Bergamot

Yes, I am assuming that. Even in the pilot episode; I didn't expect to see as much of Dean as we do see in the trailer that has been released. But maybe Dean gets in the Impala and catches sight of the green army man in the door, and it reminds him of Sam.

Yes! Hooray for classic rock! Since Carlos mentioned Jim Morrison, maybe something by the Doors. Maybe "Break on Through (to the Other Side)" or "Riders on the Storm"? 😀 I also would like it if the show went into the effect that fighting in the Vietnam War had on John, just a little bit. Not as a big storyline or anything, just as part of what shaped him. During the late sixties and early seventies, the existence of the Vietnam War was like a raw bleeding wound here, both for the vets and for the country. (Full disclosure: my father was a Vietnam veteran.)

True! Unless for some reason he feels he won't get the whole story. I guess we may have to wait for more clues to solve this Dean mystery!

That makes sense. And he plans to share what he has learned with Sam when Sam joins him in Heaven.

Me too!! Feeling very emotional, to be honest. I am telling myself very sternly to remember that this is not Supernatural. It's NOT. It's related to Supernatural, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And I am going to try very hard to remember that, and not hold it against this show that it's not, but let it be it's own thing! YES! That would be great! Carlos does reference Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison -- wouldn't it be cool if they could get something like that for the show? Although sadly I think that by the time this takes place (1972) all three of those were dead from drug overdoses. (But their music lived on!) I also think it would be fun to see some clothes from that era. Not that they need to turn into the Mod Squad or anything, just something to show that we are back in that time.

Yes it does!!!!! I'm so excited to see this!!!!! 😀 I was glad to hear that apparently Butcher will only get Supe powers from one of the vials for 24 hours, and that it looks like he is being handed just 3 vials of Compound V. I don't blame him for wanting to "level the playing field", but I like the Boys as the underdogs fighting against overwhelming odds. Plus if there is a time limit on Butcher having powers, it adds to the suspense! Butcher being commended for his good behavior because he "even followed Hugh Campbell’s orders without strangling him" made me laugh! I love the interactions between those two!

Since the equivalent happening to John (his learning the truth about the supernatural before Mary's death) actually occurred on the show, I don't see how this could be considered a violation of Supernatural canon. Having your memory wiped by an angel is very much a part of the show's canon. I am pretty sure that the idea behind The Winchesters is that we will basically end up back at the same place where the original show started. But just to play the devil's advocate, even if it didn't, if this is the sticking point, let's ask that question. How would it change the show? What really important aspect of the show would be altered or "ruined" somehow? In other words, how would it damage the narrative of the show if John knew about hunting before the night Mary died? I'm not talking about all the fanfiction stories of John learning to hunt right after Mary's death. I'm talking about what was actually on the show. We saw flashbacks to John hunting when Dean and Sam were children, but do you think that no longer would have happened? Would John not have become obsessed with getting revenge for what happened to Mary? Would he not have traveled from place to place with Dean and Sam, living on stolen credit cards, staying in crappy motels, hunting and searching for answers and raising his sons to be warriors? I think he would have. I think he would have become the same obsessed, embittered, secretive man we saw on the show after Mary's death. I think he would have fought with Sam when Sam went away to college, and I think he would have left Dean behind to track down the demon the way that we saw at the beginning of the show. I think that John, Dean and Sam would have still been the same characters that we knew. On the other hand, if we were shown that something else, something that actually made Supernatural the show it was, would be changed because of what happens on The Winchesters -- for example if we were told that John was now going to save Mary when Azazel came that night, or if we were told that John was going to settle down and work as a mechanic after Mary's death, or if we were told that he was going to put his children in an orphanage before he went off to hunt -- then yeah, I would say that it was changing the narrative in a way that I find unacceptable. But I have seen nothing at all to indicate that this is what they have in mind. And especially considering who is making the show, I am not worried that it is going to happen.

Yes! I would absolutely be there too! 😃 That would be a fascinating story to see. Yes! This is an excellent summation of what pulled me into the show as well. Me too. I hope we get a chance to see it. Yes, this is pretty much the last thing I would be concerned about in regard to The Winchesters. As a big fan of genre shows and movies, I don't find this to be a problem. The X-Men movies, the Star Trek universe, the Star Wars universe, among others -- they are full of prequels. I am used to this way of telling a story. For me that would be like saying that I can't watch the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series on the Disney channel because "we already know how the story ends" for him. I have known how the story ends on Tatooine since 1977, and I am still looking forward to seeing it! I don't know if this is a good metaphor or not, but for me it is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You know from the picture on the box exactly what the final result will look like, but the pleasure comes from seeing how all those pieces get fit together to make that picture. It can be very satisfying!

So this is Latika and Carlos? Ooo, Carlos is gorgeous! If I remember correctly, the script has Carlos singing at one point, and this actor can really sing -- I found a couple clips of him on YouTube. I am interested to see what they do with the characters.

I like this idea! I guess it is also possible that The Winchesters might draw some new viewers to be interested in Supernatural. Anything is possible, and I think it would be nice. The Supernatural fandom (the "SPN Family" 🙄) has become so bitter, entitled, and toxic that it would be like a breath of fresh air to have some new voices join in.

Yes. It was evident from her very first episode that Charlie was a Mary Sue, an authorial insert by the writer of his dream self. I wanted to like her (it is hard for me to dislike a character who showed love to Dean as she did), but she was just so special and sparkly and perfect in a fanfictiony kind of way. The worst mistake they made with her, as far as I'm concerned, is that somehow, quite unbelievably, she instantly became an expert hunter, apparently just by Googling it. It invalidated the whole story of Dean and Sam's lives. But Mary being a skilled hunter in The Winchesters does not necessarily make her a Mary Sue. The problem with Resurrected Mary is not that she was a Mary Sue, but that she was just so poorly written. They showed her making mistakes and hurting people, but then kept glossing over what this showed about her. They kept telling us that she was not just a good hunter, but that she was the best one ever -- but they never showed us anything that proved this. They kept insisting that Mary loved her sons, while all we saw was the evidence that she didn't. Too much telling and not showing with the character. So I think that both Charlie and Resurrected Mary were failures as characters, but for different reasons. I liked Young Mary, though, so I would be willing to give her a chance and see what they do with her. With all the mind wipes and time-traveling that we saw, I admit that it is hard for me to keep things straight. But I would really like it if the prequel could explain this aspect of the original story that you mention: why after making the deal to bring John back (not exactly something that would slip your mind), Mary was so unprepared and taken totally by surprise when Azazel showed up on the night of her death. Once we found out about her background, that didn't make sense any more.

Do you mean the Hunter group in Supernatural in general, or in The Winchesters? In the prequel there are only two female characters listed so far out of four characters, so I don't think I would describe it as being full of uber-female characters. The first is Mary, who has been hunting all her life. Like Dean and Sam, she was raised as a warrior, so it wouldn't be surprising if she is a tough, expert hunter. And the other is Latika, who is described this way: At least as far as this description goes, I don't have a problem with the character. She kind of sounds more like a Willow to Mary's Buffy, if you know what I mean. Carlos doesn't sound much like Xander though, so I don't think that they will end up being the Scooby gang.

Good point. It's too bad though that those actors wouldn't fit any more. I especially liked Amy Gumenick as young Mary. I liked the way the character was written too. I remember thinking when Mary was resurrected that I wish that Amara had brought her back as young Mary. I guess it would have been weird for her to be so much younger than her sons, but I think that might have actually made their interactions more interesting. I loved some of the scenes with Dean and young Mary that we did get, like the one where he convinces her that he really is her son by telling her that she used to make him tomato-rice soup when he was sick and sing him to sleep with "Hey Jude".

Ha! I remember that, Aeryn! She actually called them "pencil-necks" at one point, as if they were nerdy-looking weaklings, even though they were standing right there in front of her and it was obvious what a ridiculous insult this was. It really did make her look stupid.

I don't know, I don't see any evidence proving that it will not manage to be a good monster/supernatural program in its own right, so it seems premature to be feeling any sadness, or to have decided already that it is going to be "awful" and that it is unwatchable. At this point, we don't know enough about it to know if the show will be awful, or wonderful, or somewhere in between. It depends on how they develop the ideas behind it, how well the episodes are written, how good a job they do developing the characters, how successful they are at finding the right actors, and lots of other things. The fact is, that if I had known as much about Supernatural as I now know about The Winchesters at this point, but still had not seen the first episode, I still would not have known any of the things that made me love it so much. I wouldn't have known about "I can't do this alone---Yes you can---Yeah, well, I don't want to" or "House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole" or "I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people, hunting things. The family business" or "But see, my mom—I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave". And I wouldn't have known about what Jensen was going to make of the role of Dean Winchester. Not that I am expecting another character like Dean Winchester. What Jensen did with that character when he brought him to life was almost certainly a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I was going to compare it to an event like lightning striking, but it was more like the impact of an asteroid hitting the earth, lol! Not going to be repeated. The Winchesters is tied to Supernatural, but it isn't and can't be the same show. I am going to try not to hold that against it! Like I said, this new show might be really awful, or really great, or -- more probably -- somewhere in between. Personally I am going to wait until I've seen it, and hopefully watched a few episodes, before passing judgment.

Jensen's manager has died: Chris Huvane, Partner at Management 360, Dies at 47 Very sad -- he apparently committed suicide.

His hair looks gorgeous in the pictures -- so soft and silky! And it does gleam! It really is! I know that maybe it would have looked out of character for Dean, but I was trying to think of opportunities over the years when they could have shown Dean with longer hair. Like maybe when he was in Purgatory it could have grown out. (Except he wouldn't have been able to keep it clean.) Or maybe when he was living with Lisa in Season 6, as kind of a symbol of the suburban life he was leading at that time.

Yes, this was interesting, that he wanted Dean back. But then, Alastair was far from the only supernatural being that the Winchesters went up against, who latched onto Dean and didn't want to let him go. For example, there was Cain: "I felt connected to you right from the beginning. Kindred spirits, if you will." And Crowley: "Dean Winchester completes me." And Amara: "We're bonded.....We will become one." From angels to demons to vampires, they were all fascinated by Dean Winchester!

Yes, good point. As awful as it is to think about, once he had completely broken Dean, Alastair had someone who was as dedicated and useful to him as a tool, as Dean had been to John. As you point out, in OTHoaP, Alastair made a point of telling Dean that he had never yet disappointed him and praises his "professionalism". Even as Dean tortured him, Alastair continued to speak to him as a father/mentor figure, calling him "Son" and "Grasshopper". He actually, in a way that was really horrible to watch, evaluated and offered critiques on Dean's technique during the torture. And in the end, after Alastair escaped from the devil's trap, he appeared ready to accept Dean back into his "class" for more training. I didn't think about it before, but in Hell, even after Alastair had used Dean to break the first seal, he apparently still kept him and used him as an apprentice. But also, as the head torturer of Hell, Alastair's technique was not just about inflicting physical pain, but also psychological torture. With his instinct for finding someone's weak spots, he deliberately chose to play the father figure with this particular victim. Look at how Alastair kept bringing up John in this episode, comparing Dean to his father and pointing out how Dean fell short. Alastair played upon what Chuck later referred to as Dean's "complicated relationship" with his father: Dean's desire to serve and be useful to his father, to earn his approval and affection by being a "good little soldier", because he never felt worthy of receiving his father's love just for being himself. Dean both longed for his father's love but at the same time, deep inside, resented the price he felt he had to pay to earn it. He grieved that he had, as he felt, never been good enough and had let his father down -- but he also was deeply hurt by his feeling that his father had let HIM down. And Alastair used this against him. Reminding Dean of how he broke under torture, Alastair sneered, "Oh, just not the man your daddy wanted you to be, huh, Dean?" At the time, Dean pretends to ignore him, but he hears it and tragically accepts it, echoing it back to Castiel later at the hospital: "I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be." Unfortunately Dean isn't around for the conversation between Anna and Castiel earlier in the episode, when she is rebuking Castiel for asking Dean to torture Alastair, and Castiel answers her by saying that it is the will of God, his heavenly father. "The father you love," she responds to him. "You think he wants this? You think he'd ask this of you?" I wish someone had talked to Dean like this about John, but I don't know if he would have been able to hear it. Absolutely! I have to admit, however, that OTHoaP is an episode that I have seldom re-watched, just because it is too painful to see what Dean goes through. Oh, man, that one scene, where Dean has his back turned to Alastair, and you see his face when Alastair tells him that he, Dean Winchester, broke the first seal and will be responsible for the Apocalypse -- the look on Dean's face! Oh, it breaks my heart!

I guess, looking back on it now, it does seem like what happened in Mystery Spot was all an imaginary construct by the Trickster (or rather by Gabriel) in order to teach Sam a lesson, so in that sense it never really happened -- Dean never really died and thus never went to Hell. Although I swear that I remember when it aired, Kripke saying something in an interview about Dean going to Hell over and over again, but it has been too many years for me to remember where I read this! The episode is vague about details like that -- unfortunately, because whether Dean went to Hell every time he died is an interesting question to think about. At what point did the construct start, exactly, and when did it end? (And that's not the only thing that was unclear in the episode. Like, exactly what lesson was Sam supposed to be learning? "This is how awful it will be for you if Dean dies, so stop trying to save him, Sam." Really?) But that is pretty much par for the course for Jeremy Carver, as far as I'm concerned. He had ideas that sounded as if they might be interesting, but often the longer I thought about his stories, the less sense they made. But also, I don't believe there was any thought put into what these events in Mystery Spot might mean for Dean or how they might affect him, because everything back then was all about Sam's Secret Destiny and whether or not he was going to turn EVIL. Oh, I know what you mean! It's too bad, because I thought the relationship between Dean and Alastair was fascinating. Much more so than the one between Sam and Lucifer, even though Alastair was only in a handful of episodes, whereas Lucifer was brought back over and over again, year after year after year, long after his expiration date. Alastair had a purpose in torturing Dean beyond just being randomly evil; he wanted something very specific from Dean -- he needed to break him in order to break the first seal. Dean, who had been "Daddy's blunt little instrument", was again used as an obedient tool, his relationship with Alastair a twisted and ugly mirror of his relationship with his father. Another layer is the teacher/pupil aspect to their relationship. Dean tells Uriel in OTHoaP that Alastair is "like a black belt in torture. I mean, you guys are out of your league." And Uriel responds meaningfully and chillingly, "That's why we've come to his student" -- because Dean is the one who is "most qualified". Throughout his torture, Alastair hectors Dean like a professor with a disappointing pupil, and warns him in the end, "I'll see you back in class bright and early Monday morning." Alastair also needles Dean by implying a sexual relationship, reminding him of how they were "so close" in Hell, talking about "all the pokes and prods" there, and singing about "dancing cheek to cheek". But I think the most horrifying image of all is when he tells Dean, "I carved you into a new animal". Alastair is the master craftsman and Dean is his creation, his work of art; he has made Dean into something new, and he tells him "there is no going back". And even though the show seemed to want to erase the fact that Dean had gone to Hell, not even mentioning it onscreen for years, I know that Jensen never forgot. It was there in his portrayal of Dean; he knew that afterwards he could never be the same person again. It's part of what made Dean such a real and compelling character.

Yes. If this results in people saying mean things about him on the internet, whether from ignorance or malice, then how is this different from the way things were before it happened? I mean, seriously, have you met the Supernatural fandom? I guess I just have a totally different view of what I think Jensen is going to be concerned about. I do not believe that he is, or even should be, mainly concerned with "getting away from the production as quickly as he can" or do his best to walk away from everything completely. He is involved; he is already "entangled" in what happened. Not because CNN showed a snippet of the con video, or because he may have to talk to the police or even testify in court. But because he knew these people and worked with them, and experienced with them the tragic loss of someone that he liked and admired. I only know Jensen as a fan, but I honestly believe that his priority is not going to be separating himself from what happened as soon as he can, so that no one connects his name to the tragedy; it will be to be supportive of those who need it, and to do what he can to make sure it doesn't happen again, whether that means responding to questions from the authorities or working to change the way things are done in the industry. And I don't see how this will damage him in the eyes of his family, his friends, or his co-workers, and that's what's important. He can't live his life in fear of what people on the internet might think or might be saying about him on social media. Yes! I think and hope this as well!

Yes, most, if not all, of the news stories that I have read in the last couple days do not even mention his name. I have seen some media stories about his Instagram post honoring Ms. Hutchins, but that's all. But anyway I don't foresee him somehow ending up as the "face" of the tragedy, or his career being somehow reduced to "the actor connected to that mess". For one thing, he did nothing wrong, and for another, I trust him to handle the repercussions that will inevitably follow for all of the cast and crew with care and discretion and integrity. Because that's the kind of person he has always shown himself to be.

Well, obviously Alec Baldwin will be forever linked to the tragedy. As far as we know, Jensen was probably nothing more than an onlooker. And that little con video had nothing to do with what happened. The reason the media got so much mileage out of it is because they were looking for something to attract clicks and had nothing else to use, besides a few still photographs and a police statement. It's like when the NY Times, in their first article on what happened, included several paragraphs on Alec Baldwin's previous encounters with the police for disorderly conduct -- totally irrelevant, but the media was searching for anything to amp up their coverage. Once they get their hands on something else, like maybe videos of those involved speaking about it, I would not be surprised if the con video loses its attraction to the media. He was on the project mainly, I think, because he has always wanted to do a Western and this must have sounded like a good opportunity. As for the safety issues, which apparently came up a few days before what happened and were not publicized until afterwards, I'm not sure how Jensen was supposed to know about that beforehand. Interview individual crew members anonymously before he accepted the role to make sure they had no complaints? I think it is unfair to imply now in hindsight that Jensen somehow made an error in judgment by joining the cast. It's not as if he could have known what was going to happen.

Yes. Eric Kripke has already said that there will be no more guns with blanks on his sets ever, and asked others in the industry to join him. I am very glad to hear it.

LOL! Yes, it was all the fault of his FANS! Poor martyred Jared! Of course, since he was completely aware of the shitstorm he provoked -- and we know he was because once the attacks on Jensen, Robbie and others really got going, he sent out that hypocritical little tweet saying, "please, no hate on social media!!" -- he could have clarified immediately for these fans what he supposedly "really wanted to say". That is, if he was actually at all concerned that his "tone" had been misunderstood. Oh, but I forgot, he "tries to avoid social media". 🙄