Supernatural – Episode 9.18 – ‘Meta Fiction’ Review

This was one that needed a rewatch. We had characters being manipulated by others and everything filtered by Metatron. My first watch left me with mixed impressions. I didn’t like some of what I was seeing. I was irked by the anticlimactic capture of Gadreel, the character writing and lack of much of a role for Sam, lack of Winchester focus in general, and the heavy presence of possibly the most annoying villain Supernatural has ever had. On the other hand, some parts were good – there was the return of Gabriel (sort of), quality in the directing and musical choices, a good Cas/angels story, slow progression of the effects of the Mark of Cain, and a cleverness in weaving in the meta elements into the story.

But the overlying impression after the first watch was that I was not really sure what I had seen. There were obviously layers, and it wasn’t until a second watch that I began to see what I think the point of the episode is – and that is Metatron was rewriting the season-two episode Tall Tales. Like Gabriel/The Trickster had done in that episode, he was preying on the insecurities of our three main characters to weaken them, and maybe subtly trying to turn them against each other.

Tall Tales – Part II

I understood from a first watch that Metatron was trying to manipulate Cas. That much was obvious and overtly stated. Metatron’s end-game is still uncertain. He used an illusion of Gabriel, or maybe the real Gabriel who was being forced to play a role, to try to convince Cas to accept the role of leader of the rebel, disenfranchised angels. Cas throughout this season has resisted this role – humbled and scared by the turn he took when he had before attempted leadership and embarked on a power trip that resulted in Cas calling himself God and getting thousands upon thousands of angels killed. The twist, as Metatron told Cas, was that Metatron actually did want Cas to lead the angels against him so that he could kill those angels, and Cas would be the villian in the story.

I’m guessing there’s another twist coming and that Metatron’s end game regarding Cas hasn’t really been revealed yet. Possibly it's to separate Cas from the Winchesters.  Metatron talks about knowing the ending to this story. That sounds a lot like what the angels were spouting in season 5 about destiny and the Apocalypse. Sam and Dean, with the help of Bobby and Cas, defeated the concept of destiny with free will and won that battle. Metatron should know this. Is Metatron's disregard for the Winchesters' free will victory another example of an arrogant angel underestimating the Winchesters and Cas, or does Metatron have another game plan that we haven’t seen yet?  When he talks about rewriting the story, is this really what he's referencing?  At the end of the episode, Cas opts to gather the angels to him despite Metatron’s speech.  I don't believe for an instant that Cas is selling out the angels to Metatron, so I'm leaning toward the theory that he has a different plan.

But getting back to the Tall Tales analogy, there was also obvious manipulation on the Dean part of the story. While the tool here is Gadreel, not Metatron, you have to remember that this is all Metatron's story.  Dean is told by Gadreel that Sam wouldn’t trade his life for his, and that Sam has always thought of Dean as being a scared little boy, afraid to be alone because his daddy didn't love him enough. I’ve read debate in the fandom whether Sam believes this, but the key here is this isn't about what Sam believes, Gadreel is saying it because Dean believes this. Deep inside, Dean believes he is a monster unworthy of love, and Gadreel is twisting Sam's knowledge to tap into Dean's biggest fears and incite him to kill him. What does Sam think? Personally, I think there are probably occasional less-than-charitable thoughts toward his brother, as there tends to be with most close relationships. There’s a part of Sam that resents Dean’s dependence on him and thinks its based on Dean's fear of being alone, as there’s a part of Dean that thinks Sam is selfish for not wanting to give up his dreams of independence for family.  This has been there since the start of the series.  But relationships aren’t that simple. Those thoughts, which sometimes rise to the surface during heated moments or times of emotional lows, are on most days balanced with more appreciative thoughts, and people's feelings toward each other are more complex than there being only one opinion.

What I completely missed during the first watch was that Gadreel was also manipulating Sam. Gadreel tells Sam, "your insides reek of shame and weakness."  [Post edited] Later, Sam comes up with a plan to trap Metatron, but fails and loses Gadreel.  Like with Dean, the show isn't saying that Sam is weak.  It's saying that Sam believes he is weak.

Writing & Meta

Writer Robbie Thompson, through comments made by Metatron and Gabriel, breaks the fourth wall by talking directly to viewers and acknowledging issues like rewrites of stories, subtext, and continuity errors. What was probably the most controversial reference from this episode though was Metatron’s act of tossing one of Carver Edlund’s Supernatural books, Tall Tales, into the fire. This comes amongst many complaints over the past couple of sesaons that the writing staff has been tossing aside canon without respect to the past story.

While there's obviously a number of ways to interpret this, personally I’m not reading anything aggressive or confrontational in the meta messages. For starters, they’re delivered through Metatron, a character with a God complex that I have a hard time believing that Thompson would choose to represent himself if he was sending a message about canon directly to the fans. What’s bears mention is that Charlie, Thompson’s apparent favorite character, collected the novels and read them cover to cover.  There are reasons for tossing in the novel into the fire that fit with the story.  Metatron has cast himself as the Trickster in Tall Tales and is working to manipulate reality and his enemies.  He's getting rid of the previous version as he seeks to obtain a different ending.

The discussion itself about the roles of writer and readers/viewers, and the nature of stories, make an interesting discussion.  Answering Gadreel's question about whether he had planned for Gadreel to be captured, Metatron says this:

"That was a surprise. But hey, what writer doesn’t love a good twist? My job is to set up interesting characters and see where they lead me.  The byproduct of having well drawn characters is they may surprise you.  But I know something they  don’t know.  The ending.  How I get there doesn’t get there.  As long as everybody plays their part."

This discussion is particularly fitting with this show and fandom, given the volume of Supernatural fanfic and one-on-one communication between both writers and cast with the fandom through Twitter and Supernatural conventions.  And Supernatural has a tradition of venturing off into the territory of meta every now and then.  Just look at the source material material for Metatron's rewrites - the Carver Edlund books, with the author having a pen name derived from two real writer names, and serving as possibly "God" in the story.

Lost Message?

Was the subtlety of this episode the right approach at this time?  By reading over many comments in the fandom, I'm taking away that there was a lot that was a lot of confusion (quoting Cas here) and misinterpretations of the message - a dangerous effect when the writer starts talking directly to the fandom through the story.  While I think the episode was very well crafted and rich with subtext and layers of meaning, there was something lost in the translation. This show seems to be struggling with finding the right mix between the anvil-heavy episodes, like Purge, and Meta Fiction.

I think this ties back to the lack of a proper foundation being built throughout the season so that the majority of fans understand a subtle episode like this when it comes along.  Among issues:

- Metatron’s storyline being put on the backburner for so long, that when he reappeared it almost felt like an unpleasant surprise that he was still on the show

- Shifts in story focus that are too jarring. The Abaddon storyline was put on hold for too long while the angel wars took precedence. Abaddon was then reintroduced, taking some time to earn our interest again, and then right when we’re starting to feel some momentum, we’re back to the angels. Add in too many monster of the week episodes breaking the flow, and you have a fandom that can’t keep track of what the story is, let alone come to be super excited about any of the threads.

- Not enough focus on Gadreel. Gadreel was the big villain of the first part of the season and the one that had the most direct and personal connection to the Winchesters. After Gadreel fled, that story was dropped for a stretch of episodes in favor of the Mark of Cain and the hunt for Abaddon, who it’s been implied is a big danger, but who has never had much of a direct connection to the Winchesters.

- Continuing problems with the writing for Sam. I keep forgetting that Sam has such low self-esteem issues because I never believed it to begin with, and the show’s never made much of an attempt to sell it to me. This portrayal just doesn’t match the Sam from the earlier seasons. And I don’t think I’m alone. There have been a multitude of interpretations to Sam’s recent reactions toward Dean, but I’m reading very few that take into consideration the message that Jeremy Carver seems to be trying to tell with Sam, and that is that Sam is driven by a fear of disappointing Dean. We need to spend more time in Sam’s head, and this season (and last) failed to allocate proper time to making connections in Sam’s story. Questions left uncovered include where did this low self-esteem come from? Was it always there, or was it a result of letting Lucifer out of the cage? Why does Sam focus on disappointing Dean rather than other possible failures? Is there some event that triggered this association with failure and Dean? How does the most recent possession tie into Sam’s past experiences with demon blood and other possessions? 

Speculation

Meta Fiction raises several interesting questions. First, it reintroduces the theme of free will vs. destiny. Sam and Dean won the Apocalypse battle, but is that war not won yet?

Also, Metatron is more powerful than we’ve seen thus far, and this raises the question how long has Metatron’s influence been felt. Metatron may have been working to turn them all against each other for some time. Remember the shadowy figure watching Sam outside Amelia’s house, or the hints that something had been manipulating the characters’ perceptions of reality in season 8? Could this have been the work of Metatron?

Finally, is Gabriel alive?! Gabriel’s reappearance was presented with a slight alteration in the portrayal of the character. My initial impression while watching was that he was missing some of the energy and attitude of the character that we’ve seen in the past. Also, he was speaking in a long string of mixed metaphors.  The revelation that Gabriel wasn't really there explained this - either what we were saying was Metratron's creation or it was powered by a Gabriel under duress, and either Metatron or Chuck (whomever the dialogue came from) was a really bad writer. Gabriel’s eyebrow wag before he disappeared seemed to hint of the presence of the real Gabriel out there somewhere.  Leaves you to wonder what else is out there ...