TV Review – Supernatural Season 4, Episodes 11 & 12

Written By: Richard on February 1, 2009 One Comment

4.11 – Family Remains

Original Air Date. 15 January 2009

Overall 3.0 / 5.0 (entertaining)
No gay content

Monster: A house’s secret inhabitants
Summary: A girl emerges from the walls of an isolated house to kill an old man. Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) investigate, but not before another young family starts moving into the house. Soon the girl is terrorizing them all.

Although kind of a relief to depart from the overwrought and underthought mytharc this season, this standalone episode didn’t manage to capture my attention. It’s classic Supernatural – scary (sort of), gruesome mystery plaguing an innocent family; Winchester boys show up à la Scooby Doo to unmask and defeat the villain.

I also like that the show once again managed to defy expectation with a couple of nice twists. It’s worth a watch, but it doesn’t include much of the trademark tongue-in-cheek humor or characterization that I admire so much in the show. The best eps are the funny ones, and those that really pierce the innards of the Winchester boys’ psyches. “Family Remains” ain’t either.

Oh, the episode does offer one mytharc-related revelation. At the end of the previous episode “Heaven and Hell,” Dean revealed what happened to him during his time in Hell – and what he did in response (something not very nice).

This episode reveals that he enjoyed the not-very-nice thing he did. The basic idea of Dean’s experience in Hell interests me on a philosophical/thematic level, but I find myself scratching my head – where are the show’s producers taking this exactly?

4.12 – Criss Angel is a Douche Bag

Original Air Date. 22 January 2009

Overall 3.0 / 5.0 (decent)
Gay Inclusive? Slightly – very minor, very brief gay character
Gay Positive? Not very

Monster: A magician
Summary:Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) head to a festival of old-school magicians (card tricks, rabbits out of a hat) after one of them dies of multiple puncture wounds without his shirt being torn. It turns out an older magician (Jay, played by the always wonderful Barry Bostwick) has regained some of his lost mojo, but apparently only through the inexplicable deaths of other magicians at the festival.

A passable episode. Competent is the word that comes to mind. The best part is Bostwick: he brings a delightful depth to his character who, in lesser hands, would have fallen flat. I enjoyed the theme of age and growing old; it hasn’t been explored previously, and it clearly stirred somehing up for Sam.

In the course of the investigation, Dean questions two of Jay’s friends, and they send him to a mysterious location and tell him to ask for “the Chief.” Said location turns out to be a gay S&M dungeon club, and said person turns out to be a leather daddy dominant.

The gay scene had its charm, I suppose. I chuckled. Still, it’s a mixed bag. This brings the count of clearly gay guest characters on the show to three: two of whom died unpleasantly, one of whom represents a caricature of what many people think (fear) the gay community looks like. Once again, the gay content is plumbed solely for laughs and goes unbalanced by any kind of positive, well-considered portrayal. See a clip of the brief scene below.

Where is a respectable gay hunter who manages to survive an episode? Or even just a gay good guy guest star? They don’t have any problem killing gay characters and cracking gay jokes, but they can’t be bothered to be inclusive and thoughtful?

And all this closely following one of the most gay-negative episodes of the entire series run, “Heaven and Hell.”

This ep’s gay content has an interesting implication. It suggests one or more of the older magicians might be gay – how else would they know about the gay S&M club? No, it’s not a slam dunk. It may just be they’re “plugged in” enough to know about the dungeon club, and I suspect I’m attributing a level of thoughtfulness to the plot that probably isn’t there. The writer probably said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if…” and didn’t take the line of thought any further. She likely never gave a single thought to the sexual orientation of the magicians.

In fact, I’m not going to take that line of thought any further, because it just gets into its own mixed messages (the asexual gay stereotype, the gay villain, bad things happen to gay people, etc).

I’m disappointed in the series this season. I’m put off by the negative gay content, the mytharc is losing my interest, and I’m starting to wonder if Supernatural peaked with Season 3. Mytharc aside, even the standalone episodes haven’t been up to par (with a couple of exceptions, like “Yellow Fever,” but even that one had some serious weaknesses).

This ep has quite the catchy title, though.