In the sixth episode of the seventh season of Supernatural, TOO MUCH JUST HAPPENED. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Supernatural.Â
Trigger Warning: For body horror/gore.
WELL, THIS SEASON’S MYTHOLOGY JUST MOVED FORWARD A LOT. AHAHA I’M LAUGHING BECAUSE IT HURTS.
Pulp Fiction
I thought it was super obvious why this episode was called what it was. There are doubles of the main characters walking around, rewriting the Winchesters’ lives, and they’re played as if they’re some torturous married couple. I don’t know that it was anything more than a clever reference to the fandom itself, but then I thought about that scene in the diner, and HOLY SHIT, it’s Pulp Fiction. It is! So the title has a lot of meanings, and I’m sure I missed one.
But the point of this premise – that the Winchesters are now suddenly prone to acts of mass murder a la Natural Born Killers – is actually a super disturbing manifestation of the Leviathans’ cleverness. There’s a lot here that’s upsetting (I’LL GET TO THE THING I SWEAR), but this season’s Big Bad genuinely frightens me. Even though there is a method to slow them down for a significant amount of time, “Slash Fiction” pulls back the curtain on the Leviathan organization. And christ, IT’S TOO MUCH. It’s a terrifyingly brilliant thing that they do here. They purposely commit crimes that will go viral, that will be picked up by the media and spread as far as possible. That’s why I was so ridiculously worried throughout this episode. How could Sam and Dean ever escape what they’d “done”? Their faces were plastered on every television set in America, they would forever be associated with this heinous crime spree, and if they got arrested, they’d be easy picking for the Leviathans.
Even though the Winchesters find a way out of this horrific predicament, it’s not like this is some huge victory. BECAUSE IT’S NOT. AT ALL. How the hell are they going to stop these things?Â
Frank Devereaux
There’s little about Frank that’s not a giant trope, so I’m not going to pretend like his character doesn’t fill a very specific role in the narrative. I don’t imagine we will ever see him again. (I’m actually surprised he didn’t die, but once I give that some thought, that probably speaks to his ability to stay off the grid himself.) But I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit that he’s a lot of fun. He’s constantly insulting the Winchesters, particularly Dean’s need to do the least practical thing possible! He doesn’t give a shit about these characters! While his advice is actually incredible helpful, he’s also got an interesting place within Supernatural. It’s common for characters like Frank to be paranoid, convinced of every government conspiracy in the world, but…. he’s in the Supernatural universe. It’s not that being paranoid is a bad thing; he’s just paranoid about the wrong thing. There really is a conspiracy brewing underneath the fabric of American society, BUT IT’S NOT THE GOVERNMENT.
I dunno, I was amused by that.
Leviathan!Sam and Leviathan!Dean
Hey, I’m watching Supernatural! That means something is funny until it’s not funny at all MAKE IT STOP. So yes, I did laugh at the Leviathans commentary on Sam and Dean until it was too real. It got so real, y’all. Wow, the Winchesters are so fucked up.
Bobby and Jody Mills
I really think that I’ve gotten to a point where I’m just openly terrified of enjoying any character on this show because like clockwork, I like a person and then they’re dead. I kept waiting for that shoe to drop here because it is undeniable now. It’s a force of nature. It is destiny.
I ship Bobby and Jody so fucking hard, and I’m already regretting it.
I guess it’s hard to imagine any member of the holy trio with another person. (Well, except that time Supernatural gave me Bobby/Ellen because it’s the cruelest show in the history of the universe.) There’s very little permanence allowed in this show. It’s always chaos. Even in this season, we can see how certain mainstays can be taken away. From Bobby’s home to the Impala to the rock n’ roll aliases, anything that’s a certainty within this show’s mythology can be taken away in a second. That’s always been the case with hunters, so I feel like it’s almost a form of self-defense to want Jody Mills FAR, FAR AWAY from Bobby, Dean, and Sam. DON’T DO IT, IT NEVER ENDS WELL.
But then the writers have to go and intersperse all of Bobby’s Leviathan experiments with scenes of him flirting with Jody Mills and eating sandwiches with Jody Mills and kissing Jody Mills and realizing that Jody Mills is fucking perfect and STOP IT. DON’T DO THIS TO ME. DON’T GIVE ME A CHARACTER WITH SO MUCH POTENTIAL TO BE A FORCE OF GOODNESS AND HOPE BECAUSE I KNOW YOU’LL TAKE THEM AWAY FROM ME.
This is what I’ve become.
Borax!
Hey, it’s a temporary solution at least! And temporary is important here, because the borax simply allows them to distract the Leviathans enough so that they can be… well, dismembered. And spread in different locations. And now I’m imagining some really creepy shit, like heads crawling back to their bodies. This is gross. God, this show can be so gross sometimes. (Most of the time, MOST OF THE TIME.)
Meet the New Boss
My whole bit up above about the terrifying organizational skills of the Leviathans is not complete without an acknowledgment of the show’s reveal of the leader of these creatures: Dick Roman. You know what’s so fucked up about him? Take away his Leviathan-ness, and Dick Roman all by himself would probably still be terrifying. I’m interested to see if the show is going to parody mega-rich powerhouse CEOs like Roman, but even if it doesn’t, I can’t imagine a worse situation for the Winchesters. The Leviathans not only have powers that make them invincible, but they’ve assimilated themselves into this world in a way that gives them additional powers. They’ve got money and resources. An unlimited budget. Access. And they’ve got a leader who has taken host inside someone who is popular, desired, and attractive.
THIS IS SO BAD. I mean, when someone outright rejects an offer of an alliance from Crowley (!!!!!!!!), you know that nothing is going to be okay. NOTHING.
Also, baby uvulas? Why do I get the feeling Crowley wasn’t making a joke?
The Truth
I really, really thought that Sam would find out about Amy in “Defending Your Life,” and I even assumed that it would eventually come out. But goddamn, I couldn’t imagine a worse context for Sam to learn that his brother had been lying to him for weeks. The whole Leviathan!Winchester shit was surreal and traumatizing all by itself, and then this happens?
The show deliberately calls Dean’s hypocrisy into question, too. Dean asks his brother to open up to him about what’s bothering him, and I nearly melted from secondhand embarrassment. It was too much to watch. Of course, it was the final straw for Sam, who leaves in anger. It’s not the first time these two have been apart, but it was still an upsetting thing to watch happen. Gods, Dean doesn’t even fight to make Sam stay, which speaks to how guilty he feels. I’m sure that he feels he deserves this treatment, and… goddamn. How? How is the show going to deal with them in two different places at precisely the worst time for them to be separated?
Supernatural: If it’s not hurting, it’s not happening.
The video for “Slash Fiction” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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