Supernatural has been on the air for ten seasons, making it the longest-running sci-fi show in television history. This milestone tenth season is now available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital HD.
Supernatural’s tenth season differs from earlier ones in its smaller scope, focusing largely on the characters’ arcs rather than the pursuit of a specific “Big Bad.” At the beginning of the season, Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) is a demon, partying with Crowley (Mark Sheppard). His younger brother Sam (Jared Padalecki) goes to still-unclear lengths to locate Dean, while Castiel (Misha Collins) hides the effects of his waning borrowed grace, and helps search for Dean. In “Soul Survivor” (10×3), Crowley force-feeds another angel’s grace to Castiel, ensuring that the angel can handle Demon!Dean, who’s quickly become a liability for the King of Hell. In this same episode, the demon cure, coupled with a grace hug from Castiel, re-humanizes Dean, bringing the touted “Year of the Deanmon” to an abrupt end.
Dean still carries the Mark of Cain, though, and that comes into play at different points of the season as he fights to control its effects. Sam bows under the looming threat of losing his brother to the Mark, and Castiel works out his loyalties between heaven and humanity while facing the threat of his again-dwindling grace. Meanwhile, Crowley works through his mommy (Ruthie Connell) issues. I enjoy character studies and anticipated the narrowed-scope of the season, but in real-time, the progression of these narrative arcs wasn’t always smooth. Some episodes, like “Girls, Girls, Girls” (10×7) are overloaded while others, particularly some Monster of the Week installments, like “The Things They Carried” (10×15), don’t quite hit the mark. The end result is an uneven season of notable hits and some unfortunate misses.
A well-packaged season of a show emphasizes the strengths of the episodes that hit, like “The Executioner’s Song” (10×14), and offers viewers a way to re-frame ones that missed. While the season ten set doesn’t negate the overall narrative’s unevenness for me, the special features are well chosen and offer intriguing insights into the show’s creative process and fandom.
Supernatural — “Black” — Image SN1002a_0098 — Pictured: Jensen Ackles as Dean — Credit: Liane Hentscher/The CW — é 2014 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved
Supernatural: The Complete Tenth Season includes all 23 episodes, selected episode commentaries with selected guest stars and writers, unaired scenes, and several featurettes. The latter include Jeff Maynard’s Supernatural Fans and A Very Supernatural Special, which originally aired on the CW network prior to the season ten premiere. As always, there’s a gag reel, which is fun. (This year, though, I cringed at the use of footage from Charlie’s funeral pyre — It will always be “too soon” to joke about that narrative-induced death!) The season ten materials are packaged with cover art of Demon!Dean and Gadreel-as-Ezekiel!Sam. Personally, I wish that Dean and Sam (and Castiel and Crowley) graced the cover.
The featurette Supernatural Theatre: Staging the 200th Episode is one of my favorites. It includes interviews with “Fan Fiction” director Phil Sgriccia, writer Robbie Thompson, composer Chris Lennertz, and various cast members. We’re also treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the “high school” production’s rehearsals. According to Ackles, the “musicalish” episode “most certainly exemplifies the phrase that Kim Manners told me, which was ‘give them what they want in a way they won’t expect it.’ And this most certainly gives them the musical they wanted in a way they wouldn’t expect.” I enjoy hearing directly from Sgriccia and others about the challenges and creative process of the episode.
It’s no secret that Supernatural relies on narrative parallels and mirrors. According to writer Robbie Thompson, “What you hope for as a writer is you get an episode that either reflects or refracts what’s going on with our main characters.” Thompson wrote “The Executioner’s Song” (10×14), one of season ten’s strongest episodes and a pivotal installment in the Mark of Cain mythology arc. Thompson and others appear in the The Winchester Mythology: Battling the Mark and the Blade; this featurette essentially frames the season narrative and explains the origins and development of the Mark of Cain storyline.
The Winchester Mythology positions Sam and Dean as trying to help each other, specifically when Sam hides his efforts to find a cure for the Mark and Dean hides how bad the Mark’s effects actually are. I find this really interesting because while I agree with this reading to a point, the featurette’s narrative reinforces one of season ten’s weaknesses: We simply don’t “see” enough of the characters’ progression. In Dean’s case, for example, there is foreshadowing that he’ll go dark, and we get glimpses of what that might mean, but he seems to go from mostly normal with a side of cranky to homicidal in a blink – It doesn’t help that his spiraling is clumsily set off by the Stynes’ introduction and Charlie’s death. Some might even argue that Dean wouldn’t have spiraled if Sam and the rest of the Scooby gang hadn’t lied and enabled Charlie’s death, and so on. The Winchester Mythology makes me wish even more fervently that season ten had delivered more fully on its narrative promises.
Supernatural — “Reichenbach” — Image SN1003a_0148 — Pictured: Jensen Ackles as Dean — Credit: Diyah Pera/The CW — é 2014 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved
Season ten ends with Dean choosing to save Sam, and Cas (and Sam) choosing to save Dean; these decisions unsettle the natural order, leaving Death dead and the Darkness free. Are our heroes still heroes? The Winchester Mythology touches on the characters’ motivations, but it doesn’t directly address the potential darker implications of where they stand. Former Supernatural writer Adam Glass characterizes Dean as “always [going to] be a hero…No matter what, he’s always going to sacrifice everything for his brother, or for the world, or for anything.” But what happens when Dean essentially sacrifices the world for his brother? When Castiel essentially sacrifices an innocent’s life for Dean’s?
According to Ackles, “[The characters saying that] we do more harm than good, I think, would be them giving up. And I don’t think that that’s in their blood.” Collins offers, “[Sam, Dean, and Castiel] are all kind of broken men, in a way. We’ve been through the wringer, and we’re just trying to keep on. And we all have to forgive one another and forgive ourselves, and through that forgiveness, there is redemption.” I don’t know if these readings were given with full knowledge of season ten’s ending or not, but regardless, how will season 11 treat the repercussions of Sam, Dean, and Castiel’s decisions? For that matter, will there be repercussions? Will we see their heroism unequivocally restored or will it be assumed? Will they seek forgiveness and achieve redemption?
We’ll find out when the eleventh season of Supernatural premieres on Oct. 7 at 9 pm on the CW network. I’m hoping for our characters to be redeemed, and for Sam, Dean, and Castiel to carry on as Ackles describes: “We fight for each other and then we turn and we face whatever it is that we unleashed or unlocked or created or unveiled… that’s really the moral of the story…keep fighting, support one another, fight for one another, and never give up.”
Supernatural: The Complete Tenth Season is available in stores and via online retailers now.
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