***

I feel kind of bad for Supernatural right now. Not only has this perpetually-underrated show been relegated to Fridays, it also has to start itself back up after a season finale five years in the making. I mean, a proxy battle between the Archangel Michael and Lucifer on which the world’s survival hinged is a tough act to follow, don’t you think?

Supernatural was built to be a five season (expanded from an original three-season) story, and the finale of the fifth season was everything I could have wanted from a series finale. The last shot notwithstanding, I was completely satisfied with where the characters ended up: Dean leaving the life of a hunter behind, Sam giving his life to save the world and truly embracing the hunter life he’d railed against, and Bobby and Castiel restored, all with the Impala taking center stage. It was … beautiful, really.  I can imagine Dean cringing as I say that, but it’s true.

The creator and creative force of the show, Eric Kripke, is still involved but no longer runs the show. He has told his story. The reins have been turned over to Sera Gamble, one of its long-time producers and main writers. Most of the creative team is still intact. They’ve woven together folklore, religion, and mythology to create a deep, rich world that, as it often does on shows like this, almost ended. So, where to now, guys?

I like the idea that they are diving back into folklore and the monsters we find there. I’ve enjoyed their foray into Christian mythology, but I think that has been sufficiently explored in the last few seasons. I’m excited to see where they take the folklore road. And I’m fine with Sam and Samuel’s return to the mortal coil since death has never hampered the Winchesters all that much. But after watching the first two episodes, I do have two main concerns:

1. Sam.* The shows works best when the brothers work in concert, but yet again, Sam is hiding things from Dean. He’s done this before. It has never, ever worked out. I understand that part of his motivation was keeping Dean happily out of the hunter life, but hiding his return from hell and then lying to him? Really, Sam? Especially since Dean spent some time down there himself? I don’t mind conflict between the brothers because, hey, they are brothers, but secretive-Sam isn’t the way to go. I hope this is short-lived, because Sam knows better. I have to believe that Sam is under orders and Dean wouldn’t like the Campbell Plan all that much, but keeping the brothers separate has never helped the show.
2. The Campbell clan. I’m thrilled to see Mitch Pileggi in, well, pretty much anything, so it’s great to have him back as Samuel. I’m also pleased to see Corin Nemec. But family members acting as a clan of hunters that the Winchesters never knew about and never crossed paths with? We pretty much know they aren’t on the up-and-up, but were they really that far off the grid? I’ll go with it, but it’s pushing the limits of credibility (even for Supernatural) a smidge. The revelation about their can’t-be-good deeds had better balance that out.

While I have those concerns, I’m still glad that new episodes of Supernatural exist. I enjoy the cast, and no show pokes fun at itself, the genre, the medium, and its fans more cleverly than they do. Plus, I respect how they can balance so many styles, ranging from horror to comedy to thriller from episode to episode while keeping the core of the show constant. And I love the Impala. Still, I don’t think the sixth season road is starting out all that smoothly. Not yet, anyway, and it’s too early in the new regime’s tenure to pass judgment yet. Plus, honestly? I’m just glad to have the Winchester boys back in action.

*I find it interesting that when the show began, Sam was the character the audience had to help them through the world of Supernatural. He originally was the law school student who tried to stay apart from the very weird family business; in other words, the regular guy. Now, Sam is the “other” and Dean is our ticket in. Neat, huh?

What do you think of Supernatural this (sixth) season? (And for those who may not know about it, check out our Supernatural anthology, In the Hunt, today.)

One answer is you wait for the inevitable hiatus to nail down the content, and hope not too much has changed by the time the book comes out a few months later. We timed our books on The Vampire Diaries and Glee so that the final essays wouldn’t be due until after the season finales and gave them pub dates of October and November, respectively.

But making that happen still means starting back in January. It means finding writers, and discussing topics (so that the book’s content doesn’t end up feeling repetitive), with—in some cases—half a season to go. And then, unfortunately, it means scrambling last minute anyway when shows throw you curve balls.

There’s a term used in fandom (originally, I assume, among Joss Whedon fanfic writers) that I particularly like: “jossed.” To be jossed, roughly, is to have one’s theories invalidated by new developments. And that’s definitely a risk we run with our Smart Pop television titles all the time.

But there’s another fandom term I love, the occurrence of which I fear even more than getting Jossed: “kripked.” Named after Supernatural creator Eric Kripke, it means (again, roughly) to have one’s theories validated by new developments.

How can that be bad, right? I mean, the author was correct! But often, with our essays, having a theory confirmed ruins some of what was so great about the topic: the surprise. Especially if the theory is confirmed before the essay is published. You lose that feeling of reading something that is exactly right, but that you’d never thought about before.

One of my favorite non-television examples: A few weeks before Harry Potter book 6 came out, Lawrence Watt-Evans turned in a great essay explaining why Dumbledore was going to have to die before the end of the series so that Harry could fully grow up. And then, well, you know. (We ended up just changing the tense: from “has to die” to “had to die.” Luckily, the “why” was interesting enough to carry the essay on its own.)

This happens from time to time, and it’s just part of the process. In the case of our Glee anthology, though, it was practically endemic. A surprising number of the cool, surprising insights our authors pitched, the show took, in the second half of the season, from subtext to text. Which led to some significant last minute rewrites (the end result of which I was pleased with—but you’ll have to let us know what you think in a few months!).

But more than what this says about publishing books on pop culture, I’m interested in what this says about Glee. In particular: instances of Glee knowing itself well enough to realize—and then exploit, in its signature over-the-top fashion—it’s own narrative patterns and caricatures and clichés.

One of our authors pitched an essay on Sue’s need for love being the key to her TV Villain behavior. Confirmed. Another writer proposed writing about why Will was not quite the nice guy Glee wanted us to believe he was, particularly when it came to romance . . . and it seemed like all the second half of the season did was tarnish Will’s sterling rep, both by reframing past actions and throwing him into brand new bad behavior (maliciously seducing Sue Sylvester? really, Will?).

It was a little like Glee took the hiatus as an opportunity to look back on the first half of the season and ask, What do we know about this show? What’s unexplained, and how can we explain it? What have we established that we can now go through and break down, or show in a different way? In short, it seemed like the show asked a lot of the same questions we like our essays to ask. Though, for a show that thrives as much on playing its stereotypes for humor as it does on deconstructing them, that kind of multilayered, meta self-awareness probably shouldn’t come as a surprise.

It’s a little annoying for putting together a book. But it’s a great thing to see on-screen.

Caitlin, I’ll email you for your address momentarily!

***

To everyone else, think of Caitlin’s win as a very good reason to pick up your own copy of In the Hunt at a nicely discounted price through Monday only! Buy your copy of In the Hunt today for 50% off the list price (a bargain $7.47) or if you prefer your books in digital form, we have the e-book for just $7.00. Don’t wait!

We’re celebrating this big day for Supernatural because, well, we’re celebrating types but also because we’re still really happy with our Supernatural anthology In the Hunt and today is the perfect opportunity to give a copy away.

From the book’s intro (which is up in its entirety on our site right now):

We Supernatural fans like our heroes to be angsty, but we do still like them to be heroes. We like them to be fighting external demons, too. We still need our fix of all things freaky to get us through the night, after all.

And in this department, Supernatural excels, giving us a weekly mix of urban folklore and ancient legends played out in various backwater locations across the U.S. Usually, these myths have been tantalizingly re-imagined for our viewing delight by such talented writers as Sera Gamble and Jeremy Carver, to name but two. While some of these legends are eerily familiar to us, it’s easily apparent that a massive amount of research goes into bringing us the more unheard of stories—stories that give the audience a chance to not only sink into the macabre plots but actually have fun with folklore that otherwise would have remained sunken in obscurity.

Before you read the rest, tell us below what your favorite episode of Supernatural has been so far, and you could win a FREE! copy of In the Hunt. Comments will stay open for one week, until next Wednesday (4/21) at 11:59 p.m. We’ll choose someone at random and let you know if it’s you.

Enjoy tonight’s episode!

Let me also take a second to remind you, or let you know for the first time, that we’ve added a place on the contest page where you can sign up for updates on the contest and book. We’ll also make sure to remind you when the deadline approaches . . . though if the last episode of Dollhouse airs as hypothesized on January 22, that’ll likely be reminder enough.

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As you’re choosing an essay topic, keep in mind: there’s more to talk about than just the story.

A lot of our Smart Pop essays focus on the story of a certain show or book series—they analyze a dramatic arc, or a theme, or how a certain set of characters interact. And that’s fantastic; essays along those lines are some of my very favorites the Smart Pop series has produced. But especially when it comes to television, there’s a whole other category of essay that people tend to forget: essays that focus not on what the story, is, but on how the story is told.

What does that mean, practically?

It means essays like Scott Westerfeld’s “A Slayer Comes to Town” from Seven Seasons of Buffy, that talks about kinds of stories and how Buffy breaks the mold, or Steven Rubio’s “That Was a Ten” from House Unauthorized, that interrogates the show’s structural rhythms, episode to episode.

It means essays like Jennifer Goltz’s “Listening to Firefly” in Finding Serenity, that analyzes the show’s music (or, since the excerpt for that one isn’t up yet, Livejournal user zimshan’s posts on the way Supernatural uses music, episode by episode, to reinforce its themes).

It means essays like Emily Turner’s “Scary Just Got Sexy” from In the Hunt, that talks about one of the ways fans interact with the story in Supernatural.

There are so many things that go into making a television show great other than the story (though, it could be argued, story is what most of them come back to, from the sets to the lighting to the score). And those things can be the inspiration for some unique, brilliant essays.

When I wrote my essay for In the Hunt, I was elated at the use of the Trickster in the show, one of my favorite characters in folklore. He is harbinger and storyteller, bringer of Chaos and here only for one thing: to teach a lesson. It’s a brilliant reveal: the Trickster is in fact the Archangel Gabriel in his own form of holy witness protection (as he states in the episode). I jumped for joy when I realized how well this worked.

In Mystery Spot (3-11), Richard Speight, Jr. as the Trickster explains: “Dean’s your weakness. The bad guys know it, too. It’s going to be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes, you just gotta let people go.” He also explains that: “the way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other? Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood, and pain.” Not a very nice message, but a most excellent parallel to the Gabriel of myth.

Gabriel’s role in legend parallels that of the Trickster: he is the Messenger, with a capital “M”, the one who brings the Word, and by doing so, usually ends up causing true Chaos—the upset of the message recipient’s life as he or she knows it. He foretells the births of John the Baptist to the elderly and barren Elizabeth and of Jesus to Mary. He brings the Q’uran to Muhammad, the sacred fire to Zoroaster and generally, is the Holy Al Gore, revealing the News of the World, in all its troubled glory, to us lowly humans.

In his first appearance in the Book of Daniel, Gabriel (in the form of a man) says to Daniel: “And he said, Behold, I will make you know what shall happen in the last end of the indignation. For it is for the time appointed for the end.” (Daniel 8:19). In “Tall Tales” (2-15), “Mystery Spot,” and now in “Changing Channels,” Trickster/Gabriel underlines the lesson for the Winchesters: They are each other’s weakness and that they were “born to this. Destiny. As it is in Heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. From the moment Dad flipped on the lights around her, we knew it was going to end with you—always.”

The parallels delight me. In the Bible, to Elizabeth and Mary, the birth of sons—both sacred vessels, both of whom met dire ends. To Dean and Sam, the knowledge that they are the sacred vessels and that their destiny was planned from on High . . . and that one of them must die to make the suffering of the world end (or in this case, the family squabble that is Armageddon). In my humble opinion, Kripke’s got us (his audience) exactly where he wants us: enraptured.

One of my online blog friends stated that the only way this would totally parallel Gabriel’s Biblical messages is if Jeffrey Dean Morgan comes back as God. I think she’s exactly right. The show even has Gabriel telling the boys: “Why do you think you are the vessels? Michael is the big brother, loyal to an absent father. Lucifer is the little brother, rebellious of Daddy’s plan.” It’s been this way all along. From the early canon of the show where Sam leaves his family (Lucifer falls); Dean’s blind dedication to his father (Michael as the left hand of God), to now, when their destiny means that the fate of the World and of its people is in their hands. How much more Biblical can you get? Only this time, in a typical Kripke twist, unlike Biblical Mary, Mary Winchester also gave birth to Lucifer’s vessel, not just God’s.

So how is the season going to end? Kripke, I’m sure knows, but me, I’ve got a glimmer of an idea. At the end of this episode, after Gabriel makes his pronouncement that it’s been like this, always, Dean, in typical fashion just looks at him and says, “No. That’s not going to happen.” There is no arguing, no pleading. Just “no.” Dean will not continue to bend and play this game to its supposed destined end, just as he fought playing his role in the game shows. Dean—unlike Sammy, who endured nothing but humiliation in his TV show roles—has learned his lesson. He admits that his parents would still be alive if Sam had not been born, he sees past the disguise of Dr. Sexy, he is the one who just says “no.” 

In the Japanese game show, Dean is champion. Does this mean that he will be Champion in the Apocalypse? I think yes; it will come down to Sammy finally casting off his pride, humbling himself and learning his lesson. Led by Dean, who has learned to stand up even against his own brother, the two brothers will find the key to stopping Armageddon—and that key will most likely be their own cadre of Angels, ready to stand up and say “no,” just as calmly and definitely as Dean has throughout the season. 

Castiel and Anna already cast their vote with humanity. Will Gabriel do so as well? Dean pokes Gabriel right where it hurts, pointing out that this (the Apocalypse) is about him (Gabriel) being too afraid to stand up to family, a lesson Dean has already learned in spades. With that comment, and Dean’s parting shot as he turns on the sprinklers that extinguish the fire, “Don’t say I never did anything for you,” I’ve got a hunch that we’re in for another one of Kripke’s amazing season enders.

* With apologies to Joss Whedon for borrowing his most excellent title

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See more about Maria Lima and what she’s written for the Smart Pop series here.

That, I suspect, is why no one’s yet realized: Fringe and Supernatural? Secretly the same show!

Consider the evidence:

Each show has an almost preternaturally earnest main character (Olivia and Sam).

Each show co-stars a Dawson’s Creek alum whose first name begins with the letter J (Joshua Jackson and Jensen Ackles).

And the kicker? William Bell is clearly science fiction’s answer to Supernatural’s Yellow-Eyed Demon.

Both prepared children for a war. Both seem to feel a vaguely creepy attachment for their biggest success. And as it turns out, conducting drug trials on young children, just like feeding a baby demon blood, is “better than Ovaltine . . . it makes you big and strong” (Supernatural, “In the Beginning”).

Yellow-Eyed Demon: I’m looking for the best and brightest of your generation. . . . That’s why I’m here, Sam. . . . You’re tough. You’re smart. You’re well-trained, thanks to your daddy. Sam—Sammy—you’re my favorite. . . . (Supernatural, “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One”)

William Bell: A storm is coming, perhaps the last and worst storm of all. . . . You are the one, Olivia. Of all the children that Walter and I prepared, you were the strongest. You were always the strongest. (Fringe, “Momentum Deferred”)

Find any other eerie parallels between Supernatural and Fringe? Share in the comments!