Rejoice! My post(s)! She is done! Thanks for reading.

Shows I will miss when they end next year cont’d:

Supernatural

The future of the show is still up in the air after Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki’s contracts expire. A recent Entertainment Weekly article hinted at the show’s creator Eric Kripke pulling the plug. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that next year will be it. Five seasons. One of the steadiest performers the CW has ever had amongst more widely advertised stuff (Gossip Girl. XOXO.) And most save for the hardcore fans know it exists. Talk about quietly building a reputation while flying under the radar.

Supernatural in its unassuming way has been steadily building a compelling mythology that has grown deeper and richer with each succeeding season. It began simply enough. Dan Winchester returns to recruit his Stanford-attending brother, Sam, into helping find their lost father, a hunter of the supernatural. The Winchester family was just your normal nuclear family when a demon killed the mother of the Winchester boys and they’ve been hunting demons, spooks, vampires, ghouls, ghosts, shape shifters, and occasionally whacked-out humans ever since.

Fans got a pretty good idea what kind of scary goodness they were in for when Sam joins along with Dean in his crusade completely when he discovers the girl he loves has been killed by the demon that took their mother. “We’ve got work to do,” he intones solemnly as the credits flashed on the screen.

But Eric Kripke really let us know what was up with the first season finale. Excellent episode. Father and sons are all cramped safely in Dean’s mode of choice, his ‘67 Impala…and are hit in a collision with a demon-possessed truck driver.

From then on the stakes be raised even higher with episodes that in the words of Television Without Pity would “make a sudden leap from ‘highly enjoyable’ to ‘Fucking. AWESOME!’” Aside from the supernatural enemies, Dean and Sam, also have to evade the long arm of the law which gets noticeably longer after a shape shifter frames them for murder and bank robbery. Taking off the disguises of SWATs, the Winchesters contemplate just how much worse things have gotten. “We are so screwed,” Dean decides. If the demons don’t get ’em, John Law will. Cue Styx’s Renegade and smash cut to black. That’s Kripke in a nutshell.

But like Whedon and Moore, Kripke seems to expand his canvas while keeping the focus tightly on his characters. This last season was really where Supernatural hit its stride. Now instead of hunters taking on the forces of evil, the Winchesters find themselves caught on the eve of Armageddon. The revelation that an angel was the one who saved Dean from Hell and charged him with stopping the end of the world was incredible. But more incredible was how Kripke didn’t romanticize the angels. They were warriors first and foremost. And they served God but not man. In fact, some angels even resented it. Which led to Lucifer being cast out. Don’t worry. He promises to turn up beginning nest year. Then the war of Heaven and Hell can truly begin.

Kripke was hesitant to include God and the heavenly host, until he realized he had run out of story with his scary monsters. Some truly angstful stuff is addressed. Sam slips further into the dark while Dean is torn between his love for his brother and serving the light. Some of the angels are so disillusioned by having to rely on faith and middlemen when it comes to communicating with the “big guy” that they’ve decided–as so many disillusioned people–that God has left the building. And therefore they want the end of the world to happen to prove they can defeat Satan without God. But methinks Kripke’s going to have God show up in one way or another. Maybe kind of quirky, like George Burns. Unassuming. Genteel. But in the end very powerful. We’ll see. I doubt Supernatural will be wholly humanistic.

That’s what has elevated the show to understated greatness. The boys run into a man who knows their lives forwards and backwards. Even with some nice meta about the sexual subtext to Sam and Dean (“That’s sick!”) But once we discover that the dude is actually a prophet it takes on a whole ‘nother tack. Things can’t just be explained away in a supernatural way anymore. Now there might actually be a divine undercurrent to the whole story that wasn’t there before. Which adds new layers to previous seasons.

That’s not to say the show hasn’t made mistakes. For every rogue demon hottie Ruby–who honestly was pretty disappointing in her newest incarnation (read subpar new actress)–there’s been boring bounty hunter Bela. But the show more often than not hits home with its recurring stable of actors, among them Misha Collins as Dean‘s no-nonsense guardian angel, Castiel, Alona Tal as the feisty and sexy hunter helper, Jo, and Jim Beaver as father-figure hunter pal, Bobby. With this revolving door of characters the core and essence of the show, the brotherly bond of Sam and Dean, is never sacrificed. The fantasy is grounded in familial reality. When the audience relates with what is happening, that’s usually how you keep the viewers tuning in.

Back to the state of this-worldly affairs, there are conflicting reports about Supernatural’s future. Eric Kripke’s contract with the WB is due to expire while the show’s stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki have both said they would be willing to come back. I’m hoping after next season’s showdown with the Prince of Darkness that Supernatural ends with a bang. Money’s a big changer of minds, but Lucifer is pretty much the top of the heap. And it would be a huge, heartbreaking disservice if Kripke pretends he’s Carter and tries to drag out a show that should have ended much earlier. I learned my lesson. Enjoy it while it lasts. I’m more than content about Supernatural ending, especially if it ends at its best.

That’s it. Some good stuff coming this fall. But keep watching. Because the rate things are going down shows of these ilk will be like diamonds in the rough. Winking in a morass of overwhelming cultural sludge. Then gone before you can blink.

TallGent