After almost a whole season without much of the old-school Supernatural regulars (Cas, Crowley, Meg among the ones still alive), Reading is Fundamental feels like just the right episode to kick everything into their most comfortable places in this show. It is proof that Supernatural is usually stronger in its well-developed mythological habitat, aka a place where "angels" and "demons" can well fit into the same house.
I once read from a famous pastor's work that "American culture is Calvinism plus business achievements". Oddly enough, a show as unconventional as Supernatural would fit somewhere into this sentence, if you realize how much the show derives from the Biblical view of the world, and how fun it is for this show to continue its pop-culture reference tradition. The newest one of the later is a well-placed reference to the Transformers, which I laughed out loud for quite a while. Speaking of the person who uttered these funny words, Cas' return is somehow reminiscent to his mortal trip back in Season 5. Thus, the show cashed out some capital from the glorious old days by repeating the philosophical mind-bending of dragging an angel down to the human level. It is still unclear how this funky new Cas would fit into the new story arc, since it's not as well planned and masterfully unfolded as the old Eric Kripke story arc. Let's just hope he will make as much fun as he gives exposition in later episodes. Anyway, some moments worked out great, especially the scene between Cas and Dean when they played a board game with metaphoric undertones. It feels like an assessment of the old theological question about predestination from the universe of Supernatural. And this episode on its own is an excellent example of TV entertainment.
As far as the show's big statements go, this episode may have reached some new heights in claiming that "angels are incapable to care" and many recurring accusations about God. From Season 4 and 5 we already knew that the chosen prophets in Supernatural universe can be really wimpy, unfortunate in their gritty predicaments, yet the show knew how to wrap things up in a relatively graceful way by concluding the story with a big exclamation mark that "Oh, I see. So everything WAS in God's plan after all despite so many crazy and sad things happened." My point, same as last week, is that it seems meaningless to write a story where God is a jerk (or irresponsible) since the writers are essentially the God of the story and will take the final blame, especially when the story turns out to be a bad one. So as a fan of the show, I wish Supernatural good luck for this and next season.
I once read from a famous pastor's work that "American culture is Calvinism plus business achievements". Oddly enough, a show as unconventional as Supernatural would fit somewhere into this sentence, if you realize how much the show derives from the Biblical view of the world, and how fun it is for this show to continue its pop-culture reference tradition. The newest one of the later is a well-placed reference to the Transformers, which I laughed out loud for quite a while. Speaking of the person who uttered these funny words, Cas' return is somehow reminiscent to his mortal trip back in Season 5. Thus, the show cashed out some capital from the glorious old days by repeating the philosophical mind-bending of dragging an angel down to the human level. It is still unclear how this funky new Cas would fit into the new story arc, since it's not as well planned and masterfully unfolded as the old Eric Kripke story arc. Let's just hope he will make as much fun as he gives exposition in later episodes. Anyway, some moments worked out great, especially the scene between Cas and Dean when they played a board game with metaphoric undertones. It feels like an assessment of the old theological question about predestination from the universe of Supernatural. And this episode on its own is an excellent example of TV entertainment.
As far as the show's big statements go, this episode may have reached some new heights in claiming that "angels are incapable to care" and many recurring accusations about God. From Season 4 and 5 we already knew that the chosen prophets in Supernatural universe can be really wimpy, unfortunate in their gritty predicaments, yet the show knew how to wrap things up in a relatively graceful way by concluding the story with a big exclamation mark that "Oh, I see. So everything WAS in God's plan after all despite so many crazy and sad things happened." My point, same as last week, is that it seems meaningless to write a story where God is a jerk (or irresponsible) since the writers are essentially the God of the story and will take the final blame, especially when the story turns out to be a bad one. So as a fan of the show, I wish Supernatural good luck for this and next season.