oselle | SPN S6 Spoilers (Reply)

I've mentioned my coworker Lois, who is a big TV geek and SPN fan. She spent part of her weekend reading reports from ComicCon and the first thing she said to me was, "You're not gonna be happy."

Now, I prefer to go into a new season of SPN completely unspoiled, but since Eric Kripke essentially ended the series with his it's-all-about-me "swan song," I've been kind of curious/nervous about what direction they'll take with Season 6. So I told Lois to lay it on me. And let me tell you something...I think Sera Gamble must've read all the critical things I've said about her and decided to sketch out a season uniquely crafted just to piss me off. Me.

Some of this stuff sounds so bad, so much like my "worst case scenario" for Season 6, that I'm wondering if Jared, Jensen et al were just throwing red herrings out there -- that's possible. I know sometimes they do that. But I think most of this stuff is legit. Some high points -- or low points, depending on your point of view:

1) The season will pick up one year after the events of "Swan Song," with Dean now warmly ensconced as a happily married family man and no doubt driving Ben to all those soccer games that he was supposedly always dreaming about.

2) In spite of looking so menacing, the Sam who was lurking there under the Flickering Streetlamp of Doom was NOT Evil!Sam, not Possessed!Sam -- he was just Good Old Sam. Good Old Sam will have somehow busted himself out of hell within a few days? weeks? of his apparent demise. Seemingly none the worse for wear, Good Old Sam is so stirred by the sight of HappyFamily!Dean whilst lurking menacingly under the Flickering Streetlamp of Doom that he generously decides to give Dean a year off to tie the knot, honeymoon at Sandals and comfortably settle down into cozy suburban domesticity. However...

3) The beginning of Season 6 will mirror the beginning of the series -- only with Sam now in Dean's position of having to intrude upon his brother's happily-ever-after for some as yet undisclosed reason.

4) As predicted, the show will return to a Season One-ish MoTW format. Both Jared and Jensen claimed to be excited about getting back to "the show they signed on for" and about the prospect of once again shooting things in the face on a weekly basis. Nevertheless...

5) Probably for no other reason than to keep Misha Collins around, the show will attempt to weave the MoTWs with some kind of heaven/hell mythology. No doubt there will be some blather about how Lucifer walking around for a whole year released a scourge of vampires and werewolves and evil spirits and general nasties upon the earth.

6) Jensen will finally get his directorial debut with a "Bobby-centric" episode. While it's very nice that Jensen gets to direct (a perk that I'm sure came along with that "Brinks truck of money" he so tactfully said would be the only thing to convince him to sign onto Season 6), I am dismayed by the prospect of episodes in a non-ensemble show that revolve around supporting characters. This is a sure sign of a show that is now on the far side of jumping that proverbial shark.

I'm sorry, but all of the above just sounds like ASS. The Js and Sera Gamble claimed that the show "won't forget what has happened" by returning to a MoTW format, but I think that's exactly what they're going to do. How the hell else are they going to return to the comparable innocence of two guys on the road "saving people, hunting things" after all they've been through?

Also, there was no hint of how they're going to deal with Dean's wife and son, but we clearly have only two choices -- kill them, or turn Dean into a guy who only hunts as a hobby. A sort of weekend sportsman if you will.

I guess there is a third choice: he can leave them. This would be a viable option if Sam came back "wrong" and Dean had to leave Lisa and Ben to save them. But if Sam is just Good Old Sam, then Dean has no reason to abandon his family without looking like a huge jerk, and that brings us back to the two very unattractive options already described and of course, opens up my months-ago rant about how Gamble really wrote herself into a GIANT FUCKING CORNER with this whole Lisa-and-Ben bullshit, and there's no way to get out of it without screwing Dean over.

As far as screwing Dean over, I'm more uncomfortable than ever with what Gamble's going to do with his character, for which I don't think she has ever had any real affinity. I'm not even going to touch the whole marriage business, let's talk about that so-called "role reversal" instead. Oooh, now Sam gets to fuck up Dean's life the way Dean fucked up his! Right? Wrong -- because Dean didn't fuck up Sam's life. Sam's domestic bliss with Jess was never going to happen. The YED didn't kill Jess because Dean had walked back into Sam's life...he did it because he had to make sure that Sam's domestic bliss with Jess was never going to happen. Unless they can come up with a parallel situation, what you've got in Season 6 is not "role reversal," it's Sam literally fucking up Dean's life -- a life that is not just some college-boy dream but one that he has been leading for a whole year -- and for no apparent reason except to go and chase some run-of-the-mill boogeymen. Since Gamble has always been ready to give Sam a free pass for anything he does, I'm sure she's busy patting herself on the back over her role-reversal cleverness and does not see what a false equivalency she's setting up.

I wonder how long it'll take before a Ghostfacers episode pops up? And there won't even be a good soundtrack! Ugh. Looks like my Friday-night yoga isn't going to get postponed too often after all.