Saturday brain has kicked in.
Oct. 2nd, 2010 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosWhat strikes me about this season of Supernatural so far is how the family connections story going on between Sam and Dean, and between the brothers and the Campbells, isn't the only family story that's being presented to the audience. We're also getting the stories of the families of monsters we've come to know and ... well, love is a strong word, but both episodes so far have featured the family members of monsters we recognize from past seasons -- the djinn's children, the shifters' great-great-and-a-dozen-more-greats grandfather. And all of them are stronger than the versions we've previously seen in their own separate ways.
It's tempting once you recognize that we're being shown the tight family connections of the monsters we've seen in the past -- faceless nameless creatures we could easily dismiss as being simple bloodthirsty things -- to compare them to the current state of the Winchester boys. It's a bit unsettling when you realize where the boys are at. In the first episode, we see the djinn's children coming to avenge their father against the "monsters" who killed him. In the second episode, we see the shifters attempting to rescue their siblings. It's like flashing back to the Winchesters' past exploits, the things that they're done in the name of family that we love them for, except now we get to see it from the other side.
Meanwhile, you have the boys at odds. The discomfort and odd almost out-of-character feeling to their reunion last week is beginning to eerily reflect what's happening on the other side of the fence. The boys are split apart by their own mental spaces being on entirely different emotional continents, elbowed into different corners by their differing levels of respect for the Campbells and Dean's worries for Lisa and Ben and their respective beliefs about what their lives can be. (One of the things I currently love about Lisa is that both boys have, in their own way, spent the entire series thinking they can either be hunters or they can be normal, and Lisa gets to shake up Dean's mindset by basically saying, "You know, you ARE allowed to have both." That and the gun thing make me hopeful that she may insist on learning basic hunting self-defense techniques from now on, which Dean would have taught her and Ben over the past year if Sam's dying wish hadn't been, "Stop hunting." As far as I'm concerned, it's a bit of a shock that he cracked enough to salt the windows and put a gun under the bed, honestly.)
Anyway.
The point is, it's a bit weird that we're currently at the point where the monsters have been showing more familial connections than Dean and Sam. And so far, we are getting the story of the show's canon monsters going up against THEIR monsters -- Dean and Sam.
I find myself wondering if that's part of the season's story arc. Obviously, it's a bit early in the season to start declaring story arc theories based on the plots of only two episodes -- although I should tag this post if only so that if I turn out to be right, I can link back and be all :D and \o/ -- but I had the thought in my head today that the Winchesters being in the vulnerable position that they are after the averted apocalypse -- emotionally wrung out, Sam without his demonic connections and powers, Dean out of the hunting groove -- now would be a great time for the monsters the brothers have been hunting all this time to turn around and hunt them back. I mean, obviously someone is in control out there, and perhaps even was the one to bring Samuel back. (Maybe the Campbells are "collecting" the monsters, sure, but what if they're separating them from the boys so they can rescue them for whomever is in control?)
The great thing about this particular storytelling option is that it would most likely force the Winchesters to do exactly what we as the audience have been craving for a while now. As targets, they would have to reconnect or they would die trying. As a makeshift husband, Dean would have to teach Lisa and Ben some self-defense if he wants to keep them. As a hunter, Sam is going to have to access that wibbly bottom lip and those big saucer anime eyes of his under all of that detachment or he's going to be that somewhat cold shadow of the Sam we know and love until the monsters bump him off.
Granted, none of this may end up being true. That said, as examples of the strength a family's emotional connection can give you, the monsters are currently winning against the Winchesters, 2-0.
It's tempting once you recognize that we're being shown the tight family connections of the monsters we've seen in the past -- faceless nameless creatures we could easily dismiss as being simple bloodthirsty things -- to compare them to the current state of the Winchester boys. It's a bit unsettling when you realize where the boys are at. In the first episode, we see the djinn's children coming to avenge their father against the "monsters" who killed him. In the second episode, we see the shifters attempting to rescue their siblings. It's like flashing back to the Winchesters' past exploits, the things that they're done in the name of family that we love them for, except now we get to see it from the other side.
Meanwhile, you have the boys at odds. The discomfort and odd almost out-of-character feeling to their reunion last week is beginning to eerily reflect what's happening on the other side of the fence. The boys are split apart by their own mental spaces being on entirely different emotional continents, elbowed into different corners by their differing levels of respect for the Campbells and Dean's worries for Lisa and Ben and their respective beliefs about what their lives can be. (One of the things I currently love about Lisa is that both boys have, in their own way, spent the entire series thinking they can either be hunters or they can be normal, and Lisa gets to shake up Dean's mindset by basically saying, "You know, you ARE allowed to have both." That and the gun thing make me hopeful that she may insist on learning basic hunting self-defense techniques from now on, which Dean would have taught her and Ben over the past year if Sam's dying wish hadn't been, "Stop hunting." As far as I'm concerned, it's a bit of a shock that he cracked enough to salt the windows and put a gun under the bed, honestly.)
Anyway.
The point is, it's a bit weird that we're currently at the point where the monsters have been showing more familial connections than Dean and Sam. And so far, we are getting the story of the show's canon monsters going up against THEIR monsters -- Dean and Sam.
I find myself wondering if that's part of the season's story arc. Obviously, it's a bit early in the season to start declaring story arc theories based on the plots of only two episodes -- although I should tag this post if only so that if I turn out to be right, I can link back and be all :D and \o/ -- but I had the thought in my head today that the Winchesters being in the vulnerable position that they are after the averted apocalypse -- emotionally wrung out, Sam without his demonic connections and powers, Dean out of the hunting groove -- now would be a great time for the monsters the brothers have been hunting all this time to turn around and hunt them back. I mean, obviously someone is in control out there, and perhaps even was the one to bring Samuel back. (Maybe the Campbells are "collecting" the monsters, sure, but what if they're separating them from the boys so they can rescue them for whomever is in control?)
The great thing about this particular storytelling option is that it would most likely force the Winchesters to do exactly what we as the audience have been craving for a while now. As targets, they would have to reconnect or they would die trying. As a makeshift husband, Dean would have to teach Lisa and Ben some self-defense if he wants to keep them. As a hunter, Sam is going to have to access that wibbly bottom lip and those big saucer anime eyes of his under all of that detachment or he's going to be that somewhat cold shadow of the Sam we know and love until the monsters bump him off.
Granted, none of this may end up being true. That said, as examples of the strength a family's emotional connection can give you, the monsters are currently winning against the Winchesters, 2-0.
