u/New_Penalty_7060

Hi all,

I got a very kind response to my first post here, where I shared my thoughts watching the Supernatural pilot for the first time. So here I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the second episode, Wendigo.

I was thinking about the pilot all day. As I shared in a comment on my first post, I’m really interested in how Sam, who is estranged from his father, might start to understand him after going through the same trauma he did 20 years ago. I also am very invested in the complex relationship between Sam and Dean. Dean loves his little brother enough to run into a fire and pull him out, but it’s not a perfect relationship—he encourages him to skip the law school interview that would clearly better his future.

Thoughts on Wendigo
- Dean trying to make Sam feel better by offering to let him drive the car. Simultaneously very sweet and absolutely diabolical commentary on how “no chick flick” type men flail at offering emotional support. At least he’s trying…
- I have heard the story of the Wendigo before (in an academic setting). I learned that the myth pre-dated colonization, but that in the intervening centuries it also came to function as representation of white settler violence against indigenous people.
- It’s kind of refreshing how Sam and Dean already know the lore of their universe (the ghost woman from the last episode, the Wendigo here) so we don’t have to waste time with them going “whattt but x monster can’t be real.” At the same time, I want there to be an episode with something they’ve never heard of so they’re put on the back foot. I’m sure there will be; there are fifteen years’ worth of storylines to go. Which is just so crazy to me. I want to know about their futures (not literally, no spoilers pls lol). Do they work as monster hunters forever?? Do they have kids???
- “Bring it on, baby, I taste good.” Dean is so weird (affectionate).
- Wasn’t as huge a fan of this one. The pilot seemed like an instant classic, but I found myself wanting to look at my phone more during Wendigo. I watched the first four seasons of The X-Files years ago, and this one kind of reminded me of those slow middle-of-the-season episodes where they didn’t really bother to tie the monster of the week into Mulder or Scully’s own personalities or histories. Not awful, but also not my favorite to watch. My gold standard for monster of the week television is Buffy, where there are always interesting interpersonal relationships or character insights even during one-off plots.
- I’m not indigenous, so I can’t speak to this with authority, but I thought the depiction of the Wendigo here was insensitive, maybe even a little racist. It was presented as an antagonist without much cultural context; I thought the episode might have been improved if the side characters we met during this episode were indigenous themselves. Also Anasazi is Pueblo lol, I don’t think those symbols would do much to stop an ice creature from northern America (the man who talked to my class about it was Ojibwe).
- But yeah, overall I felt that some of the momentum from the pilot petered out here. Don’t have nearly as much to say on this one. Some scary moments, some fun interactions, but nothing approaching the “Dad’s been on a hunting trip and hasn’t come home in a few days” + meaningful look moment from the pilot. I liked Haley; I was glad to see that there will be female characters, even one-offs, that are prominently featured (after the pilot killed both women off). She had more of a personality than the sheriff or her younger brother or the guys from the opening scene, all of whom were fine, but whose dialogue/acting was a little stereotypical even for stock characters.
- I’ll definitely still be watching, but less because I am expecting immediate plot and character developments and more because I am already so attached to Sam and Dean (especially Dean, I love how flirtatious and goofy he is).

Hey all,

I decided to watch Supernatural for the first time tonight. The Boys, which is one of my favorite TV shows of all time, is coming to a close, so I thought why not watch another project with the amazing Eric Kripke and Jensen Ackles? My partner’s out of town and I sometimes get bored watching TV by myself, so I thought I’d write down my reactions and share them here. If these sorts of posts are welcome, awesome, I’d love to do more; if not just downvote and I’ll get the message lol.

I’ve known about Supernatural since, like, 2014 but never actually watched a clip. Here’s what I know before going in:
- Created by Erik Kripke, but he left a few seasons in and the show continued for a decade afterward
- It sparked HUGE ship wars on Tumblr in the 2010s
- Jensen Ackles plays Dean, one of two brothers who are the main characters of the show. Dean is very gruff and masculine, the other brother is nerdier I think?

My thoughts on the Pilot:

- Big house, lots of family photos, including one of grandparents. So they’re financially comfortable and have a good relationship with their extended family.
- I like the mother. Even though the music and tropes are telling us this is a horror scene, her acting doesn’t seem shlocky at all. Her movements and delivery are very natural.
- Don’t love her styling, though. It’s typical for women on TV (granny nightgown even though she’s like 30, perfect hair and lip gloss even though she got out of bed), especially back in the early 2000s, but it always breaks the immersion a bit for me.
- Watching war movies in the dark. Likely thing for a dad to do.
- Five minutes in and the five-year-old and his infant brother are doing a pieta
- The father and two boys escaping from the fiery inferno without the mother is giving Aeneas fleeing Troy (I’m taking a Latin class and have it on the brain!).
- Mary’s death was very gruesome and disturbing for a CW show.
- Jensen Ackles is so small here.
- Tbh some of this dialogue is like that meme that’s like “Good to see you bro, what’s it been, a year? I can’t believe it’s been six years since mom died.”
- Okay, so their father forced them to grow up too early because he was obsessed with tracking down the man who killed their mother. Interesting and complex family dynamic right off the bat. The “miller time” line also suggests that he has a drinking problem.
- Yeah they really are doing a lot of exposition-dialogue here. It’s not too bad, though. I definitely have the same arguments with my siblings about my parents over and over again lol (though mine are not about being raised as soldiers!)
- “I’m 26 dude” you look like a babyyyyy
- Dean says “you know i haven’t bothered you for two years.” Sam, presumably, has gone to college for four years. So Dean was visiting up until halfway through and then stopped. Wonder if we’ll get a flashback exploring that.
- OR Sam is very smart and is graduating after two, which also seems probable.
- The set design for their father’s motel room is amazing. So detailed and intricate.
- Awww Dean stealing his dad’s jacket. Still that little boy from the opening scene deep down.
- You can tell the cinematographer is obsessed with this car. He/she films it almost pornographically
- Sam’s genre-aware dialogue about how he already knows that vengeance and finding the man who killed their mother won’t bring them happiness is interesting. I had assumed that they WOULD find him, kill him, and then learn that within the first few seasons. But Sam stating it outright makes me think they’ll take a more unconventional approach. Maybe they’ll introduce the monster-of-the-week format by having Sam and Dean decide to put their vengeance quest aside and hunt other supernatural creatures so other families aren’t torn apart like theirs. (And then fifteen years later in the final season maybe they’ll find the man who killed their mother without looking for him)
- Wow, Dean yelling at and shoving Sam for being too flippant about their mom hit hard. He probably remembers her well and she’s nothing to Sam. I’ve had family relationships with a similar pattern and yeah, it’s rough.
- God, I like Dean so much already. He’s not naturally cool and sassy and photogenic, he kind of works at it. He has a cool action hero moment and promptly gets covered in mud. I get the sense that he’s constantly thinking about whether or not whatever he’s doing would look cool in a movie and is delighted when it is. He seems to like the life his father gave him; I hope it’s genuine and he wasn’t Stockholm-syndromed into liking it.
- The score is good. It’s got some pluck and personality to it.
- I’d like to learn more details about their childhood. Did Sam and Dean grow up in Lawrence, Kansas after their mother died, with their dad going on hunts and leaving them behind? Or did he take them with him?
- The shot of Jess on the ceiling was genuinely breathtaking. It looked like a vintage horror movie poster.
- I’m curious to see how the brothers will respond to the trauma of Jess’s death moving forward. Obviously Sam lost his girlfriend, but that’s the second time Dean has had to pull his younger brother out of a fire.
- The episode introduced two different (overlapping?) plotlines, which is pretty cool! I’m personally more interested in the hook about finding their dad than finding out what killed their mother and Jess. I’m hoping John is alive; he seems like a fascinating and tragic character. He was introduced joking around about giving Sam a football when he got older, but when he actually got older he gave him a gun. He probably blames himself for his wife’s death. I’d like to see the complicated family dynamic unfold between him and his sons. And I have genuinely no ideas about where he could be! With the guy who killed their mother and Jess, I’m guessing the common factor is Sam. He didn’t kill him as a baby when he had the chance; he definitely wants something with him.
- Honestly, I think pilot could work as a short film on its own. (It’d be a kind of a downer about how you can never escape generational trauma, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a short film that wasn’t a downer).
- For some reason, I always imagined the guys in Supernatural being older. Obviously they will age as the show progresses but I was surprised to learn that we’re starting with them in their early 20s.
- The twenty-year flash forward was definitely right choice, but I want to know so much about their life in between.
- My primary complaint is that the dialogue is pretty clunky. Not bad enough for me to be put off from continuing, but I think Kripke certainly gets better at subtext over the course of his career. The tone here is hokier and sillier than The Boys, but that’s also okay for me. However, I don’t love that the only two female characters were fridged. Still, I imagine (hope?) there’s a chance of seeing Jess again. Maybe if it were written today we would see their father die in the pilot instead of their mother.
- I liked most everything else, particularly seeing the exact moment their life as a happy family is shattered. I noted that they were presumably wealthy and had an extended family, and after the flash forward Dean’s clothes look old and damaged, and he and his dad are clearly loners. Sam made the right choice leaving and going to college—he seemed happy, he had friends, he had great job prospects, he was in love. I wonder if Dean has any friends besides his father. And his car. Also, the cinemtaography and editing are quite good. The show is also just ~vibey~ in a way I can’t really articulate. Gives me a similar feeling to listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Dark, lonely, beautiful landscapes, thin ragged arguments.
- I read the Wikipedia page for the episode after watching. Crazy that Ackles and Padalecki were the only actors to audition.
- I’m excited to see where the show goes from here.