“When I joined the show and watched the first six seasons I was shocked at how emotional the story was and how I related to it emotionally. I’m a big nerd. I came for the monsters, but I stayed for the drama.”-Robbie Thompson
1/2 I understand not waning your favorite showrunners and writers to leave a show and wondering how it will affect everything, but everyone worrying about the brodependency and destiel: you don't get this kind of continuous progress on these storylines unless *everyone* is in agreement and on board, and on the same page on some level. They've been telling a cohesive story for years now, and you don't achieve without everyone in agreement on certain things.
2/2 Robbie Thompson by himself did not keep destiel going. Carver by himself did not keep destiel going. A slew of other writers, set directors, directors, costume designers, etc, keep these arcs/plots/stories flowing and moving. No one is going to suddenly drop two solid seasons worth of progress and years worth of subtext just because Carver and Thompson are gone, because that would imply that they were solely responsible for every bit of the destiel storyline. And that’s not how it works.
Yes. This.
And do you know who’s responsible for some of the most destiel things that have happened? Dabb and Singer.
Yes, yes. We know the Unforgivable Sin that Singer committed (or at least had a major hand in the commission of, and the subsequent falling out with fandom in the horrendous aftermath…) but as far as destiel and the brodependency go? Yeah. The entire writing, directing, editing… every department… they’re all on the same page. If they weren’t, we’d be seeing a really uneven, disjointed, incoherent mess of a narrative. And we really, really aren’t.
S11 especially has been honing on two main narrative points: You can’t outrun your past (wrestle your demons! Sam’s quote from 11.01: “What happened to us? Hunting things – were good at that, sure we’re great at that. But that’s only half of the bumper sticker, man.” They are literally revisiting the past and getting a chance to undo past mistakes, to make different choices, i.e. breaking the codependency through better understanding and effective communication, which is my stupid tag for this whole deal.) And the second main narrative focus of the season is love (in all its forms, negative, positive, romantic, familial, obsessive, supportive… just all of it.) And frankly, if ANY of the writers weren’t onboard with the direction the story’s been going (and it’s been going this way for the last four years or so), they’ve had plenty of opportunity to, you know, STOP writing for the show. You don’t write a rich, consistently layered narrative if you’re being forced to write something you fundamentally disagree with, you know? Well, I suppose you could, but it would be soulless and flat. And this show is not soulless.
*under a cut for length, you’re welcome people who Do Not Care about this stuff :P*
Elms, i'm so upset that Robbie Thompson is leaving spn. He did all my favourite episodes. What... what are we going to do without him? I feel like we're stuck with all the misogynistic writers. First we lost Ben and now Robbie and I can't! The only one I have faith in to do good by Cas and Sam and Dean is Andrew Dabb. BUT IS ONE ENOUGH?? /shakes you/ IS IT REALLY ENOUGH??? ;~;
I nearly had a panic attack when I read this and it took me half an hour to chill out before I could process this rationally.
I haven’t seen tumblr yet so I don’t know exactly where this information is coming from, but I checked robbie’s twitter, his last tweet is this:
I am so grateful & fortunate to have been a small part of @cw_spn. Thank you for five wonderful years #Supernatural!
and the only actual evidence I can find that implies he’s leaving is curtis armstrong’s tweet:
before I found that second tweet I typed out a whole response about how I’m pretty sure this was a horrible rumour and there’s nothing to worry about, but in typing out a reassuring response I actually prepared myself for the painful truth. as close to crying as I was about 10 minutes ago, I’m okay with this now. maybe I can reassure you too with the same information:
at this point in time I think the show would be fine without everyone’s favourite writer. sure, robbie’s done more for the show representation-wise than anyone else, and his episodes are consistently better and more enjoyable than everyone else’s, but the other writers have taken a leaf out of his book and taken the goddamn hint. as a group, they got good at writing, this second half of season 11.
I’m a person who enjoys taking this show apart. someone irl asked me the other day what my favourite tv show was, and despite my blog being full of supernatural, it took me a while to answer. because the reason I enjoy supernatural is due to how much of a trashheap it is, and how much I enjoy complaining about it. but this past half-season I’ve genuinely begun enjoying it again for the first time since maybe season 8, or even season 5. enjoying it for the right reasons, not just because it ~isn’t as bad as before~.
this season we’re getting episodes with multiple lady characters, named foreground characters of varying racial backgrounds, gay hunter couples, heavy bisexual dean hints and near-unavoidable subtext (*cough* wrestling *cough*), bechdel test passes on maybe 9 out of 10 episodes, a slow deconstruction of dean’s toxic masculinity, almost no deaths of female characters, a romantic destiel pining plotline, domestic happy-ending foreshadowing, and tons of unexpected bonuses that make us all really happy
and all this is happening in episodes where robbie isn’t even writing. seriously, I think they got this, guys. I think even if robbie is indeed leaving the writers’ team, we’re still going to be getting a show run by people who actually care about improving the quality of their art, and are putting visible, calculableeffort into making the show closer to what we’ve always wanted and never got before.
the writers learned to write better this season. they’re not going to suddenly forget how to write well just because their senpai leaves. here’s hoping they might even try and step up to the plate and make stuff as fantastic as robbie thompson’s episodes. nancy won, robert berens, andrew dabb, charmelo & snyder - they’ve all got this. the weaker writers are jenny klein (who only got one episode this season), and ross-leming & buckner (who may be the only writers left who still write racist misogynistic crap, but are admittedly decent at the destiel thing). between the people who are left behind, yeah, I think they know what they’re doing. they’ve clearly been communicating with each other about plot arcs and character development, which is a skill they lacked in previous years.
good creators come and go from this show, and it’s never the same without them, but that’s okay. stuff changes all the time behind the scenes and we never find out. change is what keeps the show moving forward. I have every confidence that the show will continue to please us in ways we never expected. robbie was a big part of making us love it, but he was in no way the only part. of all the hundreds of people making this show for us to watch, robbie was but one magical cog in the supernatural machine. there are plenty more magical cogs to keep things working as beautifully as we’ve come to expect.
in conclusion, ROBBIE MAY BE LEAVING AND THAT’S SAD, BUT EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY. CARRY ON WITH YOUR DAY.
