OMG! Nonnie, you’re so right! Do you know what this means?
So we have this (8x07):
This (9x06):
This (11x10):
And I had totally missed THIS (11X04)?:
Robbie Thompson gave us a line about Dean pining in 11x11, but he had already given us a PINE reference in 11x04. OK. I’m dead now. Thee visual references and a verbal one. I’m good, I’m good. *hyperventilates*
But also: an episode that LITERALLY NEVER LEAVES THE IMPALA (so, like, a bottle episode set inside the car) passes the Bechdel Test. Imagine that. It’s so easy it’s so easy it’s s o e a s y.
It also made the one night stand, the monster-mother, and the two girls that stole the car for a joy ride (women that, in any other episode, would be treated as Bad Things) as perpetrators of plot (see: possible divine intervention/the car’s superpowers.)
I need it to be like this for every episode and then the show might be up to old standards again. I mean, last episode? That was painful writing made watchable because of a director that knows and loves the show well enough that it showed.
So, let’s talk about the clever use of negative space in the episode:
Castiel doesn’t understand how “orange correlates with black in a way that’s new”. Dean immediately understands what Castiel is referring to, he gets the reference although the association would not be obvious to people unfamiliar with the show Orange Is The New Black.
Dean tells Castiel that everyone has binge watched on Netflix, although he doesn’t admit to binge watching the show OITNB specifically.
When Castiel calls again, Dean asks Cas to tell him something that doesn’t involve chicks in prison. This indicates that Dean knows what the story of OITNB is, has likely watched it.
Sam, now in the car with them but having missed the previous conversation, doesn’t make the connection between “chicks in prison” and OITNB, but instead seems to assume on past precedent that it’s some kind of lesbian porn thing. He laughs derisively at his brother and says “Bet you thought you’d never say that out loud”. Sam assumes that Dean is making a reference to objectifying pornography because that’s what he expects his brother to do.
Previously in the episode, Dean raised his eyebrows at Sam’s hook-up being named Piper (a bisexual character from the show OITNB) as though it amused him, whereas Sam made nothing of it. Sam hasn’t watched the show. But Dean has.
Sam is missing context here. Just like the audience is missing the context on what happened inside the Road House during the night Dean spent there. Robbie Thompson continues in the grand tradition of the polysemic storytelling the show has been engaged with since its inception.
Dean has watched a show about women, featuring a bisexual main character, with a massive queer following, but because Sam is lacking context, his brother continues to interpret Dean’s character through his own bias.
This may have been one of the best Supernatural episodes ever and yet I honestly can’t tell you what it was truly about. The Winchester bros bonding and loving each other? Dean’s creative monster naming? The impala? Hella Destiel? I don’t know but I loved it.
Okay, but Dean picked up his bloodied machete. The tool of his trade. The manly hunter weapon. … And put it down. And picked up the ultimate symbol of femininity, the pink purse, and in it found the currency he needed to use.
Okay then.
Robbie, let me love you!
hehehehe.
Adding yet another example this season of the masculine being either transformed by or exchanged in favor of the feminine
so far it’s been at least one example per episode, most of them connecting in some way to Dean
im honestly so glad robbie included cas though. because this shows that he is a part of the winchesters life now. he wasn’t simply mentioned in passing, but played a role in the story. he figured out what the monster was, he told them how to kill it. for once cas wasn’t forgotten by the brothers or the writers.
This wasn’t just a fanservice episode, this was a real, genuine piece of art. This was the kind of episode that I started watching this show for. This was the kind of episode that makes you feel like your loyalty paid off.
Sure, there were copious amounts of fan service in it. Plenty of “Broments” watching the boys be brothers and watching them rely on each other and Cas and the car. There was the witty dialogue and the excessive close ups of our handsome boys and everything needed to make it “Fan service”.
But you know what? That wasn’t all this episode was, that’s for sure.
This was such a well done episode. The writing from keeping the story going from inside the car, the angles every scene was shot from, the choreography even! The fight scenes in the car were so incredibly well done, well shot, and well executed I was just sitting in my seat going “Oh shit! OH SHIT!” This was an episode that embodies everything I love about Supernatural. It was so SO good, from the silly, seemingly innocuous moments between the boys, to the plot-heavy conversations. It was an episode that shot straight into my all-time-favorites and NOT just because of all the things they put in there for the long time fans. NOT just for the handsome boys being handsome.
Because it was DAMN. GOOD. TELEVISION.
Christ, I love this show. And this fandom. Gosh dang it! I’m so PUMPED to be a Supernatural fan tonight.
Thank you. Actors, writers, cast, crew, it was an amazing episode.
