SupernaturalSeason2

Supernatural Season 2

Before I begin, I’d like to share a few stories with you if I may, dear reader. They will pertain to the subject at hand eventually, I promise. When I was a wee lad, a film some might remember called Interview with a Vampire was released into theaters and later home video. It became a cultural phenomena and yada yada yada (this would be more in depth if I were actually reviewing the film in question, but I’m not, so just roll with me.). In high school, I was discussing the film with my best friend, and was shocked that he found the movie laden with homoerotic overtones. For the longest time, I thought it was essentially about two vampire buddies trying to live the dream and not get killed. It wasn’t until my friend pointed out that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were close enough to each other in every scene that the next logical step the characters should take was an open mouth kiss, did I go back and watch the film with this new information in mind. He was correct. That film is about two vampires who love each other in a slightly more than platonic way.

My next story finds me during my first year of college, several years after the Interview with a Vampire incident. It was the year 2000, and the internet was really firing on all cylinders for the first time. This was right in the middle of the Napster controversy, which spawned dozens of peer-to-peer imitations, and when internet pornography was expanding with leaps and bounds. Not that I watched any. No, seriously, I didn’t. I was, and still am, a huge comic book nerd, and while most kids were downloading the latest Limp Bizkit album, I was reading long discussions on superheroes and where the respective storylines were heading. I became aware of fan written fiction, or fanfic as the kids call it today; stories written by fans of specific media out of love for the product. Being the easily excited, doe-eyed youth I was, I went to Yahoo (this was before Google was the search engine to use) and typed in ‘Batman/Robin stories.’ The results horrified me. I was presented with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tales where a terrifyingly perverse Batman was doing things to Robin that are best not spoken of in polite company. Sometimes the stories were Robin doing things to Batman. None of them were of the duo fighting crime and thwarting supervillians like I’d been reading about for my entire life up to that point.

The Interview with a Vampire situation came to mind, and I began to wonder if I’d been reading Batman comic books with blinders on. Was there really so much homoerotic subtext in those comics that I’d been missing all these years? Is this part of some cosmic joke that I wasn’t privy to until that point? I wondered this for days. It bothered me. I re-read my favorite Batman stories and found nothing. It wasn’t until trying to dig deeper into the online Batman community that I found the answer; typing in ‘Batman/Robin’ into a search engine took me to a dark realm known as ‘slashfic’. If you’re not prepared, slashfic can destroy the very foundations a childhood was built upon. If it’s your thing, more power to you, I’m not passing judgment. It’s just not my bag.

I told you all that, dear reader, to tell you this: Supernatural is on the fast track to becoming my favorite television show of all time. It’s hitting the right buttons with me, giving me surprises, fun, and making me think. I’ve tried and succeeded in making fans of a few friends who I’ve shown the series to thus far, and my mother as well. Much to my shock and awe, one friend admitted to dismissing the show because of the main characters being so pretty and the multitudes of slashfic that you can find. It even has its own bizarre sub-category name: Wincest. What bothers me the most about this is the leap of logic it takes to put the two brothers in an incestuous relationship together that the show doesn’t leave the wiggle room for, no pun intended? Torchwood, for example, would be and probably is a ripe playground for slashfic, and you wouldn’t have to stray from one of the main themes of the show to get there, either. And in the nature of fun, all bets are off, sure. Sam and Dean can make out and fight dinosaurs for all I care, just don’t try and convince me that there is really a subplot about explicit brotherly love running through the entire series. So, anyway, review time!!! Spoilers for season one ahead!

Season two picks up right where season one left off; the Winchester men in the mangled wreck of the Impala after being plowed into by the Yellow Eyed Demon, who is the main focus of this season. He’s there at every twist and turn, sometimes in the forefront, sometimes in the background, but always pulling the strings of Sam and Dean.

The second season changes the structure of the formula set up by its predecessor to a certain degree; we’re giving less monster of the week episodes and more time is spent developing the mythology of the universe our boys inhabit. This shouldn’t be an unexpected direction for a show like this to take, and the transition is done very smoothly.

A sort of ‘base of operations’ comes into play in the form of The Roadhouse, a saloon Hunters frequent to trade stories, drink, and unwind. Ellen is the barmaid, who becomes an almost surrogate mother to the Winchester boys, while Bobby, introduced at the end of last season, steps in as a father-figure. While we’re mentioning reoccurring characters Jo, Ellen’s daughter, can’t be left out. She’s got a crush on Dean, however, given the circumstances he views her more as a little sister, continuing the overall family unit theme. A personal favorite is Ash, who appears to be channeling David Spade from Joe Dirt, but he’s an incredibly intelligent hunter.

After the damn near perfect first season I expected the second season to fall far from the benchmark that had been set. And while it doesn’t exceed the expectations one would have from viewing the first season, it is on par. Sometimes television shows can hit the ground running and trip over themselves in later seasons, Heroes being a prime example. Through season two Supernatural is still running strong, keeping the playful elements of the brotherly relationship, the well-researched occult lore, and the strong storytelling in the forefront. One gripe I do have is the soundtrack. The classic rock that oozed out of each episode previously is toned down quite a bit in favor of generic guitar riffs and small bits of orchestrated fare. I realize the expense is more than likely the reason for the cut back, but I enjoyed how music was used to punctuate elements in the first season that could have easily been done so here. Though I will never hear Carry on My Wayward Son ever again without thinking of Sam and Dean.

This time around we have killer clowns, disappearing towns, haunted movie sets, ‘vegetarian’ vampires, and an episode focusing around the Robert Johnson legend (he’s the blues guitarist who supposedly sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads at midnight). It still doesn’t stray from the horror genre, but it does go from being a little Kolchak: The Night Stalker to Hellblazer, which is a good thing in my opinion. Ben Edlund also joins the staff this season, who we might remember from Angel, Firefly, and most importantly, the original 12 issues of The Tick comic. I personally think that’s a good thing, others might disagree.

It’s still a show worth watching. I’m hoping the next season keeps the pace up.

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by Seth Moore