Supernatural - A Look Back at Season 6

In case you missed it, this past Friday marked a pivotal day. The Supernatural summer hellatus was half-way over. Yay! Or … we’ve only gotten through half of hellatus so far. *sob*

I thought now might be a good time to take a look back at season 6, now that some time has passed to get some perspective. The above word cloud was created from comments on this site throughout this past season, using Wordle.net. I pulled all comments from one article or episode poll from each month (September through May). I tried to select a variety of post topics and types of articles. If the comments ran to more than one page, I only used the first page of comments. The word cloud displays the most frequently used words in the text, with the word size being proportional to the frequency. (I swear I didn’t do anything to make “Sam” and “Dean” the same size.) Since I’ve had some extra time on my hands recently, I had asked Dark for posting privileges on Spoiler TV *evil laugh*, so I’ll be writing occasional articles, at least while things stay slow.

So back to season 6 –

Overall Story:

I'd give it 4/5 stars. I liked variety, the twists and surprises, and I loved what Ben Edlund did with Cas’s story in The Man Who Would Be King. I’d count among its strengths the continuity in how Heaven, Hell, Sam and Dean’s stories took off from where the failed Apocalypse left off. After season 5, the writers were left with a finished story, but instead of relaunching the series with an unrelated monster, the writers instead created chaos from the aftermath of the near-miss of the potentially catastrophic event. While some have criticized the fact that the angels’ civil war took place mostly off-screen, I thought that decision was wise in that it kept the focus on Sam and Dean. We only watched the parts that directly involved them, and I don’t think the audience as a whole would have wanted to watch an epic battle of angels in a fight that wasn’t the Winchesters’. There was also continuity in the way that Cas’s downfall was built on the personal issues he had been struggling with since season 4 – his absent father (God), the difficulty of angels adapting to choice, and Cas’s conflicted and strained relationship with Dean.

Personally, I like that the Supernatural story has expanded to include Heaven, Hell, and concepts such as death and fate. Having such a wide-ranging focus inspires debate on issues such as destiny, free will, spirituality, and the human soul. There's a danger that the mythology can grow so big that it becomes unmanageable, and the continuity suffers. And the show has shown signs of this. But the step back from the Apocalypse, and shifting the Heavenly focus toward human souls this season, succeeded in continuing the Heaven storyline while also pulling it back to put the focus back on humans, rather than the angels.

Areas where I think the story fell short included the dropped threads (Samuel Campbell, Heaven’s nukes, Sam's powers), answers that seemed too easy (killing Eve with Phoenix ash after stumbling upon the solution in the Campbell family library), and a lack of focus on meaningful character development for the two leads. While there was a bit of this with the Dean/Lisa/father storyline, that storyline suffered because it seemed to end about five episodes in, and then be revived later in the season in a forced manner. And while Sam’s storyline looked promising at the start of the season, the soulless arc never told us much about who Sam is and what he went through after falling into the cage. When Sam did get his soul back, it came without his memories. The horror of Sam's experience was built up so much that we were told that he couldn't function if remembered the truth. If he can't remember, he can't learn and grow. And this was his state through most of the season.

Pacing:

I thought this is where the season mostly fell apart, and I’d give this 1/5 stars, with the one star for having good enough sense to end the soulless Sam arc before the winter hellatus. The first half dragged after episodes 5 and 6, when we learned that Sam didn’t have a soul and that Dean and Sam seemed to be making little progress in getting it back. And then when we came back from break, instead of the Sam story moving forward, it stalled again until the finale, due to the wall that blocked his memories. The Eve/alphas storyline moved too slowly in the first half and then was rushed and given too little time in the second half. Finally, the Cas/Purgatory storyline seemed to drag through most of the season, only to be forced to share time with the Sam/wall story in the finale.

I think this show does a lot of things very well, but I think if its going to have so many large story lines going on at once, it needs to drop the habit of past seasons of stretching every storyline until the end of the season. In my opinion, Sam’s Hell experience should have been fully addressed mid-season so that he was given the time he needed to work through the angst and emotion properly, unless there was a practical reason for the delay, such as an important memory that had to be held until the finale. That way, Sam’s story could have taken a back seat when the Eve and the Purgatory stories heated up. I also think Sam’s story was cheated in Like a Virgin. I should have been bawling when the real Sam finally returned from Hell. Instead the focus was split between Sam’s scenes and Dean’s argument with a rock. Apparently, Sam’s Hell memories will be addressed next season, but I fear this is dragging on too long and a lot of fans will want to move onto something new in the fall.

As for Eve, she should have been introduced earlier. Even if this story was intended as a red herring, the mythology around the origin of monsters is interesting, and the dragons and their backstory really needed their own episode. The mythology around Eve also should have been better developed and given more time. Cas got a fair chunk of screen time in the last few episodes, but if the Sam storyline had been dealt with earlier, and if Lisa and Ben hadn’t made their Let It Bleed reappearance, there could have been more time spent building up the suspense around the angel war and around Cas’s deal with Crowley coming to a head.

Sam and Dean Moments:

I would give this 3/5 stars. Dean’s angst over Sam’s state in the first half of the season was comforting to watch. At least someone cared about Sam. And they had some nice brotherly moments in the second half, especially when it was demonstrated that unlike soulless Sam, souled Sam had Dean’s back time and again. But this category lost points with me for the especially painful soulless Sam moments - at one point I was convinced Sam was going to try to kill Dean in his sleep - and for the fact that their closeness seemed almost a little forced near the end of the season, compared with previous seasons when they weren’t afraid to argue or act like typical brothers.

Angst/Humor Balance:

I'd give it 2/5 stars. I like both angst and humor when they’re done well, but the sense of alienation and emptiness that pervaded the whole season detracted from both when they were present. There were funny moments in episodes like The French Mistake and Frontierland, and even Clap Your Hands if You Believe (I don’t have an issue with the fairies). But for me, the discomfort of watching Sam so broken sucked out all of the enjoyment of the first half, and it was hard to appreciate the humor. The funny episodes in the second half aired at times when I was getting anxious to see more Eve or Heaven's war action, so I was distracted, and again, the timing wasn’t right.

I think angst plays an important role in a drama. It's why we relate to and care about the characters. There was a lot of Dean angst when Sam was soulless, but without the brotherly bonding moments, a lot of this felt empty. The Dean angst over Lisa and Ben came too late in the season. I expected more earlier, when Dean first moved out, but instead got it long after I had stopped caring about that storyline. And there was little Sam angst this season because of the soullessness, and then the wall. The only angst I really connected to this season revolved around the break up of Dean and Cas's friendship.

High/Low Points:

For me, the high points were the Cas/Crowley interactions in the last few episodes. It may be wrong, but I loved watching the usually docile Cas turning badass and doing what he felt needed to be done, regardless of the cost. With this said though, I’m nervous about where the Cas/God storyline is going. The low point came in All Dogs Go To Heaven, when we heard Sam once again try to explain to Dean that he really didn’t care about him. At that point, I was done with that storyline and didn’t need to hear it again.

So that’s where I stand. Any thoughts? How would you rate season 6?