Supernatural

[rachelmanija]

coffeeandink has lured me over to the Dark Side. I am now totally hooked on this show about two hot ghost-hunting brothers on an endless road trip in a super-cool car.

The color palette makes me want to adjust the screen because everything's gone all dark and gray, women are mostly screaming victims (occasionally flaming on the ceiling), almost all characters are white and the land is strangely underpopulated, and the monsters of the week are pretty cheesy.

The reason I watch is that I have a mad crush on Dean there is a great sibling dynamic, the extremely attractive brother is also a good actor and the other brother isn't half bad, and all the scenes with the brothers interacting, with other people or each other, are terrific: sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking.

A much better overview, with photos, is here.

Mely also helpfully lists essential episodes, annotated according to where she guesses my interests lie. Warning: mild spoilers in comments.

I can chart the progress of my obsession as follows. Comments taken from Mely's journal, with spoilers omitted:

Rachel: (10/19 11:29 AM): So, Netflixed the first disc of Supernatural. Was utterly stultified by the pilot. What are the essential episodes (ie, good and/or with excellent fraternal interaction and/or Dean being especially hot and/or essential plot points) to watch before the show actually starts getting good?

[And then that night I watched "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" live on TV.]

Rachel: (10/20 9:00 AM): You should blog about last night. Yes, it did spoil me for the end of last season (and I kept thinking there was something wrong with the color on my TV, and then it would go to a commercial and I would realize that I had color after all) but between that and the crappy first season shows I've been watching, I am developing a mild obsession about the show, flaming ceiling blondes and all. Or maybe I just have a massive crush on Dean.

Rachel (10/20 10:31 AM): Just watched the one where he has the pen in his mouth and keeps it there while he smiles at the waitress, who inexplicably walks away rather than making the natural response, which is to splutter incoherently, then rewind the scene four times. That's also the one where he tells the little mute boy about the vow he made to his mother.

Oh Dean, you break my heart, then you salt the pieces and burn them to ash.

The complete discussion, with significant and unmarked spoilers, is in the comments here: http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/640347.html



Do not spoil me any more than I have already been spoiled: I have seen the first four episodes of season 1, plus "Asylum," "Skin," and "The Benders," and "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things." So I know that John sacrificed himself to save Dean, and Dean thinks that he is a dead thing that should have stayed dead. I don't know how that happened or why, or if the sacrifice was more like jumping in front of a bullet meant for Dean or more like human transmutation. (So don't tell me!)

Having just finished rewatching Fullmetal Alchemist, I am primed for brotherly love, brotherly annoyance, absent fathers, dead mothers, and dead things that should have stayed dead. Too bad there's no demon ass-kicking women like Hawkeye or Izumi or Ross-- or, at least, no one who sticks around for more than an episode. The sheriff in "The Benders" was a bit Hawkeye-esque.