*Disclaimer: Opinions stated in article belong to the author and may not reflect those of WinchesterBros.com
Author: Jolea Harrison
Website: http://samanddeanwinchester.net/
Many of you recent fans of the show are in the same place now, that I was in 6 months ago, newly discovering one of the best television shows on air. I’m talking of course, about Supernatural. It’s breathtaking how fast Show has woven itself into every fiber of my being. I frequently ask myself how I could have missed it and not watched for the past 8 – going on 9 years that the show has been on. You, new fan, are now deep in the throes of trying to catch up, searching online for anywhere you can find all the episodes, including the current season. I know just how you feel.
Waaaay back in July of 2013 – okay, last summer – my kids finally convinced me that I HAD to watch this new show they had started watching just a few months earlier. Only the show wasn’t new at all – there were already 8 seasons of it, with another one on the way. I resisted for quite a while, but the kids were absorbed by it, watching it on a constant and continual basis. They fought over who got the TV all the time. I had to resort to letting my daughter use my big iMac just to keep peace in the house. I heard the screams, from the show and them, and I started wondering what they had gotten into.
Little did I realize…
Um…yeah. Where was I?
…For several years, I’d heard of Supernatural by osmosis – some of my friends were watching it and would comment every once in a while about what was going on, but I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t think it was a show I would like. Haven’t ever been a big fan of things that go bump in the night. I live, after all, in a haunted house, so I had that crap in real life. I used to have the worst nightmares, night terrors actually, where I’d wake up crawling backward trying to escape the monster ( a black rider in one case). Or I couldn’t get to sleep because the damn devil was threatening to get me, as in take my soul, any time I closed my eyes. This went on for years, due in large part to watching the Exorcist at a young age and having an overactive imagination. I made a decision pretty early on that scary movies, scary TV shows, scary anything, just wouldn’t ever be something I got into.
All of that changed when I met Sam and Dean Winchester – hunters of everything I’ve ever been afraid of. They faced the monsters of my dreams and slayed them! It took all of three episodes, streaming without commercials on Netflix, and I was hooked.
Not just hooked, but completely drawn in. Yes, I’m officially obsessed.
Supernatural resonates with me in a way that no other television show ever has before. I discovered quickly that the show is so much more than just two brothers who hunt and kill the baddies. Supernatural delves into tough topics of love, loyalty, right, wrong, good, bad and all the shades of grey between, and does so in a way that is hugely compelling. It puts a magnifying glass on two men and how they relate to one another, how they take on an enormous challenge, how they can be silly and goofy and deadly serious.
It shows us how guys can really be when it’s just two guys; raw, irreverent, raunchy. They have character defects that are depicted in sometimes excruciating detail. They have weaknesses and strengths that we viewers get to examine (often in excruciating detail!). They are portrayed in such a way to make them both the hero and the villain and very real. They aren’t perfect. They’re just a pair of guys out to save the world.
Oh yes, it’s all about the brothers.
Sam and Dean have travelled a horrifying road their whole lives, (in the most badass car ever!) and yet they still find the capacity to put all that aside and join in for a day of LARPING. From Sam losing his shoe, to Dean barking like a dog at the mailman, these two face the world of terrors together (and sometimes apart) with humor and unfailing determination.
Oh sure, yes, they get derailed every now and again. Just like every day people in the ‘real’ world, in their every day real lives. I have a brother and a sister who I fought with more than a few times, didn’t talk to a time or two, grew apart from and grew back together with, so it’s easy for me to relate to these two. Being the youngest in my family, I can understand Sam and his desire to be taken seriously and trusted to make the right decisions for himself. I’m also a single mom of two kids where I’m the master of the household and they get to do what I tell them to, so I relate to Dean just as easily, and maybe a little more. I get the whole ‘protect at all costs’ mentality he walks around with. I’m a mother/father/baby-of-the-family combo and it is so much fun (and sometimes heartbreaking!) to see that dynamic portrayed so masterfully by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, written and produced by a dedicated group of super talented artists who make the show what it is.
Awesome. Just friggin awesome.
I devoured 8 seasons of Supernatural in record time – for me at least. It took four months and by the time Season 9 premiered last October, I was there, all caught up, ready to see what was coming next, and oh boy, Show has not disappointed.
It’s been riveting. It’s been funny. It’s been scary as all get out. It’s been gut wrenching and I’ve spent more time laughing, yelling, screaming, crying (sobbing!) at my TV than most people would think is dignified. But seriously, I don’t care that my kids, and probably my friends too, think I’ve gone completely off the deep end. It happens to be true.
I’ve fallen madly in love with the whole package, and I fully intend to stay that way. And, oh yeah, I don’t have nightmares anymore. Sam and Dean; they are the good dreams.