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Supernatural - Pre-Finale Thoughts and Reflections
So the series finale of Supernatural aired last night. I've been off of social media since the episode began broadcasting and, aside from the promo and a couple of behind the scenes shots that showed them fighting some guys wearing cheap looking Halloween costumes, I've managed to remain completely unspoiled. So I decided that before I sat down to watch the end of a show I've been following on and off since I was in high school, I'd sit down and write down some of my thoughts and feelings about the show, lest my disposition be tarnished by a Star Wars or The 100 finale-level letdown. (Which, for the record, I don't expect to be the case. But hey, you never know.)
I started watching Supernatural back in 2008, during the 2007-08 writer's strike that halted TV production for several months. In that time I binged and caught up on shows (using some less than legal means) such as Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, and, of course, Supernatural - which by that point was in the middle of it's third season. I don't remember much of what I thought back then, only that I was hesitant to dive into a show with such a strong horror element, as I did not handle horror well. I watched The Ring when I was 12 and had recurring nightmares about it for years. Not to mention I was only just starting to watch "adult" programming, having stayed entirely with children and teen programming well into my sophomore year of high school. However, not only did I manage to get into it (and ease my horror aversion) but I actively became invested in the story. I watched the final few episodes of season three live, and by the time season four started airing I was hooked. It became one of my favorite shows as I moved from high school into college, a reliable continued presence as many of the shows I watched it high school quietly ended their runs. Other shows like Glee, Doctor Who, Once Upon a Time replaced them in my rotation, but Supernatural remained a continued presence.. for a while.
I fell off the show early into season 8, not really feeling the vibe the new showrunner was going for, and previously having gotten frustrated with the show's sudden overindulgence in Angel politics. (I suspect I was one of a handful of people who actually liked the Leviathan in season 7, since it was finally a break from all that). While I still had fond memories of the show, I didn't feel the need to keep up with it week to week anymore, a decision I have mixed feelings about but I think served me better in the long run. This was the holding pattern for about four years, and I don't remember the specifics, but I believe it was online chatter about the season 9 finale that convinced me I needed to dive back into the show. Over this period, it became a practice for me to binge the show in entire seasons as they dropped on Netflix, which I think was the right move since a lot of it blended together for me and the material I liked stuck out in my mind more. What really changed the game for me, though was season 11. I binged it in the fall of 2016 and found myself falling in love with the show again. It felt like it had finally broken free of the holding pattern in had been in for years. It wasn't until the next year, though, when I binged season 12 that I began watching the show weekly again with season 13. While some fans were apparently here for the slog of Angel politics that I couldn't stand, and take issue with the most recent era of the show for deviating from it, I really feel the show is going out on a high note that places higher value on its characters and relationships rather than just an endless stream of tragedy after tragedy. The introduction of Jack in particular reoriented the show and added more purpose to a story that was already feeling like it was closing in on the end. And I think that was part of the reason I started up again too: So I could be there for the end.
Supernatural is a show that's existed across multiple eras of fandom, and it's been interesting being a quiet observer through most of it. (Especially as a filthy multi-shipper that long ago stopped batting an eye at the prevalence of Sam/Dean fanworks.) It exists on long abandoned livejournal blogs and defunct fanfiction archives, in the depths of forgotten tumblr blogs and in the trending topics on twitter as recently as last night. It has a unique place both in pop culture and in my late teens through all of my twenties. And now I'm here, at the end, waiting to see what note it goes out on. I have a lot of faith in this current team, as they seem to know what mistakes were made by some other recent franchise endings, and have even commented on those types of writing choices within the show, with God taking the mantle of the power-mad showrunner driven more by spite than anything else. It's an arc that played out brilliantly in last week's penultimate episode, and this finale could really go anywhere now that that's done.
As far as my predictions? I don't really have any, other than Sam and Dean will be the focus of it. I kind of hope they find a way to bring further resolution to Castiel, whether that be another resurrection or maybe even just Dean further processing his confession. But I went into this season fully expecting Castiel to die, and not for a second believing they would ever make Destiel canon in any semblance of the word. I was proven right on the former and wrong on the latter, so who knows? I don't at all expect everyone to walk into the sunset holding hands, but I hope that this finale does offer some kind of hope. Hope for these characters and their future. Whether we ever see it in some form or not, knowing there's the possibility of a bright future I think is something Sam and Dean have earned, even if the show decides to be cagey about it.
I think I've rambled on enough, and I can feel myself getting restless. So now it's time to hit submit, order a pizza, and settle in for the behind the scenes retrospective, and then the finale. And no matter how it all shakes out, I'll forever be grateful for the presence and impact it's had on my life. For better or worse.
I started watching Supernatural back in 2008, during the 2007-08 writer's strike that halted TV production for several months. In that time I binged and caught up on shows (using some less than legal means) such as Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, and, of course, Supernatural - which by that point was in the middle of it's third season. I don't remember much of what I thought back then, only that I was hesitant to dive into a show with such a strong horror element, as I did not handle horror well. I watched The Ring when I was 12 and had recurring nightmares about it for years. Not to mention I was only just starting to watch "adult" programming, having stayed entirely with children and teen programming well into my sophomore year of high school. However, not only did I manage to get into it (and ease my horror aversion) but I actively became invested in the story. I watched the final few episodes of season three live, and by the time season four started airing I was hooked. It became one of my favorite shows as I moved from high school into college, a reliable continued presence as many of the shows I watched it high school quietly ended their runs. Other shows like Glee, Doctor Who, Once Upon a Time replaced them in my rotation, but Supernatural remained a continued presence.. for a while.
I fell off the show early into season 8, not really feeling the vibe the new showrunner was going for, and previously having gotten frustrated with the show's sudden overindulgence in Angel politics. (I suspect I was one of a handful of people who actually liked the Leviathan in season 7, since it was finally a break from all that). While I still had fond memories of the show, I didn't feel the need to keep up with it week to week anymore, a decision I have mixed feelings about but I think served me better in the long run. This was the holding pattern for about four years, and I don't remember the specifics, but I believe it was online chatter about the season 9 finale that convinced me I needed to dive back into the show. Over this period, it became a practice for me to binge the show in entire seasons as they dropped on Netflix, which I think was the right move since a lot of it blended together for me and the material I liked stuck out in my mind more. What really changed the game for me, though was season 11. I binged it in the fall of 2016 and found myself falling in love with the show again. It felt like it had finally broken free of the holding pattern in had been in for years. It wasn't until the next year, though, when I binged season 12 that I began watching the show weekly again with season 13. While some fans were apparently here for the slog of Angel politics that I couldn't stand, and take issue with the most recent era of the show for deviating from it, I really feel the show is going out on a high note that places higher value on its characters and relationships rather than just an endless stream of tragedy after tragedy. The introduction of Jack in particular reoriented the show and added more purpose to a story that was already feeling like it was closing in on the end. And I think that was part of the reason I started up again too: So I could be there for the end.
Supernatural is a show that's existed across multiple eras of fandom, and it's been interesting being a quiet observer through most of it. (Especially as a filthy multi-shipper that long ago stopped batting an eye at the prevalence of Sam/Dean fanworks.) It exists on long abandoned livejournal blogs and defunct fanfiction archives, in the depths of forgotten tumblr blogs and in the trending topics on twitter as recently as last night. It has a unique place both in pop culture and in my late teens through all of my twenties. And now I'm here, at the end, waiting to see what note it goes out on. I have a lot of faith in this current team, as they seem to know what mistakes were made by some other recent franchise endings, and have even commented on those types of writing choices within the show, with God taking the mantle of the power-mad showrunner driven more by spite than anything else. It's an arc that played out brilliantly in last week's penultimate episode, and this finale could really go anywhere now that that's done.
As far as my predictions? I don't really have any, other than Sam and Dean will be the focus of it. I kind of hope they find a way to bring further resolution to Castiel, whether that be another resurrection or maybe even just Dean further processing his confession. But I went into this season fully expecting Castiel to die, and not for a second believing they would ever make Destiel canon in any semblance of the word. I was proven right on the former and wrong on the latter, so who knows? I don't at all expect everyone to walk into the sunset holding hands, but I hope that this finale does offer some kind of hope. Hope for these characters and their future. Whether we ever see it in some form or not, knowing there's the possibility of a bright future I think is something Sam and Dean have earned, even if the show decides to be cagey about it.
I think I've rambled on enough, and I can feel myself getting restless. So now it's time to hit submit, order a pizza, and settle in for the behind the scenes retrospective, and then the finale. And no matter how it all shakes out, I'll forever be grateful for the presence and impact it's had on my life. For better or worse.