Problematizing Supernatural: Roundup Edition!

8x13: "Everybody Hates Hitler"

This is a rather frustrating episode for me, because on the one hand: Dean gets hit on by a guy! And he doesn't shake the guy off with a pithy, slightly gross comment! But on the other hand: The guy isn't actually into him, and Dean also doesn't necessarily flirt back. I'll admit, my response to the scene at first was mostly, did that actually just happen? But it did, and it gave me just a dash of hope that the Show may actually out Dean as bi. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, though, because the Show has always been consistently gross about queerbaiting.

8x14: "Trial and Error"

This one is a little better, in that the main WOC in the episode is a powerful character who retains her agency, and, despite showing interest in Dean, doesn't become gross when he rejects her advances. Instead, we're treated to a metaphor of her masturbating -- dancing to "I Touch Myself," if I remember correctly. I'm quite pleased with this episode to be totally honest.

8x15: "Man's Best Friend With Benefits"

This episode seems to be intent on utterly negating the good things about "Trial and Error." Because this episode is all about a black woman who is the familiar to a white man. She literally wears a collar and turns into a dog. The Winchesters objectify her, and the climax of the episode is two white guys fighting over possession of her. She then proceeds to go off at the end of the episode with the winner -- her witch from the rest of the episode, of course. The hypersexualisation of Portia also means that she has a gratuitous near-sex scene with her witch while he is chained to a bed. A lot of the WOC I follow were grossed out by the portrayal, and I'm probably going to link to some posts in the next few days, so watch this space.

8x16: "Remember the Titans"

This episode...it was okay, except for one massive screwup with the Greek mythology they tried to use. They used a nonexistent relationship between Prometheus and Artemis in order to get Artemis to kill her father Zeus. They reduce the virgin hunter goddess to her relationships -- one sexual -- to men. Like, gross.

8x17: "Goodbye, Stranger"

I am still exceptionally bitter about this episode. Killing off Meg Masters is one of, narratively and representationally, one of the worst decisions the show has ever made. Meg was the longest-lived recurring character on the entire show. She'd been there from the beginning, was our first glimpse of what Hell was truly about. She was a mirror, first for Sam, and then for Dean and Castiel. She was the Old Guard of Hell, all about loyalty to the cause -- her father Azazel's cause, her lord Lucifer's cause. She believed in it wholeheartedly, only to have the mighty Plan fail, to lose her family and her God to the vagaries of Free Will. So, she adapted. She changed and grew. She was Crowley's opposition, the opposition to this new King who came from nowhere, who changed everything and inspired no loyalty and had no cause but his own increase in power. She fought him tooth and nail, and I had wanted her to bring him down. Killing her off, also, killed off the most developed female character we had. Once again, we have a victim shaped like Woman, and she's already a demon. I will likely always be bitter about this episode, to be honest.

8x18: "Freaks and Geeks"

This episode almost feels like an apology for "Goodbye, Stranger," in that we get the return of Krissy Chambers, the hunter's daughter from 7x12's "Adventures in Babysitting." In this episode, we see Krissy as the vanguard of the next generation of hunters -- a generation that doesn't have to devote their entire lives to vengeance. Krissy and her team have lives beyond the hunt in ways that the Winchesters never did. They're smart, they're fast, and they're up-to-date. Krissy is strong, and much more well-balanced than the Winchesters have ever been. She kills the man who had her father killed, but not with a gun or a knife or anything except her own mercy. And we don't see that, not in a culture of hypermasculine hunters.  In Sam and Dean's world, you need to be physically powerful and intimidating.  Not so in Krissy's world -- she's changing the story, and that?  That's brilliant.

8x19: "Taxi Driver"

This episode was kind of a problem for several reasons.  Reason #1, the first person to die is a POC.  He was also a monster, so yay, double-othering again.  Reason #2, Benny dies.  Again.  And he stays in Purgatory this time.  Which means that Dean is permanently down a friend now, instead of just being temporarily down a friend through his own (grossly self-sacrificial) actions.  Dean needs friends, needs people in a really consuming way, and so it's always bad if he loses one, especially one as good and uncomplicated at the core as Benny Lafitte.

So yeah, that's the roundup.  I'll be posting a post on Charlie Bradbury tonight as well, and then tomorrow I'll put up a post on tonight's episode.  I'm finally making headway on catching up with this project, which is excellent.