In the thirteenth episode of the eighth season of\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i>, zombie Nazi necromancers. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of Nazism, anti-Semitism, genocide, the Holocaust, and queerbaiting.<\/b><\/p>\n
What a weird episode.<\/p>\n
The content is obviously going to make this episode uncomfortable and bizarre, and I think\u00c2\u00a0any<\/i> creator who decides to use the Nazis and the Holocaust as a framework for their work needs to be EXTREMELY careful about how they choose to represent this history. But this episode has pacing that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all over the place. And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that weird scene in the pub. And\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 actually, let me just discuss each of these points separately.<\/p>\n
Men of Letters<\/b><\/p>\n
I will say that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody Hates Hitler\u00e2\u20ac\u009d answers a whole lot of questions I had about the Men of Letters, and getting to\u00c2\u00a0see<\/i> their headquarters fills in a lot of the details for me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perhaps the best aspect of this episode, especially since it holds a lot of potential for the series. With the loss of Bobby and with nearly all their contacts dead or scattered, this headquarters really IS a break for the Winchesters. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a wealth of knowledge in this place. (And a shower with wonderful water pressure, which is an absolutely essential requirement in my own life. Good on you, Dean.) It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relatively safe from the outside world. There are probably a ton of weapons and resources that could help them against their everyday cases and maybe even Crowley.<\/p>\n
And goddamn, does Sam\u00c2\u00a0ever<\/i> fit in to this place. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I could have appreciated without seeing the headquarters. Sam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always handled the vast majority of the research required for hunts, and I can only imagine what his life would have been life if the Men of Letters weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t destroyed. It takes him only a few minutes to settle into a routine here, and by the end of the episode, it looks like he belongs in that place.<\/p>\n
That means something is going to ruin all of this because THIS IS\u00c2\u00a0SUPERNATURAL<\/i>. NO ONE CAN HAVE NICE THINGS.<\/p>\n
The Golem<\/b><\/p>\n
Again, using the backdrop of Nazism is a rough thing to watch, but I appreciated that the show didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to say that the rise of Nazism was some supernatural thing. Like the Marvel universe, the development of the Thule Society was parallel to what\u00c2\u00a0really<\/i> happened. At the same time, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a detachment here. We hear brief mentions of experimentation and genocide, but the action here feels years and miles away from history. We understand the players because the show relies on us being familiar with the Nazis, but is there any real worldbuilding done here? No, not particularly, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a thin line anyway. Too much, and you risk denigrating and disrespecting history. Too little, and it makes it seem like the Holocaust means nothing.<\/p>\n
I was fascinated by the idea that a Golem would be given to someone who wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t practicing their religion anymore, and that clash is a large part of this episode. Some of it is funny, but most of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody Hates Hitler\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is painfully uncomfortable. Aaron has had to live his life with this gigantic clay man following him around, destroying shit randomly, urging him to believe in a world of supernatural nonsense. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an unspoken parallel here, since Aaron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life is strikingly similar to what the Winchesters went through. His grandfather passed this life on to him, whether he wanted it or not. And he fought it, so hard, for YEARS.<\/p>\n
I wish the pacing of this story, though, wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so all over the place. The big confrontation between the Golem and Torvald is set so early within \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody Hates Hitler\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that I was left wondering how this was going to last forty minutes. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of exposition here. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great information, the story is interesting, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s placed\u00c2\u00a0after<\/i> a lot of the action. And then, by the end of the episode, we find out that there never was going to be a resolution to this story. The Thule are still out there, and now, Aaron is the sole Judah Initiative left alive. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind the idea that this is the start of Aaron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad the show is willing to toy with their own narrative patterns. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0need<\/i> a neat end to this episode, but it was just an odd experience to watch because all the dramatic beats were so\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 erratic? If that makes sense.<\/p>\n
The Bar Scene<\/b><\/p>\n
No one is surprised I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pissed.<\/p>\n
This show appears to have no actual plans to introduce Dean\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s queerness, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s downright cowardly. HOW? HOW DO YOU WRITE THAT BAR SCENE AND THEN WAVE IT AWAY WITH THAT BULLSHIT EXCUSE THAT AARON WAS\u00c2\u00a0TAILING<\/i> DEAN? That makes absolutely no fucking sense. Why reveal that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s following Dean? Why do that when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve put these characters in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually believe that this is the kind of city known for it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s out and proud gay population, so why would Aaron pretend to be gay? What purpose does that serve? Why would you also have Dean react the way he does?\u00c2\u00a0Like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m SUPER GAY, and Dean reacted like someone who was curious or happy to be hit on and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just such a waste because I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have faith in the writers. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d genuinely introduce this, and it sucks. How does the same show that gives us Charlie write\u00c2\u00a0this<\/i>?<\/p>\n
BOO.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody Hates Hitler\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – Mark Does Stuff is now on Facebook<\/a>! Feel free to Like the page, which I’m running myself, for updates and SILLINESS. In the thirteenth episode of the eighth season of\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural, zombie Nazi necromancers. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[590],"tags":[591],"class_list":["post-4440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supernatural","tag-mark-watches-supernatural"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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