Supernatural Rewatch - Season One
Dec. 6th, 2018 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redrikkiGod, the boys are so young. And Dean's voice is so high pitched. He sounds like a normal person instead of Christian Bale's batman.
A number of the classic rock songs have been replaced by more modern alternative rock songs. I assume this is for copyright/licensing reasons. They're not bad songs, exactly, but I think the show loses something by not having "Don't Fear the Reaper" in Faith or "Wayward Son" in the season recap. And to think, everyone who came to the show via Netflix will have a different viewing experience than those of us who saw it live or on DVD.
Sam is clearly intended to be the POV character and it isn't hard to see why. He's the sort of nice college boy viewers can recognize and relate to in a way that gruff, conman Dean isn't. His reintroduction to hunting allows viewers to learn the ropes and his reconnecting with his brother allows us to get to know Dean too. The problem is, Sam is an incredibly opaque character. Dean may be opposed to chick flick moments, but he wears his heart on his sleeve and talks about his feelings in a way Sam just doesn't. On the one hand, this makes it easier for viewers to project themselves onto Sam. On the other hand, we end up knowing Dean better.
A big part of this comes down to the way the brothers deal with relationships. Dean dates Cassie for a hot second and tells her everything. He wants to be seen and accepted for who he is, even if it means rejection. Sam, meanwhile, tries to keep his relationships on his terms by controlling the flow of information. He hides those parts of himself he doesn't like out of fear of rejection, and ends up lying to Jess, his friends, and even Dean. His brother rightly points out how unhealthy this is, but Sam comes by it honestly. After all, that's exactly what John does.
Speaking of John, there's a lot of talk in fandom how later seasons did him dirty and ret-conned him as a lousy father, but let's be real. Season one is not shy about portraying him as a shit dad. His obsession with hunting is likened to alcoholism, both by Sam in the pilot, and by the narrative itself in Nightmares. The entire premise of the season is that he has abandoned his children and, according to Sam, it's not the first time he's gone missing. We see John leave his kids unprotected in a town with a child-eating monster on the loose, use his adult children as bait, physically assault Sam for arguing with him, and abuse Dean while mad at Sam. Neither of his sons believe he's proud of them and, while he talks a good game about wanting a future for them, he consistently places his own quest for vengeance over their wellbeing. When Sam says at the end of Nightmares how grateful they should be John wasn't a violent drunk, it's a case of damning with faint praise.
Over all, season one is just as good as I remember it. The whole thing was like reconnecting with an old friend. Some of the dialog is almost painfully clunky, especially in the pilot, but the character work is solid and so is the world building.On to season two!
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Date: 2018-12-07 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-07 03:35 pm (UTC)