

Yet Another Message For The Dad

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Dream a Little Dream of Me” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An exerpt:

“What makes this scene so cool is the fact that when Big Brother shows up, Sam is drunk. Sam drunk is like a petulant child with his “so what?” and his “you do it,” trying to excuse being drunk at 2 in the afternoon. Except this child is tall and built, has very large manhands, and a head full of Samhair. This scene is so blissful for me, because drunk Sam’s voice is only a register or two above being gravelly. I suppose, since he’s drinking whiskey, its his whiskey voice, his “I’m being tortured, here” voice. What’s even funnier is that when Dean finds out that Sam’s going all emo on him, he orders a double whiskey, neat. I mean, wouldn’t you?”

Dean orders a double

Contemplating Bella

Sprawled

I haven’t seen terribly many posts on this subject, but the ones I have seen have been intelligent and balanced. I imagine there are a few posts out there that aren’t, and each to their own, but I hope I don’t run across those. My weekly review is coming out tomorrow, and I’m thinking that I left the whole John as obsessive bastard out of it because I didn’t feel that PRG was an appropriate forum for my own private views on the subject. Plus, rather than posting to this comment or that, in that I agree or don’t, I thought I’d post my own personal thoughts here. 

First, the whole of Dean’s dream sequence left me rattled. Yeah, TV uses the “confronting self” technique in more than a few places, and never in such a satisfying way. I mean, yeah, I got that Dean was going to face up to himself and that revelations were going to come of it, but NOT like this. If I thought Dean was hard on himself before, man, he was downright cruel. I mean, yes, he was helping himself face what needed to be faced, but like that? Don’t know when I’ve last been so moved, to the point of standing up and shouting out loud. I don’t know where Dean will go from that point on, but I sure as heck know he’s not in limbo anymore. The whole scene was vicious and hard to watch and utterly satisfying. I downloaded it and watched this scene several times, trying to get a grip. Did he say what I thought he said? And what does it mean?

Second, yeah, what he had to say…and how he said it. In the beginning he’s all like, yeah, Dean wake up, let me snap my fingers and you’re history, wake up. Like it’s that easy. Of course it wasn’t. I think he felt like he was in real trouble when he says, “Come on, wake up,” because he could see where Nightmare Dean was taking him and he didn’t want to go. Not at all. It’s one thing to know, in the back of your head that you are messed up and your own worst nightmare, it’s another to face it. So Nightmare Dean taunts him, saying stuff that I never thought I’d hear said aloud, but that I thought. 

Yeah, I always figured Dean had Dad issues, why else would he be driving his Dad’s car (and no other), wearing his Dad’s leather jacket, and listening to music that was HOT when his Dad was his age? Obviously, he adores his Dad and wants to be like him, and imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. So there’s that, and up to a point, it’s normal to admire someone and want to be like them. So that part wasn’t so bad. It was when Nightmare Dean started in with the  whole “all he did was train you, boss you around,” and “Sam he doted on, Sam he loved,” and “you’re just his blunt little instrument,” and Dean’s getting steamed. I was AMAZED that Show went this direction with this, and that they said it out loud. With FORCE and INTENT. Then Nightmare Dean says the worst thing ever, “Your own father didn’t care whether you lived or died, why should you?” Which is when Dean looses it and says all the stuff about The Dad being an obsessive bastard, and the part that broke my heart full out, “He was never there! He was never there for Sammy and I always was.”

True? Obviously Dean believes it, which is what makes it hard. But it isn’t, not really. Because, as any fan recalls, John sold his soul and the Colt for Dean’s life. A father’s love will sacrifice all, so it isn’t really true that John didn’t care whether Dean lived or died. But part of Dean believes it. Hell, maybe all of him does, regardless of what actually happened. He feels unloved, he feels like his one purpose in life has nothing to do with what he wants and who he is. He’s been going on so long with his one purpose being look after Sammy that he’s forgotten to be or want anything else and it’s taken him this long to get mad. So I take this scene as less a reflection of John’s parenting than on Dean’s inabitlity to….be his own man. There’s something whacked there. (Even though I’ve heard the theories that at around 30 you kind of fall apart and put yourself back together again. It happened to me, and then I read up on it, and warned all my friends who were approaching that point so they wouldn’t think they were going crazy when it happened to them.)

I’m not saying John was inculpable here. I belive that yeah, he did train his boys and he wasn’t nice. I think that he did make Dean his brother’s keeper, that he meant for Dean to be a good solider, someone upon whom he could depend, and when Dean turned out to be the best blunt little instrument ever, it must have been rather hard for him to not use that. And keep it honed sharp. John was wrong in that his singlemindedness trained his boys to be hunters before they were old enough to determine that’s what they wanted. Growing up as a hunter? My lord? That’s no life. John had tunnel vision and his boys suffered for it. I think he suffered for it, come to that.

But I don’t, at the same time think that John meant for it to happen. (If Mary had been around, demon or no, there would have been balance.) And I don’t think he had any idea how what he was doing affected Dean, but, being the man he was and in the situation he was he NEVER LOOKED.  That’s where he needs to take the blame. He never looked, he never thought, he never considered – and at the end of it all, his blunt little instrument is having nightmares where he shoots himself in the chest with a sawed off shotgun.

Dean was the kind of kid to take “look after Sammy” as the end all and be all of commands. And Dean doesn’t seem the kind to complain about it, after all, pulling your little brother out of the flames at four years, and then again when you’re 26 is going to solidify that command like cement. So while John’s intent was to keep his boys safe (if you see life as a war, you train for a war), because Dean is that kind of guy, it all went screwy. I think what Dean is saying in this scene, to himself, because no one is listening but him, has less to do with The Dad and more to do with what Dean did with what The Dad gave him. 

Don’t get me wrong, when I see the effect John’s parenting had on his boys, I’m boiling over with fury and I want to spring into action on Dean’s behalf. And I think both Dean and The Dad are both responsible for what went on, not in the same way, but it occurs to me, at this point, that for YEARS Sam kept saying “THIS IS BULLSHIT,” because for some reason he could see the forest for the trees. Dad never listened because Sam was his kid and a mouthy one at that. Dean never listened because Sam was his baby brother and golly, couldn’t possibly have a sane thought in his head that made sense. 

I think there’s enough blame to spread far and wide here. Blame in the sense of taking responsibility, not in the pointing fingers sense. 

When I think about The Dad, I get a headache. Doesn’t help that he looks like JDM, which makes me want to think about him all the more.

Pictures (of course)

The Dad and his boys

The Dad

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Dead Man’s Blood” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

“Oh. My. Holy. Hell. It’s The DAD. The boys are shocked ghost white to find The Dad sneaking up on them. (The last time they were together, ages ago, they agreed that The Dad would be safer apart from his boys.) The Dad slips into the backseat of the Impala like he owns the place and takes the letter from Dean. Instantly the scene flips from two brothers floundering around to three men on a mission, one of whom is in charge of everything and everyone. The Dad doesn’t read the letter aloud, he merely scans it, mutters to himself (with those pillowy lips of his), and then starts barking out orders. There’s a vampire nest, they are going after it. There’s a gun, The Dad wants it. Follow me, The Dad says, and off they go.”

Pictures…(Click on the links to display beautiful, full-size pics. Click on thumbnails for smaller but still beautiful pics.)

Dean and Sam hunting vampires

Sam laughing with The Dad

Sam and Dean and The Dad

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Something Wicked” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!