SPN Georg

I wrestled with the jokey tagline on the image this week. I nearly went with something about Ruby, since she’s the other Big Deal Thing happening in this episode, but I’m still stuck on the thematic similarity between Lisa and Carmen from Dean’s djinn dream in 2.20. I mean, they even look similar. Like, maybe his long-ago memories of Lisa influenced his mental process in choosing that particular El Sol ad model as his ideal partner in his dream world, you know? And then the reality of Lisa when he walks back into her life in this episode is just... not at all what he was expecting. The dream kind of shatters a little bit, but in a way that helps him come back down to earth and confront himself, rather than just trying to run from his problems (like his ticking clock and his one way ticket to Hell) and bury them under hedonistic distractions.

(also, we discuss this episode with the understanding that Lisa is not a liar, she’s not deceiving Dean about Ben’s parentage, and that Dean is 100% not Ben’s father, just in case anyone takes issue with that.)

But also, there’s Ruby, and the beginning of her arc that is so damn satisfying to watch when you already know her whole story. She is one of the things I always point to when people suggest that Supernatural is a bad show, or that it was poorly written. Her entire arc wasn’t an accident. Well... we all know how late s3 pulled the rug out from under the plot and then replaced it with angels, but for her part in the Big Scheme of Things, she was always supposed to be the little demon on Sam’s shoulder whispering the secrets to his own downfall in his ear. It just ended up having far more long-reaching consequences in the narrative than originally planned thanks to the whole Apocalypse thing happening. :D

So this is a big one all around!

Things referenced in this episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

Casting Sides for Ben

Why tf did Sam open that motel room door and *observe with his eyes*. I mean wtf did he think he was gonna see? Sound travels through doors, Sam. You could’ve just called and left him a voice mail. Or did you think he was gonna be demurely under the covers with the doublemint twins? Truly sad, Sammy.

Oh, and this episode also sets up the Main Problems of s3:

Things referenced in this episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

A post I wrote in June 2019 summing up how I see s3 (after rewatching 3.01 and 3.02, so this is also relevant to next week’s episode, but the first few paragraphs do a nice job of setting a baseline for Dean’s character arc this season, and going forward in general)

LuckyMojo.com, the site referenced in Kripke’s notes on set dressing in the casting sides for Isaac

Casting Sides for Isaac (with the agonizingly incomplete conversation between Sam and Dean, for which this is all we have at the top of page 5 of these sides):

“Dean thinks on this for a beat. This means more to him than he lets on... maybe Sam is cured of his dark destiny...

DEAN: That’s good. (then) Impeccable sense of timing there, Sammy, but still, it’s good.”

BUT WHAT WAS GOOD?! WHAAAAATTTTT I BEG OF ANYONE WHO HAS A COPY OF THIS FULL SCRIPT *clears throat and straightens rended garments*

Casting sides for Walter/Envy

For just a minute, yeah, this episode feels hopeful. Despite ~everything still hanging over them~ they got a MASSIVE win. Like, win of a lifetime, quite literally. Sure they still have problems going into s3-- Dean’s deal and his one year left to live, the worry over whether Sam “came back right” (spoiler alert, he did, this is all just mind games being put in place to manipulate them), and oopsie all those freshly escaped demons wreaking havoc... but heck this one does end on a good note otherwise.

Yes, that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true! You’re watching Supernatural! This is just how it is :’D

Things reference in this episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode (chronological order, so you can get progressively more hopeful about the series, and then just stop reading when it gets to the series finale era posts lol)

The dvd/blu ray featurette about the making of this episode

Plus I engaged in a few fun little what-if games throughout this episode, and I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on what might’ve been different had a few tiny little things happened differently in this episode. Not because it would’ve logically made sense to make those changes, but the show itself has given us an opportunity to wonder about them with the introduction of “the author” to the story, and the concept of alternate universes where things happened differently. :D

Where once again I mention something in passing on the episode graphic that I completely fail to mention in the actual podcast! But this one is a blink-and-you-miss-it handful of frames that’s far more ominous with the context of the rest of the series. And in context of this early part of the show (and the next two seasons or so) makes Sam’s hiding the whole demon blood from Dean at least a little more understandable but also 10000x more horrifying.

(for reference, Dean doesn’t learn about the demon blood thing that Sam learns in this episode until 4.03 when Azazel himself tells him...)

But this episode: After so long of Sam and Dean having no idea what this big bad “Save Sam or else you’ll have to kill him” threat that had been hanging over Dean all season, it’s finally rendered irrelevant as a “choice” in this episode. We get some awful, awful “I didn’t have a choice,” and the Special Children Hunger Games. Plus the demise of the Roadhouse (and Ash), and the reminder that Kripke hates letting his characters have nice things. We’re watching Supernatural.

Things referenced in this episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

The post I mention laying out my understanding of the YED’s role in the larger canon of s1-5 (if you read nothing else from my links this week, read this. It’s one of those “no, this isn’t actually a plot hole if you look at it from this specific angle only” type explainers, and informs how I look at the rest of the series. Also, it’s not THAT long lol.)

The lyrics I reference playing when Dean walks into the cafe after Sam vanishes

Casting sides for Jake

Casting sides for Lily (both of which came from the Network Draft dated 2/26/07)

Production Draft script dated 3/07/07, with Blue Revision pages dated 3/08/07

The Devil’s Road Map featurette on the s2 Blu Ray

I did my best to keep this one short, knowing next week we’re in for a roller coaster of agony. Have a good one, everybody... :’D

no really, this episode is A Lot. Being #42 must be some sort of cosmic joke. Djinn, the introduction of El Sol and everything that implies, Dean’s horrifying self-worth issues, the cases Dean discovers were “undone” in his dream world (the Shtriga that nearly killed Sam as a child and became a punishment from John as an adult, their first demon and the plane crash case that exposed Dean’s fears, the clown/rakshasa that follows kids home and murders their parents, and the little girl from Playthings bringing up Dean’s promise to Sam that he will kill him rather than let him turn evil... there’s a lot of baggage to unpack even in those references...), the literal definition of “performing Dean” and just... so much angst.

Of course this episode ran long. I could’ve talked so much longer (and did... I edited out like 40 minutes and it’s still That Long...). But instead I’ll just assign supplemental reading!

The Superwiki Page for this episode

My tag for this episode (sorted chronologically so you don’t get a lot of later seasons meta mixed in at first)

The wikipedia page for From Hell It Came (because it’s a wild read)

Poor Victor Henriksen. The Winchesters are just so far above his pay grade right now. :’D

But also, yeah, things never stay locked up on Supernatural-- from curse boxes to wherever Amara was stashed away since the dawn of creation, if there’s a lock then there’s always a key, or a blowtorch in this case.

Also, working from “sanitized” reports that don’t come close to the truth always lead to surprise outcomes. And hiding the truth to protect yourself or others is pretty much always gonna blow up in your face down the line.

Plus the ghost of John Winchester, Dean feeling responsible to repay his debts (or just feeling a duty and loyalty to those he feels beholden to), poking the back of our brains about that awful last promise John extracted from Dean that’s coming due any day now...

Heck I really enjoy this episode.

Things mentioned in this podcast that may be of interest:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

The Green Onions Story

Casting sides for Deacon Kaylor

Casting sides for Mara Daniels

Casting sides for Randall

The Crime Mittens post (it’s hilarious, if you click on no other links here, click this one.)

All other mentioned posts from this podcast are in my tag for the episode (it’s three pages and like half of them are gif sets) :’D

I didn’t even realize until i was entering the metadata for the mp3 file last night that this was EPISODE 40 of spngeorg! First off, I can’t believe I’ve stuck with this project for 40 whole entire weeks, or that we’re still in s2 of 15 of Supernatural. :’D Thanks to everyone who’s been on this ride with me!

On to the actual episode!

I LOVE THIS ONE. Seriously, if I haven’t made myself clear, it’s episodes like this one that make Supernatural what it is. There’s so many meta seeds planted here: the Author and the Story, and how the story of Supernatural is being told. The writers plucked fruits off episodes like this through the entire rest of the series, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this project in the first place.

I only wish I hadn’t been as under the weather as I was this week, or this episode would be three times as long. So I guess that’s a good thing! (and yeah, at least I don’t have the plague, and I’m starting to feel better now, which is a huge relief)

Things referenced in this podcast (with apologies that there’s actual homework this week because I couldn’t brain very well for myself):

The Superwiki Page for this episode (just go enjoy all the trivia and minutiae they crammed into this episode)

My tag for this episode

Casting sides for McG

Casting sides for Tara

that one post on my blog I mentioned in the podcast

one more post that tidily sums up the wtf of using That Clip in all the 15.20 promos, because I think I failed to adequately convey the wtf in this podcast :’D

This episode always hurts. It hurts more knowing how much more Sam and Dean will eventually learn about werewolves, and what they might have been able to do to help Madison if only they had known. Some episodes just get better with hindsight, but this one just feels more painful-- for Madison, yes, but also for Sam. That boy just carries so much guilt.

I do appreciate this one for the chance for Sam to maybe understand just a little how heavy the baggage Dean has been carrying all season is, even if it doesn’t really change anything (including Sam’s understanding of Dean long-term), but if nothing else it sort of hammers *us* in the face with the reminder.

Plus we get the absolute longest full moon cycle in the history of the universe. I mean sheesh, how many nights of the full moon does San Francisco get, anyway?! And Sam gets like a twelve hour nap, which is the longest I think he’s slept since the series started :’D (yes, I am mocking the timeline of this episode).

Things referenced in the podcast:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

*all along the watchtower plays in the distance* lol... even if in this episode the song tied to the guest star of the week was House of the Rising Sun, same deal. And once again, if you haven’t watched Battlestar Galactica, can I take this opportunity to recommend it most strongly. Then you’ll get this reference. :’D

I love this episode. It’s a wonderful exemplar of the inside-out storytelling Supernatural uses really well most of the time, and helps us get through difficult things when we know the trick of them. Since this is why I started this podcast in the first place-- because Supernatural only improves with rewatches, when you know how things will resolve (well, except the series finale because wtf...), entire episodes, hell entire SEASONS of this show look completely different. I’m just here to point that out in every way I possibly can.

Plus, Sam and Dean are FINALLY working well together. TEAMWORK! And Sam gets to directly save someone. It’s the catharsis we as the audience have needed for a while, too.

Things referenced in this week’s episode:

Battlestar Galactica (kind of joking, but seriously, All Along The Watchtower is to that series what House of the Rising Sun is to this one... and like AATW, the end is the beginning. Plus Tricia Helfer.)

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode (again, not a lot, but what’s there is meaty)

Casting sides for David McNamara (trying a new system, since the slideshare was giving me fits this week)

Once again, I shall use this space to laugh about something I didn’t even mention in the actual podcast: the snarky comment in this week’s title card. For those who can’t see it, it’s “That episode that makes fun of Urban Legends, you know that thing this show was originally intended to be about...” Because yeah, the original pitch Kripke made for Supernatural was (aside from “Star Wars in truck stop America” that we always hear) along the lines of “two brothers traveling the back roads investigating urban legends that are really real.”

I mean, just look at s1-- Bloody Mary, Hookman, the Woman in White. The show obviously branched out VERY quickly into a broader cosmology and mythology for the entire universe, and only occasionally delved back into common urban legends. So much for Kripke’s “original vision” of the show-- more along the lines of Kolchak: The Night Stalker that what Supernatural quickly grew into. I think it’s amazing that by mid s2 the writers are already comfortable poking at the silliness of the premise to carry a series past a season or two of stories. Good for them for realizing the potential they had to expand and elevate the universe they were creating.

And now that I took so much space typing about what this podcast episode ISN’T about, I’ll take this paragraph to mention that it *IS* about the narrative itself manipulating Sam and Dean for its own purposes in a startlingly meta way. Not because John Shiban knew what the show would eventually grow into, but because the writers leaned so heavily on the story’s foundations to keep building it bigger and bigger in later seasons. And Gabriel, to me, is so closely tied into that narrative. Our “As above, so below” character who keeps coming back to teach this lesson. So meta. :’D

Things I mention in this episode that might be of interest:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode (there’s some good stuff in there this week!)

Lizbob summing up how making the Trickster into the Archangel Gabriel is a retcon that levels up the whole narrative

My post attempting to explain how I see Gabriel’s role in the narrative as a mirror for Chuck

The Weekly World News dated February 19, 2007 with the tie-in article about Supernatural (and can we collectively cackle at the cover headline about “first photos of Heaven” being revealed in an episode where we get our first appearance by an Actual Angel in the show, even if we don’t KNOW it’s an angel for another 3 seasons? Because that’s just freaking hilarious)

Casting Sides for the Trickster

Casting Sides for the frat boy alien abductee

The entirely delightful Sam Samming post (it doesn’t have the screenshot I mentioned in the podcast, but the “you’re too precious for this world!” hug is in there)

Standard reminder you can find me on tumblr @spngeorg or at @mittensmorgul​, as well as at mittensmorgul and spngeorg on twitter, or via email at mittensmorgul@gmail, and mittens#4865 on the discord. Come say hi! I swear I don’t bite... mostly... :D