Supernatural TalkTarts talk about SPN 5.08: Changing Channels
Welcome to Supernatural Talk, where Tarts talk about Supernatural, their favourite show about demon-hunting brothers. This week: episode 5.08 "Changing Channels". The Trickster traps Sam and Dean in TV land. To escape, they must survive a sitcom, a medical soap opera, a Japanese game show, a genital herpes ad and CSI: Whatever. It's close to being a fate worse than Mystery Spot! But then the Trickster turns out to be the archangel Gabriel, who has worse family issues than the Winchesters — including all-powerful brothers who want to kill each other. That's good for a whole week of Jerry Springer!
Patti Martinson, Staff Writer: Seeing Dean almost gush over the characters was hilarious, and Sam getting whacked in the game show was funny as well. Sam as KITT was priceless. It's interesting that in the doctor parody, Sam saved Dean. In the Japanese game show, only Dean got the right answer. The sitcom was not quite as funny, but it did seem built around Dean's hornyness, while the herpes commercial had Sam take responsibility for his actions. While I think the various TV shows illustrated different aspects of the brothers and their relationships, I don't see it as having a larger meaning to the mytharc. Katherine Keller, Culture Vultures Editrix: I would argue that the medical, procedural, and Japanese game show spoofs show how Sam and Dean are often thrust into situations that they're not exactly equipped to handle and must make it work. The sitcom and the Knight Rider sendups both show how incredibly crazy their lives can be, but also, when Sam and Dean work together, they can be an unbeatable team. Although I did find it interesting that during the "Sexy Hospital" sequence, the one doctor who slapped Sam actually told him what he really needed know about finding himself again. (Or, as they said over on Friday Night Lights, "finding your inner pirate.") Suzette Chan, Columns Editrix: There were a lot of interesting things going on there! First, I'll talk about the scenario in general. It highlighted a few interesting things:
The TV shows that they're stuck on impart more specific messages to Sam and Dean. On "Dr. Sexy, M.D.", Sam is told to not be afraid to operate and not be afraid to love. I took that to mean that Sam wasn't entirely wrong about using power and expertise, but that he shouldn't use it in a vacuum. But the herpes ad was a word of caution: be careful where you get those powers and how you spread them! So no more demon blood for Sam. I really think he'll manifest his demon powers again, but under greater control, and with Dean as a more constructive advisor. Dean, meanwhile, is being given the message that Sam is a resource: Sam does the operation, figures out the game show, moderates his sitcomy excesses, acts as Dean's vehicle and, yes, dispenses magic oil from his ass. But Dean also has to trust in his own abilities, as well. When he brushes off a patient's demand, he gets shot. But when he takes Gabriel straight on, in the sitcom and in the Knight Rider bit, he breaks the illusion. By the time the boys make it to the CSI show, they're figuring things out and acting together, and that's really the only way they're going to get out of this angel trap alive. I also noticed that the more shows they went through, the more control they gained over the stories. Sam and Dean are still outsiders in the "Dr. Sexy, MD" segment, so Dean acts like a star-struck fanboy, and Sam acts like a non-viewer who doesn't buy the premise ("This show has ghosts? Why?"). Dean offers a scathing meta on procedural shows, but by the end of the CSI-type segment, he's participating fully as a character. By the time they get to the Knight Rider-y show, they just re-write the script, and Dean is calling out the "showrunner", Gabriel. Wolfen Moondaughter, Assistant Reviews Editrix and Den Mother: For the sitcom, well, the boys already are something of a comedy duo as far as the fans are concerned, and here they made light of how Dean's a womaniser and not terribly good at research, while Sam's the more responsible one, the straight man. In the soap opera segment, Dean readily went with the flow — he strikes me as always having been better able to accept their crazy life as normal than Sam. Sam was distant with the girl who was in love with him, just as he is with women in real life, and she went on and on about him blaming himself over something he shouldn't, which is what Sam really does. Dean didn't take the situation seriously enough and got hurt for underestimating it/thinking it's all a game, something I think he has a penchant for in real life. He needs a lesson in Mayan history, where games are a matter of life and death, not an alternative. As for the game show, I suppose it could be a metaphor for how the situation regarding the Apocalypse is beyond them, they don't really know all that's going down amongst the angels and demons, and they're expected to just go with the flow and agree to things they aren't comfortable agreeing with, like Dean's saying yes to the notion that everything is Sam's fault. And poor Sam, always getting kicked in the metaphorical balls, particulary when he's being honest! Every time he tries to do what he thinks is right (like not answering a question he can't understand in the first place), it turns out to be the wrong answer, no matter how right it seems. The cop show reflected (and farcified) the roles they play when they are really investigating, i.e., when they are pretending to be law enforcement on an average case. In other words, Sam and Dean are essentially actors outside of that TV land as well. And the fact that Jared Padelecki and Jensen Ackles are real actors playing fictional actors adds a whole other level to it all! The Knight Rider parody was about control — who's really in control of their destiny, Sam or Dean? The answer is that they both are, and when they work together they can get where they want to collectively go, but when they clash, they go nowhere. And then there's all that delicious slashy subtext about Dean getting in Sam and playing with his ass. *evil grin*
Patti: I had no problem with Trickster being Gabriel, although I am not that familiar with the previous Trickster episodes. I'm not sure if this was a sort of retcon or if it was planned early on. Nevertheless, it does continue to put more spin and shadings on the relationships amongst the angels and between the angels and their Heavenly Father. It's an anvil now that it is mirroring the boys. What surprises me is that I didn't quite cotton on to Trickster being an Archangel before. We've had Zachariah manipulate reality for the boys before. It should have been a light-bulb moment when that happened. Katherine: I'm still not certain how I feel about the reveal that Trickster = Gabriel. On one level, it makes great narrative and plotty sense. On another, Jesus wept! does everything have to tie into the big myth arc? I really liked the idea that their might be a very powerful third party out there in the universe, one who also might have had enough of the God / Devil reindeer games. Or I was half hoping that we'd find out that Trickster = God, because given all that's just crazy good, crazy wrong, and just plain old crazy in the universe, having the Trickster be The Man would make so much sense. Although, I do like Trickster = Gabriel in the sense of it being a very true and heartfelt response to the Hatfields vs McCoys feud in Heaven — it's all a bunch of bullshit and it's going to destroy everything, I might as well go off and cause mayhem of my own, because, in the end, it's not going to matter one jot. As for how it impacts my understanding of past Trickster interactions, we now know why driving that stake into him didn't work, and I see his poking at Sam and Dean as being his immature inability to resist poking them with a stick. And finally, as an aside, I'm wondering how Gabriel found his host, how long he's been wearing him, and what the hell he said to get him to agree to being an angel condom. Did Gabriel out and out lie to him? Did Gabriel trick his way into consent? Or did Gabriel find the class clown and offer him nigh-immortality and a chance to come along on some cosmic-level oneupsmanship and prankery? (Does Gabriel's host offer him suggestions? Does he sit and snicker in the back of Gabriel's mind? Is he utterly burnt out and consumed?) Suzette: The way I read it, Gabriel is torn between wanting his brothers to never fight, and wanting them to end the suspense by duking it out. So in 2.15 "Tall Tales", Gabriel appears to Sam and Dean as the Trickster in an indeterminate mood. On one hand, he wants to show Sam and Dean that they need to stick together and prevent the fight between Lucifer and Michael. On the other, if Sam and Dean don't get the lesson, they'll go on to take their roles as meatpuppets for the archangels, and the fight will finally be over. So really, it's win/win for Gabriel, and he doesn't have to take a stand. In 3.11 "Mystery Spot", Gabriel is much more anxious, so he encourages Sam to let Dean go to Hell ... omitting the part about how he hopes Dean will break the first seal. But Gabriel/Trickster's treatment of Sam and Dean is really cruel, especially to Sam, who has to watch his brother die 100 times, and believe that Dean is permanently dead for four months. (Gabriel could have been using that four-month buffer to get Sam used to the idea of killing anything in his path; he stopped the game when Sam killed Bobby.) It was as if Gabriel was envious of Sam's day-in, day-out optimism that he would be able to save Dean or avenge his death. Sam exhibits a human stubbornness and a defiance of fate that Gabriel himself cannot muster. Although I'd like to see the boys ally with some pagans, I think this retcon works, but a couple of questions arose. First, why Gabriel? Traditionally, Gabriel is a messenger of God, who appears to Daniel in human form. In Supernatural, he ran away from God and became an incognito free agent. Still, he was the first non-demon herald of the Apocalypse that the boys encountered. Gabriel is also supposed to interpret visions of end times, so it's appropriate that he used television images to communicate with Sam and Dean. If Gabriel is to continue his role as a helper, then Sam's right: they need to talk to him. Good thing Dean didn't crispy-fry the archangel! Second, what about other Tricksters? Did they not notice him, or were they fooled by him? Gabriel says he carved out a space for himself, so did he see a place that lacked a Trickster and filled the bill? Maybe the Trickster died out as aboriginal cultures were destroyed in the Americas, and Gabriel stepped into the void. Wolfie: I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand. I love Trickster mythos and am not terribly fond of Biblical mythos — I'd rather focus on the former than the later. It's paganism being usurped by Christianity all over again! On the other hand, it does make for a more richly-developed character, and there's nothing about real Trickster mythos that suggests there couldn't be a Trickster in Judeo-Christian mythology — quite the opposite, as that's a name often ascribed to Satan. So it's more like this guy is Gabriel and a Trickster. He did the job well. In fact, as Suzette's reply shows, he doesn't fit the Gabriel archetype all that much! Or are there biblical stories where he was more than just a messenger for God? Granted, he may have sent a message to Sam and Dean here (and in his other episodes), but the message is from himself, not God. And isn't Gabriel supposed to be a bearer of glad tidings not bad? I hope that, after Dean let him go, Gabriel will reconsider and help the brothers escape their fate. Just because he firmly believes that they're doomed doesn't mean he has to help seal their fate. And I hope that he will clue in to the fact that rather than simply accepting their roles, the Winchester boys owned them by the end. In fact, perhaps this means that if they accepted their roles as vessels, they'd actually be able to change destiny from the inside, so to speak. Also, while I don't think he actually intended it, I think Gabriel did Sam a favour back in "Mystery Spot", one that's effects are playing out now: he made Sam see just how much he loves Dean and how much he can't bear the thought of a world without him. Perhaps that will help alleviate this situation with Lucifer and Michael's animosity towards each other, having their vessels bond so closely. Even if they ever manage to claim their vessels, Sam and Dean's brotherly love could still trump Lucifer and Michael's sibling rivalry, provided the Winchesters maintain a sense of self long enough to influence their possesors. And if we're talking parallels betwen the brothers, were Lucifer and Michael ever that close before Lucifer was cast out? Sam had a falling out with Dean over Ruby, like Lucifer had with Michael (though the reasons were different), and was cast out by Dean. But Sam came back to the fold, something Lucifer hasn't managed to do. Sam and Dean have overcome their differences -- the similarities between them and their angelic counterparts have come to an end. Besides, the Winchesters love humanity, rather than loathe it. So with Gabriel talking so much about the Winchesters' similarities with their would-be puppetmasters, perhaps he's missing the differences and what effect those differences could have on how things will play out.
Patti: I'm not sure. I haven't really sat down and thought about it or re-watched the episodes. We've always known that the boys (or at least Sam) were selected for something specific. It was never really crystal clear for exactly what. One thing is does it makes the whole "destiny" thing a lot harder to refute or deal with though. Now viewers and the brothers are sort of left to wondering if everything that happened prior to this episode was really meant to be or if they still had free will throughout. That's not a very satisfying thing to contemplate. Katherine: It now makes a lot of sense, and it's so freaking clear that Kripke has read Lucifer and has a little shrine to Mike Carey in his office, because this whole brother vs. brother, quest to find Daddy, and tense reunion and cooperation as they work towards a mutual goal is straight out of that. Seriously, DC/Vertigo should be getting a lot more direct homages and shout-outs considering the way that Kripke's sources are barely disguised at this point. As for the whole feuding brothers thing, I wanted to step into the episode and point out to Gabriel that: (A) there were actually three Winchester brothers, and Adam's relationship with John Winchester was very different from the relationship that Sam and Dean had with their father and Adam brought Sam and Dean together at a time when they agreed on nothing else. (So perhaps Gabriel might want to think about that in relation to his brothers.) (B) if this is all about a feud between the two eldest sons, then where does God's lastborn son, the baby of the family, Jesus Christ, fit into the picture? (Gabriel should remember that particular brother, given that he was the one that showed up and told the Virgin Mary "It's a boy!") Suzette: There was a show-stopping bombshell in the Japanese game show. The question to Dean was whether John and Mary would still be alive if Sam hadn't been born, and the answer was "yes". I "whaaa?!"d at the TV until I could process that. Is there is something inherent in Sam to bring all this on the family? Had Dean been an only child, the would the angels and demons have passed over their house? (I imagined a neo-biblical mark on the door indicating that this is a one-child home.) But Gabriel said it was always going to be Sam and Dean. So why all the meddling with the Winchester family? Why the competition amongst the psychic kids? Here's how I see the angel/demon planning meetings:
Wolfie: This just points all the more to the notion that John is God's vessel, if Sam and Dean were born brothers as a reflection of the angels that are meant to inhabit them. And they do fit the roles — or they did at various points: Dean was, for a goodly while, the same good little soldier boy working for his daddy as Michael (is Michael as disallusioned now about his father as Dean has become?), and Sam was the one who, while he loved his father dearly, turned from his father's path and discovered that he's actually very much like him — in Lucifer's case, that he's as a god himself. Also, I had a problem with the logic of the whole revelation. Azazel made that deal with Mary before even Dean was a gleam in their mother's eye. If she hadn't had Sam, wouldn't he have killed her for not fullfilling her part of the bargain? Or, conversely, if she wasn't to have Sam, why would the demon have made the deal with her in the first place? If she hadn't, John would be dead. In any case, to make it look like their deaths are Sam's fault, rather than the angels and demons who plotted it all, is ridiculous. John and Mary also wouldn't be dead if they had never been born, or if they had never met, or if they had each fallen for someone else —. It looks a hell of a lot more like Sam's birth, like their deaths, was a side effect of demonic and angelic intervention — an end-result, not a cause of events. Even if we say that Azazel wouldn't have gone after them if he didn't know they would bear Sam, he's still the one who set the events in motion — they probably wouldn't have gotten together and had Sam if not for him, and even if they did, they wouldn't have died just because of that fact: it was Mary making that deal that led to her death. And John didn't have to die; he chose to, for Dean's sake. Why not blame Dean, then? I mean, blaming that death on Sam is like blaming his death on Ford for inventing the car, since they all ended up in the hospital by being hit by the car's descendent, a semi — you could say Sam's very existence lead to John's death, but you can't say it was a direct contribution. I mean, under that logic, he died because the sun set, or because it was a Tuesday! I wonder if Dean's answering yes was supposed to be actually attributed to him, as in he subconciously believes it, or if he was just a means of exposition.
Patti: A repetition or reversal of their behavior. Sam getting addicted to blood because he felt he had no choice, Dean being merciful when he has a choice. That's the repetition. But when dealing with the Anti-Christ, that role was reversed. Sam wanted to let the kid go, Dean felt the opposite. Maybe it is a way to show we don't quite know how Sam or Dean will react towards the end. Katherine: What's happening here is that we have the problems that come with a team approach to writing anything, and we'll have to hand-wave away the fact that the viewers remember Sam's very clear faith in humanity and human principles when it came to Jesse. On the other hand, Dean has often shown a deeply rooted compassion at times when Sam has not. Suzette: Well, War did point out that Sam has a tendency to act with expedience. But Dean's refusal to use the power at their disposal forced Sam to use his powers irresponsibly, on the downlow. Sam tends to be a utilitarian, emphasizing outcomes over means, while Dean is a deontologist, emphasizing duties and acts over consequences. As systems, they're incompatible, but in real life, there are times when one approach works better than the other, given some rock-solid moral goals. So Sam and Dean have to trust (A) each other, (B) reinforce the goals for themselves and humankind, and (C) figure out exactly what they're facing. They really should sit down with Castiel and make him draw an org chart. It would have been helpful to know that there are rogue archangels out there! Wolfie: Well, when you put it that way, it sounds disturbingly like Sam's one step closer to being Lucifer's vessel, lacking compassion. But happily Dean sounds like he's taking a step further away from being Michael's vessel — compassion is not a word I associate with that archangel. I wonder if it's Dean's brotherly instincts kicking in; I mean, if Gabriel is Lucifer and Michael's younger brother, could Dean now be subconsciously relating Gabriel with Adam?
Katherine: OMG! The set decoration for the sitcom? Priceless. The "Sampala". I want a screencap of it rolling down the road with the red lights flickering through the grill. The unabashed homoeroticism of anything related to the Dean/Sampala interplay. "Dean, that, uh, feels really uncomfortable." (Said as Dean's rooting around in the trunk.) "Satan's going to ride his ass one way or another." "You might say that we pulled it out of Sam's ass." I can't call any of that subtle. The herpes ad. I was on the floor, gasping, by the time it was done. Not only was it a perfect spoof of most drug advertisements with their long and sometimes incongruous list of side effects (why, oh why, would I want to take an anti-depressant if it could make me suicidal?!) but it was a great little shout out to last week's episode. Oh, and this episode ... was actually just a tick over 40 minutes long, not counting previews. Will wonders never cease! Suzette: Lots of focus on body parts this week!
The medical show was clearly satirizing Grey's Anatomy, but Dr. Sexy himself looked like Billy Ray Cyrus in Doc. I liked the gulf between the boys' reality and what's depicted on the TV shows. The sitcom was a neon-bright version of the crummy motel room they were staying in, and the fancy medical instruments are foreign to Sam, so he asks for the tools he's accustomed to operating with: a penknife, a sewing needle, dental floss and a fifth of whiskey! Dean was the one who accused Gabriel of failing to stand up to his family. That's an issue Dean's had with himself over his relationship with his father. It is interesting that in this episode and in 5.06 "I Believe the Children Are Our Future", Dean becomes wistful about how the past could have gone. First, he wished John told them more lies, now he wishes his life was more like a sitcom. Articulating these impossible desires are a way of moving beyond them. The door of the warehouse was marked with a prominent 4, the death symbol. There were 4s all over episode 5.07 "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester". Is the show hinting at something? Padalecki and Ackles were great in all the spoof roles. My favourite bits turned out to be the voiceovers, I guess because they could easily have been done by other people or overdone. But Ackles was perfectly swarmy and kind of convincing with, "Supernatural is filmed before a live studio audience", and Padalecki as the voice of the Sampala just killed me: it was all Sam, but with a robotic edge that tipped onto the uncomfortable side of uncanny. Wolfie: Well, we can add yet another show to prolific sci-fi actor Steve Bacic's tally (he played Dr Sexy here). I did an article a few years back on the insularity of the sci-fi/fantasy acting circle, and he was the one who had been in the most shows of that nature, by a rather wide margin! Personally, I want to see more Whedonverse people on this show (i.e., people who have been on a Joss Whedon show, like Amber Benson, who guest-starred on Supernatural as the vegetarian vampire Lenore in 2.03 "Bloodlust"). Specifically, now that Whedon's Dollhouse has been cancelled, I want to see Fran Kranz (Topher Brink) here! I love that Dean is a secret soap-opera fan and had a man-crush on Dr Sexy! This ep is now my second-fave ep, being both hi-larious overall and having some great, serious developments at the end.
|
||||||||
|
Home |
Features |
Columns |
Culture Vultures |
Report Card
Indicia | Contact | Archives © Sequential Tart, 1998 – 2021 |
||||||||
