#spn commentary

[smallfoe]

New video out, if you even care

Actual link: https://youtu.be/xskvNl93sDc

[azrael08]

Weird take but I have huge grudge towards the background actors in the diner scene in 15x08, not throughout the entire scene but just at the end when Michael smites Lilith, when it pans around to the rest of the diner none of them look afraid enough, they all just look mildly shocked (except that one girl on the table behind Micheal when he leans over the booth, that girl look traumatized and I appreciate it) and it just takes me out of his whole 'Archangel power thing that Jabel had going on.

[fandom-hoarder]

A lot of people seem to be taking that "s1 sam is kinda spoiled" post as wank and sam negative/dean glorifying and... idk if I'm just reading it wrong, but I didn't take it that way AT ALL, and seeing people pop off upset over it is weird rn. I'm kinda reeling. It's just...commentary on s1 dynamic? Yeah 'spoiled' is not exactly the term I would've used, but I didn't take it as a negative like others apparently have??

Bratty, somewhat self centered S1-Sam is my beloved. Because he has to be that way. Because he doesn't have all the info --and that's not his fault, and it was self preservation to want out of that life, but the fact remains that some of the things Sam doesn't KNOW he doesnt know gives him space to BE self centered. Most young people are self centered in some way -- this is not a moral judgement; it's how brains work. And Sam HAD to be self centered, because he was so often responsible for himself.

Sam being alone a lot does not negate the ways his family sheltered and babied him, though. Some people also seem upset about this word choice, as if it means Sam had it easy and didn't have to deal with the trauma of hunting life -- um, NO, that is not what I mean. When people shelter and baby someone, it hampers their agency. Life is multifaceted that way. The reasons for doing it may come out of deep love -- in spn it's a combination of misguided love AND emotional self protection that lead both John and Dean to not tell Sam key things about their life. Even so, Sam not having all the information DOES affect his behavior -- even his snark -- but because of the baby of the family effect, s1 Sam isn't even aware of some of the ways Dean tried to protect him by omission; has seemingly never considered there's things about Dean he doesn't know, or aspects to situations he wasn't aware of at the time -- things that may have, in his own opinion, changed how he reacted to Dean about it.

Maybe it's the part about Dean sheltering Sam from truths 'the way a mother would' that has everyone really upset. I think the post took liberties with their read of parentified Dean there, but I still enjoy the idea that some things Dean never told Sam was him trying to preserve some vestiges of Sam's innocence. Liking/exploring that idea doesn't have to mean thinking Dean was a selfless paragon of motherly virtues or whatever. C'mon, y'all -- nuance.

[sammygender]

things that are gay according to eric kripke

umbrellas ("the boys aren't scared of demons but they're scared of a little rain?")

spells and magic ("they'd beat up harry potter")

any additions?

[fandom-hoarder]

AND ANOTHER THING when it comes to Sam always being held responsible for the seals:

When Dean is taken back to 1973, and he's on the way over to steal the Colt, Cas gives him a cryptic warning: (the page isn't letting me copy/paste, so no ID sorry)

Dean has to choose between saving other people or saving his family, and because he chooses his family, he dooms them. 👀👀👀👀

It's all of their combined choices -- most of which are based on supernatural manipulation -- that let Lucifer out.

Castiel tells him in the beginning of the ep that time is fluid and can be bent. But this also has the connotation that the timeline will flow no matter what. The same thing will happen. So maybe Dean was always a part of this, because time is fluid to angels. Maybe they had to use him as a catalyst, because they couldn't allow demons to know angels were involved in this plan. Because it's a Heaven plan all along.

[sammygender]

listened to commentary script for pilot. kripke keeps mentioning how the concept of spn was 'star wars in truck stop america' where sam is luke skywalker and dean is han solo. i know next to nothing about star wars characters but its interesting how sam&dean were originally drawn in Tropes rather than as fully formed characters cause. like. dean is not whatsoever han solo adjacent in terms of actual motivations or internal world. he also keeps going on about how sam and dean are 'tough guys'. at one point he said they'd beat up harry potter??

[ardentpoop]

[ihatedean]

jared: i remember shooting that scene over the car as the day i told everybody on set that we were pregnant. jensen: that you and i were pregnant? jared: yeah. yeah, that we were— *dorky laugh*.

[autisticandroids]

FAMINE: That's one deep, dark nothing you've got there, Dean.

[youtube with closed captions]

dean and his father. dean and his family. dean and how bad it is.

(via @closetoyou1970)

[disabled-dean]

Yeah but has anyone checked on the CW sniper? Are they okay?

[seasononesam]

team free will 2.0 + phones | template

[fandom-hoarder]

They turned reblogs off, but I need this.

[sammygender]

embarking on ep 4 commentary with jensen and jared. jared u better say something interesting about sam winchester im counting on you

[ardentpoop]

many people in spn fandom used to (and probably still) do this thing where they flattened sam into a collection of stale jokes and/or just dean’s docile little brother who is There Sometimes. a wall for dean to bounce his shimmering personality off of

obviously i hated that shit for several reasons lmfao but first and foremost you’re missing out on a character with SUCH a rich inner life. gentle giant who’s actually almost as much of a killing machine as his big brother. monster-freak-abomination since childhood. boy who fought his dad for the right to get a college education. boy who could’ve been a professional writer instead of a professional murderer. dean’s “trusty sidekick geek boy” who is the heart of their operation, who gets the witnesses and the surviving victims to open up. written to be “effeminate” for laughs but it draws discerning women to him. only dean gets to call him “sammy” even though he once hated that nickname in dean’s mouth too; he once wanted to be his own person. violated as an infant in his crib and stalked by dark things that infiltrated his life even when he thought he’d rebuilt it from scratch. the devil’s rebellious meat puppet. fighting for control over his own body for the entire duration of this story. “pathetic infant,” “misty-eyed milksop,” “sweetheart,” but also highly trained and dangerous and sharp-tongued. the bonnie to dean’s clyde, the scully to his mulder, the sundance to his butch cassidy. always “running away” from men who want to control him, including dean. I could actually keep going forever lol

the absolute best thing this show ever produced and you’re just gonna gloss over him like the fucking writers eventually did? couldn’t be me <3

[sensitivehandsomeactionman]

While I've revisited eps to make gifs, I haven't done an attentive rewatch in many years. So, I rewatched the pilot. The boys look so young 👶😄. There's a ghost story, or maybe there are two ghost stories. One is the obvious, the woman in white. The other is Sam being haunted by his past, with Dean like a link to an older era. He pulls back the curtain to an American Gothic horror tale, with his vintage car, and vintage cassette tapes, and vintage persona. Sam is the modern young man, about to head to the future, but just when he thought he was out...

I wouldn't say Dean pulled him back in. That gentle tug wasn't enough to do it, in fact. Dean has bravado, but is surprisingly soft-spoken and tentative in the way he watches for Sam's reactions like a hawk. Even when he pushes Sam on the bridge, his eyes are wide and hurt, and his hushed, "Don't talk about her like that" is not so much angry as it is a plea.

Sam seems completely self assured. He's worldly, smart, decisive. I feel as viewers we're following him from the respectable suburban world to the bad place. With John leaving a vacuum behind him, literally the empty motel room, both boys seem to fill that space -- Sam immediately connecting with John's research, while Dean dons the mantle of John's protective coat. Pleasing metaphors of inheritance.

Speaking of inheritance, Jessica's death in the same manner that killed his mother is what pulls Sam back in. He's now on the same path as John. He's the one who commands the "we" in "We got work to do." Another pleasing story parallel.

Dean is the older brother, but I'm always struck that at this stage he's almost delicate. The eyelashes, the bracelets, the too big jacket. He's positioned in this trope as the bad boy, yet Jensen always has an inherent good guy quality. He's so funny, but it's like a vaudeville act. He's insanely charming and devil-may-care, but you get the sense he's also down on his luck. He's odd and fun and intriguing.

The desaturation and shadows of the cinematography never get old. J2 are beautiful and immediately as watchable as Mulder and Scully. There are some stunning women and recognizable character actors. Of course some of it seems dated, now even more retro than intended lol, yet the Americana parts are mythic and hold up as a motif. Bonus points for including a public library for research. They're searching for a shade of a father; they can't go home, there be ghosts; home is an empty husk of trauma. Still love this pilot.

[ihatewhentheyfight]

jared: now this scene, i believe we filmed at the end of the day, at the end of the episode, and uhm... i'm chewing right now and you can't see because they cut it out, but i had to eat a donut and uh, they really made me— jensen: there you go, there you go. chewing away, buddy. jared: —bite into a donut and i'm chewing away, and they're like, we need to see you bite into the donut, and... i don't think it's ever going to show me bite into the donut. so i ate about fifteen donuts. jensen: *chuckles* jared: ...and they never even showed it. i just look like i'm— i look like a cow, chewing on it's cud. jensen: that's pretty much your daily quota though, isn't it? jared: *cute laugh* thirty is my daily quota. that was a light day. jensen: right.