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hellerfanboy91 · 2 months ago

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Supernatural Revisited 5x15 Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

This is one of a tiny number of Supernatural episodes to features zombies, but it is the only one I can remember which does anything remotely 'graphic' with them. Perhaps the writers chose to stay away from zombies for the majority of the show's run due to The Walking Dead airing at roughly the same time as Supernatural series 6-15. This episode was broadcast a few months before zombies became the fad of the 2010s, and the zombies are more than mindless flesh-eating corpses. I got very vague Pet Sematary vibes from this episode. That being the case, there were parts which worked well and hit the right emotional beats, but unfortunately those parts were surrounded by more than a bit of stupidity. Perhaps my recent foray into other television shows has spoilt me, but this episode and the previous one do seem to rely quite a lot of characters acting like they have the cognitive capabilities of a cabbage. One or characters acting mentally deficient for plot purposes is acceptable, but for so many people to be as thick as two short planks is far too convenient.

To summarise, Dean and Not-Dean are drawn to Sioux Falls (where Bobby lives) by a news report of a supposedly dead man killing a guy in a camper van. In spite of the sheriff and Bobby attempting to get them to leave the case alone, Dean and Sam find out people's dead family and friends are returning. One of these people is Bobby's wife Karen, and another is sheriff Jodie Mills' son, which is why they tried to get Dean and Sam to go away. At first, the dead seem relatively normal, but as time goes by they begin turning into actual zombies and eating people. Bobby shoots Karen int he head at her request before she turns bad. The episode ends with the zombified dead attacking and trying to kill Bobby and Dean, only to be rescued by Sam (and Jodie) at the last minute. At the funeral for Karen, Bobby says Karen saw Death when she was raised from her grave, and that the whole thing was supposedly an attempt on Bobby's life.

In theory, this is not bad, but the execution fell short. It is good that Bobby got to have the limelight for an episode and Karen was made into a person the viewer can care about rather than just a bit of backstory. That Bobby was extremely defensive of his wife was understandable, as was Jodie getting on board with the undead due to her dead son being back. But Bobby telling Dean and Sam to 'get off his property' after saying Karen would need to be killed was exceedingly over the top and rather stupid. Jodie and the rest of the people whose dead were brought back were also suicidally stupid in taking no precautions whatsoever around the undead. Even had none of them ever seen a zombie film, the fact that the undead did not sleep and were unhealthily pale should have been enough to alert them to the fact that something was very wrong.

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Of course people would be overjoyed to have their dead wives, husbands, and children back, so much so that rationality might fly out the window, but for a seasoned hunter like Bobby to let his guard down and to drive away Dean and Sam was less excusable. I can understand Bobby wanting to be the one to shoot Karen when she turned since she was his wife, but he is in a wheelchair and not best able to defend himself or run away if need be. Asking Dean and Sam to leave things to him but stick around just in case would have been far wiser. It also would have avoided his threatening them with a gun, a scene which made it harder for me to see Bobby as a substitute dad. He lied to them about something very important, then treated like complete strangers he was ready to kill. That scene felt as thought Bobby is just using Dean and Sam to make himself feel good and showed me again why I have such a hard time liking him.

Here I go again about my other hyperfixations: Boyd and Kenny in From feel much more like an adoptive father and son than Bobby, Dean, and Sam do, and there are so far only 30 episodes of From compared with 327 episodes of Supernatural.

Probably the main reason why I forgot this is a 'zombie' episode is that the undead rarely act like Romero zombies. The old lady apparently ate her husband, but I had to rewatched the scene with the old lady at half speed and pause it for the half-second her husband's corpse was visible on screen and. Jodie's son killed and started eating his dad (which happened very quietly and quickly. No screaming at all) but the other zombies in the episode show no inclination towards eating people. In fact, Clay strangles his victim to death in the cold open, and the zombies who attack Dean and Bobby at the end do not seem too interested in biting. In fact, the one who overpowers Dean seemed far more interested in pulling him by his leg somewhere than in taking the opportunity to bite him. The six or seven who trap Dean and Bobby in the cupboard also do not seem interested in eating. They really did feel more like revenants or draugs or something similar.

The cupboard scene, by the way, was a little too farfetched. I struggle to believe Bobby and Dean would survive that unscathed. The zombies had their full human strength, if not more so, and would have been able to tear the two apart. They were 28 Days Later zombies, Dean and Bobby were screwed.

The point of the zombies is supposedly to be an attempt on Bobby's life. Or an attempt at breaking his spirit in order to stop him preventing Sam saying yes to Lucifer. The first of these -- an attempt on Bobby's life -- is very unsatisfying. A sniper would have done the job much quicker and with far greater certainty than raising a load of dead people who might possibly kill Bobby. The second -- breaking Bobby's spirit -- is far too convoluted to be a decent explanation. It also contradicts what the episode shows the viewer, that being just as many zombies going after Dean as Bobby. A zombie actually goes for Dean first, in spite of the fact Bobby was alone and relatively vulnerable. Why attack both if Bobby was the target? This makes it seem as though Dean is equally important. That being the case, the episode provides no satisfying answer as to why it happened. I suppose no satisfactory answer needs to be given, and it would have been enough for Lucifer to just want to cause a bit of chaos.

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In my original notes for this episode made four years ago, I wrote that Death's absence builds him up as an unseen presence, vaguely similar to Sauron (especially in the books where he is not even an eye on top of Barad-Dúr). However, Paula wrote in her analysis that his continued absence built expectations up too high and that his final reveal would probably not satisfy the viewers (she wrote her analysis as series 5 was being broadcast 15 years ago). Death's ultimate reveal was probably not what the viewers expected, and some would likely have been disappointed. As usual, I was not thrilled with Supernatural's insistence on demythologisation and making divine entities humans with superpowers. But at least in the case of Death, it worked well, as Death is not evil at all in the show. He is inevitable and inescapable, but by no means malicious. He is in fact a little whimsical and quirky, reminding me of Terry Pratchett's Death more than a little. Dean and Sam even essentially do the Ritual of AshkEnte at some point in series 7, but to less humorous results than in Discworld.

Additional stupidity can be seen near the beginning. After invading the undead Clay's home and being told by the wife that she had called the police, Dean and Sam decided to not hoof it in order to avoid getting locked up. Instead, they stayed and had a nice little chat, then left via the front door in no particular hurry. This is not seasoned hunter behaviour. I might expect that from Sam, but not Dean and Sam.

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Which brings the conversation back around to Jodie. Jodie is one of my favourite recurring characters in the show, and has a more motherly relationship with Dean and Sam than Mary did. Perhaps the reason her maternal relationship with Dean and Sam (especially the former) is that it is never stated and never needs to be. She cares about them, offers them a safe home on occasion, and has their back when needed. I am glad she makes more regular appearances than Ellen and Jo, perhaps one or two episodes a year, but more appearances would have been appreciated. It is also a shame that Wayward Daughters never got picked up, but whatever story the writers wanted to tell with that failed spin-off could have been worked into Supernatural. I love Dean as much as the next homosexual, but given the sheer amount of filler episodes in the show right up until the end (WHY Baba Yaga three episodes before the end?) a few more story-focussed episodes with long-running recurring characters would not have gone amiss.

As a sidenote, she reminds me a little bit of Billy's mum in Gremlins whom the viewer expected to come a-cropper in the film but actually ends up being one of the most bad-ass people in the film. She stuck a gremlin in a blender!! And used a tv chair as a shield.

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This show gives me whiplash sometimes. 5x14 My Bloody Valentine ended with Dean praying for help in bearing the burden on his shoulders while Sam went through withdrawal in Bobby's panic room, but in this episode there is not a single mention of either of those events. In fact, one could have skipped 5x14 entirely and not missed anything. Paula wrote that she thought this was a lore episode which would have pay off later on, but it really did not. In shows like this, not everything needs to be linked to the überplot, but this close to what was supposed to be the end of the show it feels out of place to have yet another MOTW episode. The part about Death raising the dead and giving Karen a message to give to Bobby also felt like an afterthought, and the episode would probably have been better without that.

But speaking of überplot, next up is 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon. This does not directly connect to the story of series five, but is vital for understanding how some aspects of the Superverse work. It also sets things up for much, much later in the show.

This ends the analysis for this time, but I will leave you with this: in 5x18 Point of No Return, Dean tells Cas 'the last time someone looked at me like that, I got laid.' Well, Digger looked at Dean like that. Does that mean they boned? Probably not, but probably is not no.

And that’s all, folks.

You can read more of my analyses here:

Series 1

Series 2

Series 3

Series 4

Series 5

Sundry

You can read Paula’s review here and Demian’s here.

P.S. I will be very busy until Midsummer teaching 30 hours of Finnish a week. Energy and time will be at a premium, so I expect to only manage to publish one or two, possibly three, analyses before the end of June. Thank you for your patience while I have been so slow with series 5. Analyses should become more frequent starting at the beginning of July. P.P.S. I think the reason I STILL can't reply to my own posts is that I've been shadowbanned. My blog's probably been falsely flagged as a bot, so I'll have to get that sorted. Sorry I still can't reply to comments, but I do read them :D

#supernatural revisited #edvard's supernatural guide #spn meta #supernatural #meta analysis #spn #spn 5x15 #s05e15 #dead men don't wear plaid #jodie mills #bobby singer

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