Welcome to a feature called "Writing Blind." In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time. I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season. This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.
The writer's strike could have not come at a worse time creatively for Supernatural. Normally, I think Supernatural can get by and maybe even benefit from airing less than 22 episodes per season. But the second season ended as quite the set-up for an amazing third season. Dean had just sold his soul to bring Sam back to life and over 100 demons escaped from hell.
So a few natural developments occur as a result of this: Sam deals with the fact that he should be dead, Dean prepares for his life to end in one year, and they both try to find a way to get Dean out of his deal. In addition, they need to try and kill the demons who escaped from hell. This is a lot to deal with and I'm sure the writers wanted to space it out accordingly. But then after 12 episodes, the writer's strike happened, interrupting their story. They were able to finish four more episodes for the third season once the strike happened, but the end result makes this season feel rushed.
This season introduces several new characters, who unfortunately were limited by the budget in how the series could use them. Sterling K Brown (making a name for himself currently on The People vs. OJ Simpson as Christopher Darden) was supposed to appear in more episodes, but due to another commitment, only appeared in two. Nonetheless, he features a darker side of what Sam and Dean do. He kills at any cost anything that is not human. Thus, he is dedicated to killing Sam, because he is supposed to be dead.
I really liked Sterling K Brown in this role and am very much not surprised at how he's killing it for American Crime Story. It's disappointing that he couldn't be in more episodes, as he provides a moral counterpart to what the two brothers do. Ultimately, he's clearly set up as a season-long adversary in his first appearance, it just didn't work out. It adds to the rushed feeling of this season when he dies in his second appearance. He would have been an interesting villain and turning him into a vampire was sort of an easy out for the brothers to kill him.
It also introduces another character who I think the writers wanted to keep, but again budget reasons meant they needed to drop her character for the next season. Lauren Cohen plays a thief who steals supernatural elements for a profit. She's basically like a spy who will sell anything to the highest bidder, no matter what the bidder will do. This presents a natural problem for the brothers, as the item in question is usually evil. I guess the writers were really interested in making characters who present big problems for Sam and Dean, but who they couldn't really kill because they weren't demons or explicitly evil.
Apparently, the studio was interested in Supernatural making their stakes more epic for the third season, which creator Eric Kripke warned would mean they'd need a bigger budget. The studio allowed it, but the first episode went way over budget, so the studio backed down. Thus, they were forced to make an epic story, but were extremely limited on the budget. This leads to the writers still figuring out what to do in the first few episodes as they needed to deal with those two conflicting things.
Nonetheless, Kripke believes that the season started hitting its stride on its eighth episode and I think I'd have to agree with him. The eight episode is "A Very Supernatural Christmas" which is an unusually sweet episode as the brothers decide whether to celebrate Christmas, with Sam decorating the motel room at the end, wanting to celebrate it. Of course, it also features a creepy demonic couple so it's not all sweet.
"Dream a Little Dream of Me" puts Bobby (the great Jim Beaver) in peril as he's in a dream that he can't get out of and will eventually kill him. The dream puts you in your worst nightmare and makes you face your worst fear. This leads to Dean confronting the fact that he is not ready to die yet, even as his time appears to approaching. "Mystery Spot" is maybe one the greatest Supernatural episodes ever as Sam has to constantly watch Dean die in a Groundhog Day type episode.
The midseason finale - the last episode before the strike - "Jus in Bello" has the brothers searching for the Colt that Bela (Cohen) stole from them in the last episode. But she tips off recurring character FBI agent Victor Henrikson, who is determined to catch them. But they got bigger issues as they are locked in a cell, with a demon running around killing people and possessing them, and no weapons. So they need to convince Henrikson they are really demon hunters and then try and save everyone in the police station. It's a great setup for an episode.
This season also introduces the bumbling idiots who make "Ghostfacers," an endless source of comedy from Ben Edlund. The last two episodes feature Sam and Dean trying to find the Colt that can kill anything and trying to save Dean before his time runs out. Since this is a television show, we suspect Dean isn't going to hell, but woe and behold, the season ends with him in hell for a lifetime of misery. It's a hell of a cliffhanger, one that the show would have to necessarily back down from.
I didn't find a way to add in Ruby, the demon who reveals that demons are simply humans who have lost their soul in hell. But Ruby still remembers being a human so she's not quite the same as most demons - who you can kill free of conscience because they are pure evil. She is wonderfully acted by Katie Cassidy. I don't know why they couldn't get Cassidy back for the fourth season, but I sure wish they had because her replacement is dreadful. Alas, a conversation for the next season.
Everything about this season felt rushed to me even though it didn't necessarily hamper my enjoyment of it. I spent most of the first few episodes wondering how they were going to wrap up so much plot in less episodes and the later episodes thinking they could have done more with the premise they had set up. But they were stuck by a limited budget, a grand idea, and a strike-shortened season, so they did the best they could.
Grade - B+
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