stacked day 48: 8.06, 15.04
self actualization of a fangirl
There are few episodes of Supernatural where I am more interested in what's going on with B characters than I am with Dean (and Sam, and Cas, etc) but 15.04 “Atomic Monsters" is one of them. Still wounded from the two-way-soul-gun as well as Amara's lack of support, Chuck finds his way back to his biggest fan: Becky. We haven't seen her in seasons and seasons; her last appearance before this was in Season 7, where she will do some pretty awful things. Almost a decade later, she is married with two kids. She has a house (Supernatural merch on the mantle, of course) and an Etsy shop where she sells? Supernatural stuff? and she's still writing fanfiction, but focuses on AU slice-of-life. (The stuff everyone likes more anyway, she says. Watching the boys fold laundry!) She seems very happy, and does not want to see Chuck. She doesn't know he's God, still, just thinks he's an asshole prophet who broke up with her during the apocalypse. I wouldn't want to see him, either.
I like getting to see Becky again. She makes four total appearances in the show, and the general idea that there is a fandom comes up in five episodes. As I wrote in 5.01, Becky is presented as annoying and weird, but ultmately vital for the story to progress. That's roughly her role in 5.09, too, which I'll write about very soon. Her Season 7 episode is filled with disdain for an imagined type of person who loves this show, contrasted heavily with 10.05 “Fan Fiction” that plays with a different subset of fandom with a lot of affection. Supernatural often considers why people like the art they do — I see this episode very much in conversation with “Monster Movie” and “Mint Condition”; but, where those episodes followed a fixation and then let us know what it was that made someone cling to those things, “Atomic Monsters” is at the end of that love. Becky still loves Supernatural, but she doesn't need it the way she used to; she tells Chuck that she regrets the way she behaved in the past, that she ended up in dark places. But, now, she likes herself. And so she doesn't need him—the Writer. “Death of the author” is an often misunderstood phenomena (ironically); it is not about a disregard for the author and how they are present in the work, it is how a work can live despite the the writers' intentions. Functionally, Supernatural is a series that ended years ago for Becky. And yet, she's still there, thinking about it, profiting off of it. (I write this four years after it ended…thinking about it…making ~$15/month off of it.) The fun of transformative fandom has very little to do with continued output of source material; we can think about Supernatural together, forever, only using the pieces we already have. It's fun to see this reflected as the show comes to an end, a more generous depiction of fandom than the past. Here is a normal, well-adjusted woman, spending time with something she loves—not because there's something wrong with her, as previously understood, but just for the love of the game.
Despite Becky telling him to get lost, Chuck wants comfort, encouragement, so he insists. She lets him in; eventually, her words trigger his writing bug. He sits down in her house and plots out “The End.” Becky reads the draft, reluctantly critiques it, and he revises. The second go horrifies her. She looks at him in terror, disgusted by the glee he seems to have in imagining characters who she knows are actually real guys in such bleak, bleak pain.
There's a point where Chuck's role morphs from showrunner/writer to network executive; not someone who directs the story, but someone with notorious destructive control. I think it's here. I think back to turning off a podcast in annoyance after listening to Andrew Dabb complain about fan complaints; I get it, some people are deeply annoying and stupid, but at the end of the day, who has the power? I think it mostly matters that you are proud of what you made. In the back and forth with Becky, Chuck starts to remember his power; her critiques irritate him, his pathetic-guy demeanor clearly breaking with each note. His second draft goes beyond taking feedback; from her response, it feels like it supersedes artistic intention, towards vindication, spite. He can't handle what she hopes to get from the series; he wants tragedy. Supernatural is fun (and irritating) because of how it plays with metacontext. Here, it anticipates fan response towards the ending. It's a warning, even, in some way: Chuck getting his ending will be sick. We are letting you know that, now. What made Becky's presence tolerable in Season 5 was the way she moved the plot forward; the show needed her just as much as she thought she needed the show. Here, as a self-actualized woman with a whole life outside of her obsessions, she tells the Writer he is not important, anymore. It's the last season of Supernatural; are the fans needed to keep it running along? Chuck’s demeanor shifts completely; the facade of his loser-prophet-persona of Season 4 and 5 completely gone, cruel God energy transformed into something even more sinister. No, the fan voice is not needed anymore. He makes her disappear.
Stray Observations
8.06 is a fun episode! I love Garth! I love Dean's childish posessiveness over Bobby's memory as Garth tries to fill the role of hunter-coordinator-support-guy. He kind of treats Garth like a cousin he's jealous got a better gift than him from grandpa; it's sweet, to see him behave in a familial way towards someone other than Sam. Sam, meanwhile, is unbearable in this episode. He's so Mean! He has no sympathy for the fact that Dean was fighting for his life for a year in Purgatory, no sympathy for how horrendous it must feel to have been abandoned; of course he's besties with a vampire now! Every episode of Season 8 makes me wonder. Does Jeremy Carver hate Sam. What's the deal here.
15.04 is directed by Jensen! I think it's my favorite of the episodes he's directed, a lot of interesting blocking and the pacing is strong. Sam and Dean are hunting a vampire while the Chuck and Becky stuff goes on, not super interesting but trying to drive home the trauma of losing a child. Which doesn't really hit cuz Dean tried to kill Jack, so. I do love the detail of him taking a swig from his flask WHILE they are literally at a crime scene investigating. He got dumped! Of course he's drinking on the job!
15.04 opens with a dream sequence; it's all in red, survival-mode vibes indicated by Dean stalking through the bunker with a big gun wearing a kuffiyeh (it is so fucking funny to remember how often kuffiyehs are used to indicate some sort of militia-vibe in a military action adventure setting. Supernatural does it several times.) He comes across Benny, who is bleeding out. Eventually, we see that he’s running from? fighting? Sam, who is a demon. It's SUCH an indulgent sequence, honestly. I think about how much Jensen Ackles loves Pedro Pascal? and wants to do a Last of Us kind of thing (booooo). It must have been awesome to direct such a video game-y sequence. I like how much the dream doesn't really make sense, in terms of timelines; in what world where Sam becomes a demon does Benny also come into their lives? We’ll learn later that this is a vision-bleed from one of Chuck's other world-drafts, that Sam is getting because of the soul-gun-wound. But, in an episode that talks directly to a “fan,” a version of the story that doesn't make sense outside of the indulgence of what-if is such a fun, fun way to open--that is so much of what transformative fandom is! But that indulgence, too, is probably how a show gets to 15 seasons, too.
I really trly almost didn't send this guys….when we get to 50 I need to re-evaluate a more sustainable way to do this lol
Dean is soooo hot in the 15.04 open like...