SPN 6:15: The French Mistake

[oselle]

Nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, and in fact I laughed at a lot of it.

I think it worked because they kept the meta confined to mocking themselves -- the show itself is depicted as a somewhat out-of-control, low-rated mess, Sera Gamble has to endure being told that she's "new" and Jared and Jensen probably "don't know who she is," Jared and Jensen are a couple of extravagant rich brats who can't stand each other, Misha is constantly Tweeting his fans, Eric is a shallow Hollywood jerk (who very delightfully gets slaughtered by the real angel).

Genevieve must have been thrilled because she not only got herself back on television but had yet another chance to pimp her real-life wedding photos (and on primetime TV nonetheless!), thereby reminding everyone THAT SHE IS MARRIED TO JARED in case we missed her being credited as "Genevieve Padalecki" instead of "Genevieve Cortese." Part of me suspects her portrayal of "herself" as an insufferable "Real Housewife"-style bitch was not necessarily the over-the-top parody that she probably thought it was. I somehow have little trouble picturing her decorating her house with giant Andy Warhol-style portraits of herself.

Best of all, though, was that real clip of Jensen as baby-faced Eric Brady from his soap opera days. That was absolutely frigging priceless.

The only little thing that I think might have been a dig at the J2 slash obsession was the title, "The French Mistake," which refers to a flamboyantly gay musical number in the movie Blazing Saddles. Urban Dictionary describes a "French Mistake" as "When an otherwise straight male is persuaded to, or on a whim in the heat of the moment, engages in a homosexual act (anal sex) of which he later regrets and is ashamed."...which of course could very adequately describe the plot of numerous J2 RPS fics. However, the entire "French Mistake" scene in Blazing Saddles takes place at the end of the movie, when the whole story surrealistically erupts into an outlandish meta parody of moviemaking, which is what this episode was about, so you can take the title either way. If it was a dig at J2 RPS, it was at least a clever one.

Plus it was tied (albeit thinly) to an actual season-relevant plot about the war in heaven. So all in all, not the fan-kicking disaster I thought it was going to be. You win this one, Show.

Comments

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

ayup, far better than last week, no question. this is the first time in several weeks i didn't want to throw something at the tv, or yell at it, or turn it off...

its a shame all edlunds characters are caricatures at heart but even his caricatures of characters have more character than anything we've seen recently that was supposed to BE character development...

so its a win...

i guess...

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Edlund knows how to write a good script and has a deft hand at comedy. In anyone else's hands, an episode like this would really have been a trainwreck.

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

it was definitely funny...

sort of like brazil...

and it actually advanced the plot...

its just...hard...to stay attached to a show that makes itself into a self mockery all the time now...

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

the ruby thing was actually pretty funny, but does she really call herself padalecki now? i thought actors all kept their original names as part of their 'brand'...or was that just for THIS show...

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the show this week. Everybody was good in their roles, and I loved watching Sam and Dean try to act as Jared and Jensen. Misha was cute, and it was fun to see him as a parody of himself, as well as dour Castiel.

And the slaughter at the end was an over the top wonderful surprise.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I know. Eric Kripke going down in a hail of bullets. I think that was fan service, don't you? :)

[mulder200.livejournal.com]

Wow! It's such a relief to hear the eps. didn't suck.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

It really did not suck. Color me surprised.

[morganslady.livejournal.com]

I thought they did a great job. It could have gone either way, it went toward the plus side..

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Yep. Thank goodness. Maybe they realized that overtly mocking their fans isn't the best business strategy.

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

only mocking the 'very few' of us who watch...3 mil, is that such a small number? really? REALLY? world wide? 3 mill is more people than i've ever met...but ya know its not LOST or CSI...so its mock worthy...

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

o.m.g.!!!

is the title the clue to why j and j aren't TALKING ANYMORE in this universe??????????????


you are so smart to look that up and i am so smart to figure that out :>

[oselle.livejournal.com]

is the title the clue to why j and j aren't TALKING ANYMORE in this universe??????????????

I suspect the Jared and Jensen not-talking bit was a little jibe at all the recent rumors that there has been "trouble on the set," and not a reference to an actual "French mistake" between the two of them.

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

edlund has always enjoyed playing the mocking gay love card, and the context is...pointed, barbed even...like most of his humor...

i'm just saying its pretty anvilicious, with the title and the constant references to j2 and them not talking, jensen never having been to their house since jared got married, the constant cracks gen refers to about her being 'ruby'...

um...

[martin-rose.livejournal.com]

In a confusing moment of art and reality intersecting, I ended up checking twitter after I read this post -- I think Misha Collins actually tweeted his lines to coincide with the show, as though it were actually happening. That guy is a laff riot. For the curious, you can see his posts here: http://twitter.com/#!/mishacollins

I still have yet to see the newer episodes, as I stopped watching a couple weeks back, but this one sounds like a crack up . . .

[oselle.livejournal.com]

It wasn't just funny, it really was the best episode of the season so far, IMO. Really, I'm stunned.

See, THIS is why I can't quit this show. They'll piss me off or bore me to tears week after week and then they'll pull out one little gem. Bastards! Can't they just be good all of the time, or at least MORE of the time??

[ann-tara.livejournal.com]

Part of me suspects her portrayal of "herself" as an insufferable "Real Housewife"-style bitch was not necessarily the over-the-top parody that she probably thought it was. I somehow have little trouble picturing her decorating her house with giant Andy Warhol-style portraits of herself.

*cackle*

And ITA. >;D

But all in all, a good time, and a hint that there is actually an interesting story line out there - unfortunately, all happening off screen while Gamble was indulging in her myopic obsession with Spambot.

We got Dean/Cas eye-sexing FTW, and somehow Edlund remembered that he used to like writing a strong heroic Dean. I didn't think I'd ever see him write Dean like this again. Who knew he still had it in him.

Given that I was actually dreading this episode, I was happily surprised - and relieved. ;)

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I was dreading this episode from the moment I heard about it -- what a pleasant surprise it was in reality.

I would even go so far as to say it was the best episode of the season so far. Thanks to Edlund's skillful writing, the episode wasn't just an exercise in meta for the sake of laughs. The meta was used as a springboard to to bring out some things that most of us love about the show, but that we haven't seen a lot of this year -- most notably, a Sam and Dean who not only care about each other but who also know that what they do has value. In this ep they both presumably had the choice of remaining in an alternate reality where they were privileged, wealthy and safe from harm...and they rejected it. It was better to go back to their own world, where they were needed and their work mattered, than stay in one where they were just a couple of actors...and where they weren't even brothers. I loved Sam's last line, "at least we're talking." This episode was more thoughtful than any other episode has been all season -- that it was a meta episode makes that even more amazing.

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

yes, insane as it sounds, the satiric 'real' setting made sam and dean seem much more real instead, and what they did and said at the end resonated with me far more than the sappy hollow words from last week...

they make a difference, that's what counts, and they are together and chose this life...

can the show hold onto that moment? make it work?

[mangokulfi.livejournal.com]

I think it worked because they kept the meta confined to mocking themselves

Yep this. I actually enjoyed this quite a lot and I was crying with laughter during the "acting scene." Both Js and Misha did an awesome job and clearly had a great time with this script.

But I continue to be sad that all the cool heavenly civil war stuff is happening off screen. This is only the second episode of the entire season that focuses on it which is just ridiculous in my opinion.

he only little thing that I think might have been a dig at the J2 slash obsession was the title, "The French Mistake," which refers to a flamboyantly gay musical number in the movie Blazing Saddles. Urban Dictionary describes a "French Mistake" as "When an otherwise straight male is persuaded to, or on a whim in the heat of the moment, engages in a homosexual act (anal sex) of which he later regrets and is ashamed."...which of course could very adequately describe the plot of numerous J2 RPS fics. However, the entire "French Mistake" scene in Blazing Saddles takes place at the end of the movie, when the whole story surrealistically erupts into an outlandish meta parody of moviemaking, which is what this episode was about, so you can take the title either way. If it was a dig at J2 RPS, it was at least a clever one.

Yeah that's what I thought too and I would add the animosity between "Jensen" and "Gen" as part of the satirizing of J2.

However, I find it deeply disturbing that anyone on the show knows enough about the ins and outs of the tinhat obsession to be able to do such spot-on satire of it.

[shoofus.livejournal.com]

disturbing, yes...unsettling even...we're not writing to our little group of friends here, nope, everything we do is 'out there' in the wide wide world and now its on mainstream (more or less) prime time tv...subtext, but not very covertly covered up...rps of the ACTORS LIVES...i mean...its typical edlund one-upmanship, no one can write a trope that he won't top...and it seems like the show's writers are almost in a competition to beat out the fanwriters these days, or at least meet us toe to toe and slug it out for ownership of the universe/s spn and its characters inhabit, but still...i wonder how j and j really feel about this, being...told to act this out...even in the total absence of the two j and j characters from that universe...its...still the elephant in the room

[mangokulfi.livejournal.com]

Edlund actually did a really good job of writing J2 without ever referencing it. It's there for people to see if they are aware of the that element of the fandom but if you had no idea, it would just be seen as the usual on-set friction between dueling divas. Though JP did come off as having the more massive ego, what with the McMansion "art" and the trophy wife.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I actually enjoyed this quite a lot and I was crying with laughter during the "acting scene."

That was like a great vortex of meta within meta. Jared and Jensen playing Sam and Dean trying to play Sam and Dean as if they were Jared and Jensen. Probably one of the few moments on this show that approached actual brilliance.

However, I find it deeply disturbing that anyone on the show knows enough about the ins and outs of the tinhat obsession to be able to do such spot-on satire of it.

Well, I don't think you really need to be that well versed in tinhattery. Just the basics will do: 1) Jared and Jensen are secret lovers 2) Hence they only married under duress 3) Hence there must be animosity between the Js and the wives.

What I find disturbing is how shocked and/or fascinated they always seem to be by both J2 and Wincest. Don't they know that slash of both the FPS and RPS varieties is pretty much a staple of any fandom? To me it's so commonplace that it hardly even seems worth satirizing. I got much more of a kick out of watching "Eric Kripke" enthuse over how Misha's murder had earned them the front page of Variety.

[oxer12.livejournal.com]

I really did not want to like this episode, but I LOVED it. It was so hilarious and inspired. I was seriously rolling at the "acting" scene, and at the "crying, attractive man." Ha ha!

Best episode of the season by far. Except for Mrs. Padalecki. Gag.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

The long scene with Genevieve was the only part of the episode that was not all that funny and in fact, felt forced, as if it had been thrown in just to give Genevieve another chance to show off her wedding photos. I really wonder if Edlund had planned to include her in the episode all along or if someone like, say...her husband suggested that it might be a laff riot and they just went along with it. Alas, Mrs. Padalecki's acting skills are no better than Ms. Cortese's were, so that made her scene even more out of place in an episode where everyone else was really projecting it to the cheap seats (in a good way!).

The "acting" scene was pure gold, and Jensen once again revealed what a talent he has for comedy. I went into this episode already composing every outraged word of my anticipated "HATED IT!" post and was astonished to find myself bursting into laughter more than once and feeling all warm and fuzzy about Show for the first time in...I honestly don't know how long.