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In the previous episode “Changing Channels,” Eric Kripke and company took a number of sublimely funny shots at various other genres in television. Now they turn that same sharp eye on themselves, as Dean and Sam find themselves tricked into attending a “Supernatural” fan convention.
For those who haven’t been following along, last season introduced Chuck, a modern-day prophet who turned his visions of the Winchester’s various crusades into a series of successful horror novels. The greatest thing about Chuck, played to dead-pan perfection by Rob Benedict, is how utterly banal he is. Sam and Dean have their obsession with fighting evil, the fans have their obsession with Sam and Dean, and Chuck just kinda… is.
And the fans at the convention were truly awesome, from the ones dressed up as random series villains like Hookman or the Scarecrow, to the legions of duos dressed as the Winchesters, all reciting lines from the show in deep, raspy voices. And they behave like almost all true-blue fans do, obsessing over minutiae, snarkily criticizing any aspects they dislike and enduring joke after joke about being afraid of girls and living in mom’s basement. And then there’s Becky, the superfan who brought Sam and Dean into this personal hell, and is probably the only woman in the world truly meant to be with Chuck.
Of course, this is a show about fighting the supernatural, so the convention’s LARPing game (live-action role-playing for the uninitiated) turns out to be based on a real haunting involving the ghosts of an old woman and several very evil children. When Hookman runs afoul of one of the demonic tots, his complaint about the overuse of creepy children in horror films and TV shows echoes my own. It’s getting to be a cliche, but I forgive it this time because it’s done reasonably well and, really, it’s not the point of the episode anyway.
One of the things I loved about this episode is how the fans get a chance to save the day. The duo of Fake-Sam and Fake-Dean that the brothers team up with (and are forced by these in-character fans to play the parts of Rufus and Bobby, of course) start off as great comic relief, but prove to be quite a bit more. Not only are they canny enough to realize that a real ghost means real danger, but their willingness to jump in anyway makes them almost as heroic as their idols.
They also get the episode’s most important lines, as they lay out why “Supernatural” is so important to them and how exciting it is to be part of it. For Dean, who spends nearly all his time bitching about his horrible job and horrible life, it’s a not-so-subtle lesson in perspective. Of course, that does nothing to lighten his hilariously uncomfortable reaction to finding out that Fake-Sam and Fake-Dean are much more than just friends. For slash-fanfic writers it’s a dream come true – well, almost. For the rest of us, it’s a great laugh.
And yet my favorite moments are all Chuck. It would be easy to overdose on the character, but the show keeps him around just enough to stay entertaining. His attempts to keep the convention goers safe by prolonging his Q-and-A session are wonderful, offering many call-backs to moments from the series as well as number of great lines about his own less-than-impressive life. That it ends with him getting a genuine hero moment (as well earning the affections of Becky away from same) just made me smile. I hope he comes back for at least one or two more episodes this season.
Thankfully, the episode closes with a lead on the Colt, the gun that could maybe sorta kill Lucifer himself (jury’s still out on that one). Besides being a nice character moment explaining why Chuck’s career as a novelist isn’t all an negative for Sam and Dean, it signals that after a few weeks of stand-alone stories and tangential adventures, “Supernatural” is getting ready to dive headfirst back into the Apocalypse. As much as I’ve loved the humor in the last few episodes, I’m eager to get back to kickin’ unholy ass.
