In the twentieth episode of the eighth season of Supernatural, I AM FINISHED. Intrigued? Then it is time for Mark to watch Supernatural.
Trigger Warning: For death/grief.
I’m serious: this show needs to find a way to bring Charlie in full-time, because every single episode she’s in ends up being the best thing imaginable. Jesus, y’all, this is a monster of an episode, one that does everything I could possibly love with ALL of these characters. It’s a Charlie-centric episode that delves into her past, and it’s also a necessary chance to Sam and Dean to reflect on their role in the coming Third Trial. IT’S JUST SO GOOD.
The Third Trial
Unsurprisingly, the second trial hit Sam a lot harder than the first one. And as much as I’ve talked about how stubborn Dean can be, let’s also admit that Sam is pretty damn stubborn himself. Despite that he knows his physical condition is not up to his normal par, he refuses to stay home. I get it. I get wanting to surround yourself with work in the midst of a horrible thing happening. But Sam’s condition is not just a mere inconvenience; there’s a high chance that he might not be able to hunt. He might actually be a hindrance, not a help, and Dean was more than willing to handle the bulk of this case with Charlie. That’s something that Sam has to accept in some manner. If Dean is leaving the trials to him, then Sam has to let Dean do his own thing, even if that means taking a necessary NAP. JUST TAKE A NAP, SAM WINCHESTER. When do you ever get the chance to do this? TAKE THE CHANCE WHILE YOU STILL HAVE IT.
That same message applies to Dean, though. While he largely serves to help Charlie deal with her own grief and guilt, there’s an incredible moment tucked into the end of this episode. Let me first repeat what I said in the video for “Pac-Man Feverâ€: Every time Charlie is around, she seems to get Dean to open up without hesitation. IT’S AMAZING TO WATCH. So I’m crediting her role in this episode with Dean’s epiphany. After guiding Charlie into letting go of her mother, he realizes that she’s been hung up on not being able to appreciate her one last time. Without that closure, she became obsessive. Dean, however, still has his brother in his life. He’s still here! So to me, that’s what that hug meant. It was a sign of appreciation. It was a sign of love, one that would communicate to Sam that he does care about him deeply, no matter what happens between them.
BROMENT.
Charlie
JUST… OKAY. OKAY. Again, with Charlie’s appearance, this show brings up fandom in a way that isn’t condescending or cruel. Instead, the love of nerdy things plays intimately into Charlie’s growth here. It’s mostly used as humor at first, especially since it’s UNBEARABLY FUNNY to watch her as Dean’s sidekick and hunter-in-training. All the roleplaying in the world has not prepared her for most of what she has to do here. But it’s so satisfying to see Dean willing to teach Charlie and get her used to what hunting is really like. (Seriously, how is she not just on this show??? EVERYTHING SHE DOES IS A GIFT.)
Thankfully, though, “Pac-Man Fever†is not an episode that exists merely for the joke, though like many classic Supernatural episodes, it follows that whole “so-funny-it-becomes-unbearably-sad†pattern. When it becomes clear that Charlie brought this case to the Winchesters because of some unspoken reason, the writers use this opportunity to give us more of Charlie’s story before she became a part of the show. I had assumed that the djinn had been summoned by Charlie and that she’d lied about not knowing what it was, but technically, she never had lied to the Winchesters about this. No, she was in town for an entirely different reason: her mother. So much of Charlie’s characterization in this season and the last can be explained both by her desire to run away from her past and to reconcile it. Truthfully, she could never fully run away from what had happened to her; she still paid for her mother’s medical care. She still visited her from time to time, all so she could return the same gift that her mother had given her.
I’m sure that there are a lot of us who could trace our fandom loves back to a specific person. I know that my introduction to science fiction was through my parents, who gave me Star Wars when I was very young. In Charlie’s case, her mother read her The Hobbit before bed, and that proved to be a gateway for her into science fiction and fantasy. How could she not feel an affinity for her mother after being given something like that? How could she not obsess about a world that reminded her of happier times? And how could she ever let her mother go after the accident that killed her father and left her mother unresponsive for sixteen years?
That ends up being the key to the djinn’s dream: Charlie has to let go. She’s terrified of few things in the world than losing her mother, even though the sad truth of it is that she lost her long, long ago. I couldn’t help tearing up throughout this because… well, y’all have read a number of pieces from me talking about loss and grief. It’s one of the worst things to go through. So Charlie clung to all of this – her nerdiness, her books, and her mother – because it was easier than coping loss.
Point blank: This is, like every other Charlie episode, one of the best things Supernatural has ever done. It’s beautiful, evocative, and a testament to the kind of storytelling this show is capable of.
The video for “Pac-Man Fever†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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