SPN--Season 4 Rewatch

[borgmama1of5]

Rewatch of Supernatural 2022

Season 4

General Observations-I remembered this season as the one where Sam and Dean’s relationship falls apart because they don’t communicate, and started this rewatch looking for the signs. Interestingly, it felt different than I remembered it.

Comments

[fanspired]

> I remembered this season as the one where Sam and Dean’s relationship falls apart because they don’t communicate, and started this rewatch looking for the signs. Interestingly, it felt different than I remembered it

[borgmama1of5]

Sam followed Ruby originally because she appeared to him to represent what Dean would do - the path of practical action, if you will - but it ultimately leads him down a demonic path. Similarly, Dean follows Castiel and the angels because he assumes they represent what Sam would do - the path of righteous action. But just as the demons represent action without thought for moral consequence, the angels are revealed to represent action without concern for human feeling. Thus by following these distorted images of each other rather than working together, both brothers are equally dehumanized.

Equally led astray by forces they don't see are manipulating them, and because they are emotionally disconnected from each other they don't see how they are being played...and they are disconnected because they are being manipulated...and it's a vicious cycle that I wonder if there would have been any point at which the boys could have broken it?

[fanspired]

Yes and no. Theoretically, if they'd only chosen to walk away from the war, there'd have been no war. ("It's a strange game, professor; the only way to win is not to play"). But given their background and their characters, it was inevitable they would make the choices they did. That's the nature of classical tragedy: the action of fate upon the hero's fatal flaw leads inexorably to his tragic destiny. (In SPN the angels and demons play the role of the fates). In the end, like all the heroes of classical tragedy, the Winchesters' story is there to serve as a moral example, in this case, warning against the destructive path of vengeance and the importance of acceptance and letting go.

[borgmama1of5]

...importance of acceptance and letting go

This touches on my conundrum of loving the relationship between Sam and Dean--watching the show, I am totally captivated by the intensity of their relationship, the lengths they will go to for each other to the point of self-sacrifice...then I turn of the TV and think just how unhealthy that is, how in real life that inability to separate themselves would be extremely unhealthy...and then I turn the TV back on and don't care...

[fanspired]

> Cas tells Dean he has to stop ‘it’-when actually that’s not possible

[borgmama1of5]

I LOVE your insightful responses!!!

...(In the Beginning) which itself does a major retcon of the original John and Mary backstory.

Not sure what you are referring to as the original John and Mary story--all we ever saw was Mary burning on the ceiling. I know I saw somewhere that Kripke intended Mary to be a hunter all along, and this episode makes Mary's 'I'm sorry' to Sam in Home make sense.

So, was the angels' true intent here to send Dean back for the express purpose of making sure Sam was infected?

Whoa.

We're being shown that Dean's time in Hell has turned him into Gordon Walker....It's also important that Dean thinks he's justified in his righteous anger because he's been told to stop Sam by an angel, so he assumes he has God on his side. So the angels are overtly setting the brothers against each other at this point (juxtaposed with Ruby claiming she didn't want to get between them in the previous episode).

You analysis goes way deeper than mine and gives me a lot to think about!

The parallel between Jack and Sam is

[fanspired]

> Not sure what you are referring to as the original John and Mary story--all we ever saw was Mary burning on the ceiling. I know I saw somewhere that Kripke intended Mary to be a hunter all along, and this episode makes Mary's 'I'm sorry' to Sam in Home make sense

[fanspired]

Monster Movie: Edlund was a master of writing OTT comedy episodes that still felt true to the show. Attempts to emulate his work since have mostly shot wide of the target for me. He was also good at using those comedy episodes to foreshadow darker aspects of the mythology arcs. Here, when when the shifter talks about his father wanting to kill him because he was a monster, there is a poignant parallel with Sam - especially coming directly after Metamorphosis; and his final words "perhaps this is how the movie should end" should have been a warning to us that Sam's story wasn't going to end well

[borgmama1of5]

...when when the shifter talks about his father wanting to kill him because he was a monster, there is a poignant parallel with Sam...

I didn't catch that!

...it left a bad taste in the mouth that the case of a ghost who'd been bullied all his life and horribly murdered was solved by recreating the horrific circumstances of his death.

Again you articulate something I felt but did have the words to express it.

The body language in this scene is interesting. Uriel gets up in Sam's face and tries to intimidate him with his *angelic power*; it's a parallel to the similar scene where Castiel did it to Dean, but Sam's body language isn't cowed like Dean's was. Although he's clearly alarmed and probably is intimidated, he stands his ground and doesn't allow Uriel to subdue him.

Demonstrating both Sam's strength and weakness simultaneously...

I think Sam represents the popular psychology view that it's bad to bottle things up and it helps to get them out in the open. I'm not sure though that the action of the show actually supports this

[fanspired]

> Demonstrating both Sam's strength and weakness simultaneously

[borgmama1of5]

The fic you mention sounds familiar, I may have read that a long time ago--I will sometimes read Hell fanfic if I am familiar with the author.

I am generally not a TV watcher--other than the pre-2000 iterations of Star Trek, Supernatural is the only TV show I have ever watched. I'm a serial monogamist that way, I only have space in my life for one show at a time. But while I passionately loved Trek (see username,) I never went down the rabbit hole like I have with SPN!

I'm a third of the way through season 6, and it's better than a lot of fans give it credit for being--watching Dean trying to cope with 'new and improved' Sam and then finding out he's soulless is psychologically fascinating, you'd probably have lots of intriguing analysis!

[fanspired]

> There are 600 possible seals-only 66 need to be broken to free Lucifer

[borgmama1of5]

They make a point of showing Dean taking off the amulet

I completely missed that!

...Dean keeps going on about: you chose a demon over your own brother while Sam never really defends himself, never says "well, you trusted the angels over me".

It would be hard to object to trusting angels, though, given the theological lens Sam would be looking through...demons, on the other hand, are automatically presumed evil.

Season 4 is a metaphorical study of an increasingly fractured psyche...There's a strong adultery trope running through the whole season.

Okay, here's what I want to know: do you think these were conscious ideas of the writers/Kripke or is it what fans who really analyze the psychology deeply find? Or is it simply that any heroic fiction lends itself to this kind of dissection? Because the ideas you posit make sense when I read them, but I never would have seen them on my own, I am simply responding on an emotional level.

PS I am LOVING our exchanges!!!

[fanspired]

> It would be hard to object to trusting angels, though, given the theological lens Sam would be looking through

[borgmama1of5]

...it's too close, too intense; unhealthy, un-natural. It's both their strength and their weakness but, specifically, it's their fatal flaw that ultimately leads each of them to their own personal hell.

Is this perhaps what makes SPN so compelling--the in-each-other's-back-pockets relationship that seems like it would be the most wonderful thing to have--a soulmate--while watching how that connection in all its appeal is destructive for both parties?

[fanspired]

Family Remains: since we're on the subject now, Dean's empathy for the Gibson siblings is interesting and important, I think

[borgmama1of5]

He offered me a gift, and I just threw it back in his face. So now I have to spend the rest of my life old and alone. What's so right about that?...So when Dean says "it ends bloody or sad. That's just the life", Sam wants to give his brother a gift, a third option.

Ah, now I see it.

...where Supernatural might simply be the plot of a novel he's writing...

Which is an idea I've come across in fanfic, Sam making a living writing 'fiction' when the boys step down from actively hunting.