SUPERNAURAL with my mom: pros and cons (Season 2)

Despite my rather pessimistic views, we have already finished watching the second season and have even embarked upon the third one, which, as far as I’m concerned, is something of a disappointment, very weak, apart from a few episodes that I really like. Good thing it’s so short! However, speaking about the second season with my mom…

John’s death came as a big shock for her. I didn’t think that she would be so much affected by it. I mean, all through the first episode she kept telling me just how much she disliked him and yet as soon as he was dead and I assured her that he wasn’t coming back (after she appealed to me in utter shock at such a turn), she instantly regretted not liking him. It was pretty funny, actually. She said that if she had known that he would be dead within the first episode, she would have made an effort to like him better. She also wondered who she was going to dislike now.

Her favourite episode – the one that she actually acknowledged by verbally letting me know that she liked it – was “The Usual Suspects”. However, that was the one and only time when she told me that she liked anything about “Supernatural” at all. The episode that she disliked so much that I was actually afraid she would refuse to watch any more of the show turned out to be general favourite “Tall Tales”. Apparently, my mom doesn’t like funny episodes, doesn’t appreciate the show’s humour and finds them simply stupid.

I can’t help blaming the dubbing too: it’s just not the same when dubbed. In fact, it is completely inadequate. It makes everything sound stupid, cringe-worthy, over-the-top and unnatural – the actors’ raw emotions are completely obliterated by an indifferent and inexpert interpreter.

She also doesn’t like it when the writers purposefully dumb down Dean, making him act like a clown, and she is not a fan of the boys’ hookups. So… still not a convert. However, she did fall under Dean/Jensen spell almost at once, saying that “just looking at his face is enough” and “If I didn’t know Dean, I would be scared too”.

SUPERNATURAL with my mom: pros and cons (Season 1)

I have finally managed to convince my mom to watch SUPERNATURAL with me. I desperately needed an excuse for another re-watch and I felt that showing it to someone else would make my obsession with it look less alarming. But it wasn’t easy as she was very resistant for a long time and I’m afraid that at the conclusion of the first season, which we finished watching yesterday, she confirmed to herself that she was right to be so.

I hoped against hope that she would love it and get invested into the characters by the end of the first season, but she had grown bored with the whole thing instead. However, I have to admit that it is refreshing to watch this particular show with someone who doesn’t have an agenda, a favourite or a ship-any-two-people-who-breathe-the-same-air-for-five-seconds disease.

Unfortunately, I have to say that watching it dubbed (my mom doesn’t know English) takes away a great deal of authenticity and what sounds extremely tragic in the original, sounds downright comical when dubbed. Of course, my mom’s lack of sentimentality also plays a part. Any hint of romantic element annoys her, because it doesn’t lead anywhere and she finds it unnecessary and irksome. She prefers Dean to Sam (as I knew she would for he is much more her type) and finds John tiresome and untidy, saying that he looks like a petty, provincial criminal.

All in all, her attitude is very disheartening for she obviously gets no pleasure from watching it and it doesn’t excite her in any way. I’m afraid that we won’t be watching it together much longer, because she is fed up with Sam and Dean’s constant saving each other/dying for each other thing and seeing as how this is pretty much the core of the show, there is very little hope that she will want to continue watching it for another 13 seasons.

But the thing that gets me down the most is that both my mom and aunt think that watching something like SUPERNATURAL is somehow below me. They find it extremely surprising that I love it so much. A fan of Jane Austen, an intellectual, refined and exalted, what do I have in common with supernatural monsters and gore? So far I haven’t managed to convince either that this is not what SUPERNATURAL is truly about.