Rainbow Record Blog: April 2011

Supernatural is a series about too brothers roaming the States to hunt supernatural creatures.

One of the many things I fancy about this show is how they portrait demons: nasty, as demons should be, but mostly non corporeal, which allows them to swich "meat suits" (bodies) all along the show... which is great as that forces actors to, you know, act. I love to see actors impersonnating various characters within a same story. That really shows how good they are, and helps us believe the story is real. (Actually, I think that at some point I looked outside and wondered why there was no big Apocalyptic cloud outside the window -and then I realised that North-americans shows almost never remember about other countries, which is why all the Apocalyptic stuff only happens in the USA).

Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Sam (Jared Padalecki), aka the Winchester Boys.

First season: daddy, wait for us!!

Sam is about to take his law school exam, backed up by his girlfriend, when his long time no seen older brother Dean comes knocking to his door. Apparently, their dad went missing during a "hunting" mission, the issue being that he doesn't hunt rabbits for a living (not that not killing rabbits is actually an issue) but all kind of nasty monsters. Reluctantly, Sam agrees on helping out his brother this one time and they go chasing after a woman in white.

Daddy's not home. Not ever.

[WARNING: From there and on, there will be nothing but spoilers]

The mission is a success, and Sam goes back to his home, where he is to find that Jessica has been murdered by the same demon that killed his and Dean's mom when they where kids. From that moment, Sam decides to carry on with Dean and his father's desire of revenge against the demon that killed both his girlfriend and his mother.

Sam and Dean's mum's very original way of dying.

This first season is a tat redundant: Sam and Dean drive in Dean's Impala to the place their dad's diary seems to indicate. They find a gorgeous girl, Dean drinks beer and flirts, Sam does some research, they both do some impersonating of FBI agents (or whatever kind of person seems indicated at the time), they almost always end up being discovered but find out what kind of supernatural event they're up against and succeed in beating it ("Salt and burn, boys! SALT AND BURN!!").

Some of the Winchester fun.

They goal is to find their dad and kick the nasty yellow-eyed demon that killed mummy. Meeting with demons, pagan creatures and beast issued from old folklore on the way. It all seems to end quite well, them being able to beat a bit Sir Yellow-Eyed. That is, until a car crashes into theirs.

"Sam, be serious damnit. A car crashed into us"

Season 2: The pursuit of a yellow-eyed demon.
Sam and his father John survive the accident, but Dean stays stuck in a fatal coma. In order to save him, John makes a deal with a crossroad demon and gives his soul in exchange for the life of his son. That being solved, the Winchester combo goes back to kicking asses, drinking beer, flirting, arguing, hunting things and, most importantly, trying to solve Yellow-Eyed one's mystery.

It seems like Sam was not the only 6 months old child whose mother Azazel burnt, It's actually an old habit of his to feed babies demon blood before burning they mummies to ashes. As the series goes on, the brothers discover that Azazel was doing so to create some kind of perfect warriors. He eventually collects them all and asks them to kill each other so that only one of them remains. As Sam is one of them, he has to fight for his life until Dean arrives -but too late. Moreover, a frigging door to Hell opens and frees lots of nasty things out there. Unable to accept his brother's death, Dean concludes a pact with a crossroad demon, who gives him one year of life on Earth before his soul is sucked down to hell.

Yellow-Eyed demon Azazel.

Season three: running away from the hellhounds.
Sam learns what Dean did in order to save him and starts freacking about him going to Hell. To spice this up, a demon called Ruby decides to help them out for who knows what reason, which can't be good knowing how demons go on.

Some of Ruby's "meat suits".

But we'll get to that later. The important thing to learn there is that Ruby helps the boys out a couple of times and eventurally gives them a demon-killing knife (which comes handy when it comes to killing demons).

One of my favourite episodes from this season is number 11, "Mistery Spot", a very classic one about time leap, which means time being stuck until, supposely, you find the right thing to do to find your way out of it. I liked it both because it reflects how Sam hands Dean's going to Hell (not that well), is filled with dark humour and because, actually, there is no way out, which breaks a bit the cliché.

Despise Sam's bests efforts to save his brother's life, by tracking down Lilith, the demon who holds Dean's contract, for instance, Dean is eventually send to Hell by invisible Hellhound with no hopes of ever coming back.

I really love Lilith. She plays a very naughty, naughty child.

Lilith's first meat suit.

Season Four: Let's kill Lilith.

But, you know, Dean comes back all the same. He reappears suddenly in a field, unable to recall who dragged him out of Hell. He goes to Bobby, is received with the usual glass of Holy Water to the face and then goes to Sam.

Little Sam has changed. His trying in vain to bring back his brother left him broke and angry -plus, you know, he kinda befriended the demon Ruby and started junking over demon's blood- which is not a good thing to do if you're afraid of detox.

They eventually find out that the one who brang Dean out from Hell is an angel, Castiel, and that Dean, by breaking in in Hell and starting to torture other souls, did break the first seals that leads to the beginning of the Apocalypse and the rising of Lucifer.

Therefore their new mission becomes to avoid the breaking of other seals, knowing that only 66 out of a lot more suffice to release the imprisoned angel.

The first apparition of Castiel, in a Jimmy meat suit.

A bit at a loss as to who they real allies are (angels being jerks and demons sometimes friendly but still, demons), the two brothers argue a lot, keeping bloody (demon-like bloody) secrets from each other and acting often out of hand. However, they eventually learn the truth about the seals, and about the not so friendly after all Ruby. Which means that, eventually, Lilith dies (yeaï!), but that's bad (Oooh?...) because she was the very last seal to be broken... and Sam realises too late his brother was right about not trusting sexy demons after all, for it was all a plan for him to break the seal and realease Lucifer...

And so Lucifer rises.

Lilith, take 2 out of many.

This season is very dark, and the relationship of Sam and Dean becomes even more angsty than it was before, if possible. The trust they put in each other shatters, which is quite sad as that was the rock of their brotherhood.

Season Five: Apocalypse NOOOOOO!...

So Lilith's dead, Lucifer rises, it's Hell on Earth and lots of bad, bad things happen. People dying, I suppose. A bit more than in other episodes. And the Winchesters learn that yes, things can actually get worse than them launching the actual Apocalypse (which is depicted by Archangel Gabriel merely as one of Lucifer little's tamtrum, by the way) as they are from the lineage of Cain and Abel and have to accept to become Michaël and Lucifer's vessels in order for them to slaughter themselves. Yahooza!

Of course, Dean doesn't want his little bro to turn into the Devil (even if the mafia-like white suit would suit him well) and he really doesn't want to let Mickaël in (which would actually be a little more logical than Sam accepting to become Lucifer's vessel in great hope he'll be strong enough to throw him back into the cage he was released from -wait, that's what they did).

Happily, Sam eventually takes over Lucifer, stops beating his poor big bro to a pulp and jumps back into Hell (along with Mickaël, who's probably as poor-minded as them at this point).

Aaaaand... Dean goes to lives a happy apple-pie life as he promised his brother he would (plus, you know, for once, no demon would bring Sam back).

Lucifer wearing Sam to the prom.

I loved this season. The vain search for an absent God is such a modern thematic. The despair, the doubt, the madness of the angels left to themselves, the sadness of Gabriel and Lucifer having to fight each other, the horror of angels slaughtering one another, the rebellion of the pagan Gods, the struggling of Sam and Dean to egoistically preserve their freedom and themselves from being turned into puppets, it's all very moving.

On the light side, Supernatural novels within the Supernatural story... that's feaking genious! I'm a big fan of parodies, and this series is filled with them. It even makes fun of fangirls. (See S05E09, "The Real Ghostbusters" which holds a Supernatural convention, for instance). I'm considering marrying this show.

Plus... Castiel. Is. Freaking. Oblivious. Of. Human. ... stuff.

Season six: what now?

Guess what? Ooof course. Sam comes back. He kinda forgot his soul back on the way but that's only an issue when he forgets to pay his brother a visit within the year or even to save said brother while he's being abducted by sorts of aliens... which is why Dean does his best to retrieve his soul and shove it back in... Apparently, "souls are important", and that's the new axis of the show, which isn't done with all the ressucitating yet, so we'll see how it goes!

S06E15 is EPIC. A Supernatural show within the Supernatural show? It almost got me killed of fangasm there. Story within the story. Jensen meets Dean, Sam meets Jared, Ruby's alive and by the way the name's not Ruby, and Misha dies... Wait, what, Misha?

I don't know how the series will keep up with the ambitions of the third and up seasons, but I sure damn wish it will.