#this post is brought to you by me trying to put the entirety of spn on my iPod

[raracool04]

One thing I will always hate about the film industry is how it handled the transition to streaming. Do NOT get me wrong, I despise the streaming era and cherish media ownership of all forms, but when an album releases I expect to be able to listen to it no matter what service I use. I expect to be able to buy it physically. I expect it to be there when I decide to listen to it a few months later. Apple Music has a feature called Cloud Music Library that lets me stream my (formerly) iTunes library to all my devices, and let me play them on anything from my 17 year old iPod to my 6 month old Android phone. Apple TV does not have such a feature. If I want to make sure that the movies and shows I love stay exactly how I want them, I have to hope they're not a streaming exclusive on a service I don't pay for, that they're successful enough to not be taken away from me, I either have to buy a BluRay copy (that makes it as difficult as possible to ensure that I can't make it available on all my devices), or I must pirate. And piracy will always be my first choice.

There's a reason I'm more than happy to shell out €20 for a CD when my only player is a 10 year old laptop, while I pay €5 a month for a VPN to protect myself when having to break laws to watch shit I want to financially support but am finding it increasingly harder to.

[hippychick006]

SPN Analysis - Season 2

In relation to This Post, I’ve completed Season 2.   Any detailed notes explaining reasoning, I’ve put under the cut so as not to take up your dash

Monster of the Week v Myth arc Episodes: 17 MOTW v 5 Myth arc.  

2.01 (In My Time of Dying), 2.10 (Hunted), 2.14 (Born under a bad sign), 2.21/2.22 (All Hell Breaks Loose 1 and 2) I decided were myth arc.  The rest MOTW.

Wannabe Hunters: 0

See Note 1

Ship Pandering: 0

I’m not counting moments like Playthings, where they are again, twice mistaken for a gay couple.  

Fan Pandering: 0

See Note 2

Someone is called “Family”: 0

Death having no meaning: 0

See Note 3

Sidekick status Updates: 0

Season 1 if you missed it is here.  I made a minor edit to that where I added in that Mary appeared in 1.10: Home, but since she appeared as a spirit, it made no difference to death having no meaning.

Note 1 – Wannabe Hunters

Remember, I am only dealing with what people are doing in this current season so what they might do in a future season is not up for debate right now.  

So, in the post that prompted this analysis, I saw the debate on Ellen and Jo, suggesting the wannabe hunters started with them and I couldn’t disagree more. I agree with @eisforeidolon, regarding these characters which I detail below.

In terms of Ellen and Jo, they first appear in 2.02 (Everybody Loves a Clown). We learn that Ellen runs a bar that hunters frequent and that she used to be married to a hunter, who died when Jo was still in pigtails (so fairly young). Jo remembers him coming home from hunts, so it’s clear he still hunted after she was born.  Given that Ellen knows how to pull a case together and was able to suggest what kind of creature Sam and Dean might be dealing with in 2.02, it’s a reasonable assumption that she found cases for her husband and did research for him, something she kept up after his death, but gives the cases to other hunters. She may even have hunted with Bill before Jo was born but since this isn’t made clear in the text, I’ll assume not.  She is also shown capable of defending herself, which again makes sense – both from running a bar with shady people passing through and being the partner of a hunter.  It’s clear that although she doesn’t hunt herself, she has been around the hunting life for pretty much the entirety of Jo’s life, so I’m fine with her credentials.  Mute point though as she is not seen hunting at all in Season 2.

Jo when we meet her, clearly has been brought up knowing that monsters are real. Along with Ellen, she’s been surrounded by hunters her entire life, and Ellen has made sure she knows how to defend herself.  It’s not clear whether Ellen taught her how to pull a case together or whether that’s something Jo picked up on her own, but it’s not unreasonable that she would learn to do that, both by watching Ellen and learning from the hunters that pass through.  It’s also not unreasonable that she would want to get into the hunting life; most people get in through the death of a loved one and Jo is no exception to that. She wants to follow in her father’s footsteps. As she says, “You wanna know why I want to do the job?  For him. It’s my way of being close to him.  Now tell me what’s wrong with that?”   In the only episode we see Jo hunting in season 2, it is made clear that being able to pull a case together is not the same as actually being a hunter.  Dean says to Sam, “yeah, maybe she put together a good file.  But could you see her out here working one of these things? I don’t think so.”  He also says to Jo, “Sweetheart, this ain’t gender studies. Women can do the job fine. Amateurs can’t.  You have no experience.  What you do have is a bunch of half-baked romantic notions that some barflies put in your head.  Jo is shown to be headstrong and not listening to Dean, thinking she knows better, which only ends up with her needing to be rescued by Dean and Sam and then used as bait.   In my opinion, she is not shown to be a competent hunter out in the field in this episode, but she certainly has potential to be trained into becoming a good hunter if she would listen to people much more experienced than she is.  In 2.10 (Hunted), we find out that Jo left because she wanted to continue hunting against Ellen’s wishes. In 2.14 (Born under a bad sign), we see Jo again, she is working at a bar, no mention is made of her hunting and when she tries to come with Dean to help him find Sam, he refuses.  

We met another wannabe hunter in 2.12 (Nightshifter). Ronald Resnick was also shown to have pulled a case together – yes he thought the “monster” was a mandroid, but he still pulled a decent case together.  When he went out into the field though, we see what happens (or what should happen) to amateur hunters. He was shot and killed part way through the episode because he didn’t know what he was doing.  As Sam himself said “Yeah, except he’s not a hunter, Dean. He’s just a guy who stumbled onto something real.  If he were to go up against this thing he’d get torn apart. Better to stay in the dark and stay alive.”

This is the point we’re all trying to make. There is a huge difference between early seasons and later seasons in credentials for hunters. And suggesting otherwise when the text is there for all to see is an exercise in futility.  Kripke and the early season writers took the time to establish credentials, and they did this extremely well – sometimes with only a couple of lines of dialogue, sometimes with much more.  Take Gordon Walker for example.  We are introduced to him in 2.03 and in a single episode, we get pretty much everything we need to know about him – his background, what got him into hunting, why he specialises in vampires, what he’s like as a character - it helps of course that Sterling is a phenomenal actor.  Maggie’s been in about 6 episodes and I still know nothing about her, but yet I’m supposed to feel sorry that she almost died.  Chalk and cheese between Kripke era and Dabb.  

So anyway, long story short, 0 score in season 2 for wannabe hunters because Kripke didn’t have any (so far).

Note 2 – Fan Pandering

Fan pandering for me is making changes to the show, based on fan reactions or putting something in deliberately to please the fans (not related to shipping).  Pandering isn’t necessarily a bad thing, so I’m only going to count it where it impacts the quality or integrity of the show (in my opinion of course, but happy to have the debate if you want to argue otherwise).

In Season 2, the role originally intended for Jo Harvelle was to be a potential love interest for Dean.  This was not received well by the audience and the plans were changed.  Jo’s role was downplayed and for the most part she was written out. This is normal and has always happened within the television industry.  The question is whether the downplaying of Jo’s character impacted the quality or integrity of the show, and I would argue that since she was not central to the overall plot of season 2, her removal did not impact where the show was heading.  (I’ll talk in Season 4, where I believe removal of a character did impact the plot with the character Anna).

Note 3 – Death having meaning

So, the problem for me (and I think for many others) is not bringing people back, it’s the way people are brought back and whether it makes a mockery of or cheapens death.  

In season 2, there are 4 characters we see again after their death;

In 2.20, both Mary and Jess appear as characters in the djinn episode, What is and what should never be. This is how you bring characters back and don’t cheapen the meaning of death.  Masterclass 101. They aren’t real, their deaths in the real world stands and this episode was just beautiful from start to finish.  Don’t even try to compare it to bringing Nick back in 14.01 or any of the AU characters in Season 13.  

In 2.22, Dean makes a deal to bring Sam back from the dead.  Sam’s death had to happen for all the rest of the story to follow on; Dean going to hell and breaking the first seal   It was another beautifully written episode, and given Dean had to bargain his own life down to 1 year, death certainly has not been cheapened.  

Also in 2.22, John appears.  He got out of the Hell gate before it closed, and if anyone can crawl their way out of Hell, it’s a Winchester.  He disappeared – presumably to heaven - but we don’t ever get confirmation. He was still dead, and it was a good end point for his character, so death still has meaning.