Supernatural "Fan Fiction" Review: The Show Must Go On

Supernatural S10E05: "Fan Fiction"

First of all: THEY DIDN'T SING. JENSEN ACKLES AND JARED PADALECKI DIDN'T SING AND I'M GRUMPY ABOUT IT.

...but other than that, Supernatural's ode to itself and its fans, in celebration of 200 episodes of angst, daddy issues, classic rock, and bromance, was a celebration in the purest sense. It was also the first meta episode about fangirls that didn't leave me feeling like the butt of a mean-spirited joke. There wasn't a Becky Rosen in sight; instead, Marie and her cast (a.k.a. the hostages of her Supernatural-obsessed whims) presented a genuinely thoughtful exploration of Supernatural's endurance and fandom—its beautiful, weird, creative, loving, and sometimes frightening fandom.

A missing teacher sent eager-beaver Dean and reluctant-to-start-hunting-again Sam to Michigan to investigate. The culprit was the goddess Calliope, who was so enraptured with fangirl Marie's vision of Supernatural that she would protect the production at all costs. It sounded kind of noble and awesome until she got to the part where she'd be eating Marie once the play ended. HOW MUCH IS YOUR GREAT AND TERRIBLE VISION WORTH, MARIE? ARE YOU READY TO SUFFER FOR YOUR ART?

Yeah, so, Sam and Dean weren't really down with letting that happen even if Dean was horrified by the whole thing and Sam really just wanted to geek out with the other tech kids. Tech kids represent! (Once upon a time, I totally smooshed Mother Abbess with a curtain during an afternoon matinee of The Sound of Music. 'Tis a fond memory.)

The case itself was really just a frame in which to hang this love letter, and oh, what a lovey-dovey letter it was. Whenever fan fiction comes up, there's usually a debate over its legitimacy as an art, as well as its right to exist at all given the potential infringement on someone else's work. 50 Shades of Poorly Written Domestic Abuse Fantasy hasn't helped matters, but from Neil Gaiman to S.E. Hinton, there is a growing list of beloved professional authors who've not stated that fan fiction is A-OK, but claim to indulge in it a little themselves. (Eat it, Anne Rice.)

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but reinvention doesn't have to be an insult. Robots and tentacles in space aren't the sort of thing I would expect to see on Supernatural, but in a universe that's given us a suicidal, sentient teddy bear... well, why not? It's this willingness to accept the strange and the "out there" that has endeared the show to its audience for 10 seasons, and in "Fan Fiction," we learned that the acceptance goes both ways. This is everyone's sandbox. There's plenty of room for canon and fanon to coexist. Dean was totally creeped out and horrified by Marie's interpretation of Supernatural, but he still respected her right to see things differently. "I have my version and you have yours," he said, and frankly, as long as we all play nice here on the internet, we can all believe whatever we want about Castiel's sex life and just what exactly "erotically codependent" means when it comes to the Winchesters. Yes, we know they're brothers. But they're really hot brothers. With issues. And if this was HBO they would have banged by now.

Or at least that's one interpretation.

Isn't sharing the sandbox fun?

I had my doubts when the deets about this episode first started to emerge—not so much the musical aspect, because it's hard to do a bad musical episode unless you're Grey's Anatomy—but because, like Marie, I tend to not care as much for the meta episodes as I do for the alcoholism-inducing angst fests. That was the point of "Fan Fiction," though. We can all take what we want from the story that "has everything." and it's okay if you have your favorites and your headcanons. Just don't rub sand in the eyes of everyone else.

Also: CHUCK. OMG CHUCK. <3<3<3

CASE NOTES

– "There is no singing in Supernatural!"

– "I'm gonna need 50 jello shots and a hose-down to get this stink off of me." I know the feeling, Dean.

– The girls' rendition of "Carry on my Wayward Son" done Rent-style was actually really pretty, yo.

– Calliope said that Supernatural has everything and it's not "meandering dreck." Let's be honest, though: Sometimes it's meandering dreck. *coughSeasons6and7cough*

– I don't know how to feel about the Samulet's return. On one hand I was a little choked up. On the other, it seemed like a hand-wavy way to bring it back and it sort of lessened the impact of when Dean threw it away to begin with. Like, "I don't need a symbol to tell me how I feel about my brother." Okay, but the symbolism of throwing the Samulet away was made very clear at the time. So is it a symbol or not?

– Sam and Dean passive-aggressively fighting over Castiel was priceless.

– Idk. I always pronounced it "Dee-stiel."

What did you think of the 200th episode?