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Supernatural: Ghostfacers
Episode reaction and a little spoiler-free speculation about how certain things in the episode relate to upcoming events.
Overall I enjoyed the episode despite the way it played Corbett's crush on Ed for laughs. (Why, oh why is gay anxiety such a staple for humor in meta episodes dealing with nerds/fanboys? This reminded me a lot of some of Nerd Trio episodes of Buffy, and later episodes with Andrew, too. Um, male writers? I think your dirty underwear is showing). But because I really do have the big love of meta spoofs like this, and because Hell House was one of my favorite first season episodes, I was able to look past that and enjoy the episode. And at least they made Ed have to overcome his anxieties to save Corbett from the loop, and then let Corbett save the day by getting the bad ghost. And they had a cool female character who didn't get killed, so yay! A certain amount of progress.
I had trouble hearing "How gay love can pierce the veil of death and save the day" as anything but mockery of fans, though I'm glad to see people are overlooking the mocking and just embracing it unironically, because, um, YEAH. At least in our heads, that's what's going to happen.
I am increasingly convinced that is not what's going to happen on the show, though. [I am UNSPOILED. This is all speculation. Feel free to join in but please don't spoil me!!!] I thought it was very interesting that we got some firm dates in this episode for the first time in a long time. The episode is set on February 29, and Dean has two more months to live. And I just saw in someone's review the comment that Sam had actually been resurrected on his birthday which is, I'm pretty sure, May 2. That gave me chills as I was rewatching the episode, because what happens in this episode?
A birthday party of the dead. Literally, Sam is coerced into a birthday party, complete with a cake, party hats, and dead guests, where he is bound and forced to watch the death of Corbett as he begs and pleads Corbett to "stay with me, stay with me." But it's all futile, and Corbett gets killed anyway by the ghost while Sam can do nothing but helplessly watch. Not only that, but Corbett then gets trapped in a loop of pain--something one of the Ghostfacers later describes as a "soul bound in torment." (Sounds like hell to me).
And if Corbett is foreshadowing Dean's fate, I wonder if the creepy janitor is foreshadowing Sam's. We've already seen that loss of Dean--and loneliness--is going to fundamentally warp Sam, and Sam reported that the janitor had that psychotic level of loneliness too--not Travis Bickle this time, but Norman Bates. And that can go two directions. On the one hand, psycho janitor couldn't take the loneliness, and killed himself--but that didn't end his, or other's suffering; it just perpetuated it further, until Corbett (Dean) had to sacrifice himself to end it.
On the other hand, psycho janitor could be foreshadowing a slightly different future for Sam. Did anyone notice the parallels between our villain of the week and Azazel's last host? Ok, the main parallel is that both were hospital janitors, but there was a strong physical resemblance as well--in fact, for a minute when I was first watching the episode I thought it might actually be Azazel.
I don't know, maybe the Corbett/Dean and janitor/Sam parallels are strained, but I can't read the morbid birthday party as anything other than direct foreshadowing that Dean is, in fact, going to die and go to hell on Sam's birthday.
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to." Pardon me over here, weeping in the corner. (I am obsessing about Dean going to hell in a very unhealthy manner, I swear. Rereading all the fictional ways in which he gets saved as I become more and more convinced he's not going to be. *Sobs*). And yes, I know he'll get out somehow, if only because this show only has two stars, and besides, Corbett got released from his suffering, too, but this is still breaking my heart slowly and painfully. I'm really not sure how I'm going to make it through the next few episodes, not to mention the summer hiatus.
Overall I enjoyed the episode despite the way it played Corbett's crush on Ed for laughs. (Why, oh why is gay anxiety such a staple for humor in meta episodes dealing with nerds/fanboys? This reminded me a lot of some of Nerd Trio episodes of Buffy, and later episodes with Andrew, too. Um, male writers? I think your dirty underwear is showing). But because I really do have the big love of meta spoofs like this, and because Hell House was one of my favorite first season episodes, I was able to look past that and enjoy the episode. And at least they made Ed have to overcome his anxieties to save Corbett from the loop, and then let Corbett save the day by getting the bad ghost. And they had a cool female character who didn't get killed, so yay! A certain amount of progress.
I had trouble hearing "How gay love can pierce the veil of death and save the day" as anything but mockery of fans, though I'm glad to see people are overlooking the mocking and just embracing it unironically, because, um, YEAH. At least in our heads, that's what's going to happen.
I am increasingly convinced that is not what's going to happen on the show, though. [I am UNSPOILED. This is all speculation. Feel free to join in but please don't spoil me!!!] I thought it was very interesting that we got some firm dates in this episode for the first time in a long time. The episode is set on February 29, and Dean has two more months to live. And I just saw in someone's review the comment that Sam had actually been resurrected on his birthday which is, I'm pretty sure, May 2. That gave me chills as I was rewatching the episode, because what happens in this episode?
A birthday party of the dead. Literally, Sam is coerced into a birthday party, complete with a cake, party hats, and dead guests, where he is bound and forced to watch the death of Corbett as he begs and pleads Corbett to "stay with me, stay with me." But it's all futile, and Corbett gets killed anyway by the ghost while Sam can do nothing but helplessly watch. Not only that, but Corbett then gets trapped in a loop of pain--something one of the Ghostfacers later describes as a "soul bound in torment." (Sounds like hell to me).
And if Corbett is foreshadowing Dean's fate, I wonder if the creepy janitor is foreshadowing Sam's. We've already seen that loss of Dean--and loneliness--is going to fundamentally warp Sam, and Sam reported that the janitor had that psychotic level of loneliness too--not Travis Bickle this time, but Norman Bates. And that can go two directions. On the one hand, psycho janitor couldn't take the loneliness, and killed himself--but that didn't end his, or other's suffering; it just perpetuated it further, until Corbett (Dean) had to sacrifice himself to end it.
On the other hand, psycho janitor could be foreshadowing a slightly different future for Sam. Did anyone notice the parallels between our villain of the week and Azazel's last host? Ok, the main parallel is that both were hospital janitors, but there was a strong physical resemblance as well--in fact, for a minute when I was first watching the episode I thought it might actually be Azazel.
I don't know, maybe the Corbett/Dean and janitor/Sam parallels are strained, but I can't read the morbid birthday party as anything other than direct foreshadowing that Dean is, in fact, going to die and go to hell on Sam's birthday.
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to." Pardon me over here, weeping in the corner. (I am obsessing about Dean going to hell in a very unhealthy manner, I swear. Rereading all the fictional ways in which he gets saved as I become more and more convinced he's not going to be. *Sobs*). And yes, I know he'll get out somehow, if only because this show only has two stars, and besides, Corbett got released from his suffering, too, but this is still breaking my heart slowly and painfully. I'm really not sure how I'm going to make it through the next few episodes, not to mention the summer hiatus.