Zap2It: Jeremy Carver Talks About Sam’s New XXX and Dean’s New XXX
Hee, I got clever with the XXX's huh? Usually I tend not to link a lot of stuff from Zap2It, but this is actually a pretty good interview that Carina MacKenzie had with Jeremy Carver. I assume this is also coming from the TCAs. Jeremy Carver elaborates a bit more on Sam's new love interest and Dean's new "influence." It's pretty interesting. If anything, it's fuel for speculation since we have over two months to kill (I know, I got to stop saying that).
So, what do you think about this info?
I feel like a parrot with a limited vocabulary that only consists of “I’m worried.” “I’m worried.”
I’m just going to say that the emphasis of this interview on the ups and downs of Sam’s relationship with his new girlfriend sounds exactly like the Sam’s Lisa story. What’s that got to do with the supernatural? What purpose does how Sam and his girlfriend relate to each other serve on a show called Supernatural?
I’m glad Carver is optimistic. I’m not at all.
[quote]I feel like a parrot with a limited vocabulary that only consists of “I’m worried.” “I’m worried.”
I’m just going to say that the emphasis of this interview on the ups and downs of Sam’s relationship with his new girlfriend sounds exactly like the Sam’s Lisa story. What’s that got to do with the supernatural? What purpose does how Sam and his girlfriend relate to each other serve on a show called Supernatural?
I’m glad Carver is optimistic. I’m not at all.[/quote]
I’m right there with you. I don’t see romance as being a part of the SPN world. Makes me worry that Sam is being sidelined. Hope I’m wrong.
[quote][quote]I feel like a parrot with a limited vocabulary that only consists of “I’m worried.” “I’m worried.”
I’m just going to say that the emphasis of this interview on the ups and downs of Sam’s relationship with his new girlfriend sounds exactly like the Sam’s Lisa story. What’s that got to do with the supernatural? What purpose does how Sam and his girlfriend relate to each other serve on a show called Supernatural?
I’m glad Carver is optimistic. I’m not at all.[/quote]
I’m right there with you. I don’t see romance as being a part of the SPN world. Makes me worry that Sam is being sidelined. Hope I’m wrong.[/quote]
Sam and Amelia aren’t together when the season starts. The relationship stuff is shown through flashbacks
[quote]
Sam and Amelia aren’t together when the season starts. The relationship stuff is shown through flashbacks[/quote]
It doesn’t matter that it is in flashback form, because it is a season-long story about the ups and downs of a relationship, with the possibility of Amelia showing up in current time late in the season. Putting that as a focus for one of the lead’s story means that the focus for Sam is in the human realm when the world the hunters live in (the premise of the show) is so much bigger…a supernatural world. I’m not interested in a hero who is supposed to be so much more than the general population, learning how to be like the rest of us. Traversing the emotional ups and downs of a relationship is something for daytime TV.
He has nothing left from what he started out with.What else can he have? they kissed off his ‘cage/wall breaking’ which for something so catastrophic was painful to watch in its ineptitude .His abilites and demon blood are never mentioned now and IMO these things should still be playing into who Sam is.
He is a character who has been criminally starved of genuine emotional focus .So while I find the change in attitude about Sam and normal abit odd at least it might mean Sam gets a character sl rather than a plot character sl.
But I fully understand people’s concerns I would be lying if I said I didnt have concerns myself.
I’ve actually been going back and forth the last couple of days about Amelia and Sam. Mostly I’m just thinking logistics. We all know long-term relationships don’t seem to last on this show, so I’m wondering how they’re going to play it. You can’t really have the boys out on the road hunting monsters while there’s someone waiting at home. It didn’t work with Lisa and Dean and if I remember, that was the one of the reasons Kripke killed Jess off in the Pilot.
Still, even though I have my reservations about the whole thing, I’ll wait and see.
I do like that Jeremy said it’s gonna be “a little of both” as far as Dean being proud of or frustrated at Sam. It sounds like a more natural reaction, rather than being flat out upset.
I actually watched a rerun of Death’s Door the other night, and I randonly thought it would be pretty cool if the thing that everyone’s after might give Sam and Dean the power to ressurect their dead loved ones, even just temporarily to help them fight a battle or something. I think that would be quite bad ass. Probably totally impratical too, but I was missing Rufus and upset that Bobby was about to die.
[quote]
He is a character who has been criminally starved of genuine emotional focus .So while I find the change in attitude about Sam and normal abit odd at least it might mean Sam gets a character sl rather than a plot character sl.
[/quote]
Exactly, [b]Sharon[/b]. I’m not a fan of romance storylines on any show and I certainly don’t see how they fit well on SPN and I’m still very concerned about the Comic Con spoilers about Sam but at the same time I’m pretty happy with these spoilers. Purely because they should give us that genuine emotional focus that Sam has been starved of for a good while now.
I’m pleased that we are (possibly) getting some decent focus on Sam’s emotions and his emotional growth/maturation. I very much like the bit about the ‘tremendous emotional honesty’ between Sam and Amelia. This could mean some nice insight into Sam’s emotions.
It sounds like he’s a wreck when he walks out of that building (“that crumbled thing in him”) and I’m looking forward to seeing how he heals and how he becomes the changed, more mature man we’ll be seeing in the present time. Plus I’m interested to see if/how the emotional growth resulting from this relationship might affect the brotherly relationship dynamics.
At this point, it doesn’t look like there is going to be much “brotherly dynamic” as Dean is dealing with Benny and Sam is with Amelia. Hope I’m wrong but none of the spoilers I’ve seen have given me much hope that SPN is going back to the bad-a** hunters of past seasons. Flash backs of Sam and Amelia don’t sound interesting to me. I agree that Sam needs more character development. However, I don’t want it to be a soap opera type thing which this looks to be. I would much rather he hooked up with other hunters than have a love interest.
Badass hunters age is probably gone, sadly.
I really don’t understand that Carver believes most fans will want to see the ups and downs of Amelia and Sam’s relationship.
I understand Dean’s spoilers, they may not be perfect but tey make sense, since depressed Dean was a plotline thta couldn’t be followed anymore.
But I’m weeping for Sam.
I share some concerns but I seem to be in the minority with the people posting here in that this interview made me feel better, not worse.
With Sam and Amelia, I think this storyline is going to be mostly about humanizing his character again, rather than trying to tell an epic love story. And Sam desperately needs this development. The character writing was never great for Sam because so much of it seemed to be driven by the mytharc (character traits inserted to draw parallels to Luke Skywalker or Lucifer). We ended up with a jumble, where Sam was independent, driven, and rebellious in season 1; a pacifist in season 2; emotionally stable but fearful in season 3; power-hungry, obsessive, and consumed with revenge in season 4; remorseful and humble in season 5; pretty much vacant in season 6; and a mix of stoic, scared, and anxious in season 7. I feel like we lost Sam somewhere along the way, and neither fans nor many of the writers seem to have any idea who he is anymore. If this season can succeed in rebuilding Sam’s character, then I say Carver needs to do what he needs to do. I share some fears that a “human story” is code for being pushed to the sidelines, but I’ll wait and see if they do that again. These are just flashbacks, not the main hunt, so this might work fine.
As for some of the other fears, I don’t share them. We have no idea whether Sam and Dean are going to be kickass hunters in the present timeline or not. I also don’t see putting some focus on Sam and Dean’s relationships with other people as indicating that we won’t have brotherly moments. Look at the episode Heart, for example. I think one of the strongest brotherly moments of the series was at the end, when Sam and Dean were talking about killing Madison, and we saw Dean feeling Sam’s pain. But the episode itself focused on Sam and Madison. I think with a sibling relationship, it’s best when it plays out subtly in the background, rather than being the main focus. It’s the little gestures that are the most memorable, like Dean teaching Sam to distinguish Hell pain from real pain in Hello Cruel World (the main focus of the scene was Sam and Lucifer), or Sam giving Dean his Christmas celebration in A Very Supernatural Christmas.
I’m excited about this story line, One of the themes this year is maturity, which is what I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years. The boys have to grow up because they’re so stunted and outside of normal life. Sam is going to need someone to help him with everyone gone, and this girl is the answer for him. Also, I get the feeling Sam finally gets to talk to another human being and have them actually listen. Dean never wants to hear about feelings-Sam’s or his own.
Sam is a very caring and compassionate person, something we don’t always get to see. Lately we see his dark and angry side much of the time. As cd28 said above he’s also the more independent brother. Have you noticed how dependent Dean is on Sam-it’s not healthy? This year the boys become men and it’s about time. Also, I’m not worried that SPN is becoming a touchy feely show It will still be the brothers hunting, saving people and killing monsters. There will still be lots of violence and gore etc. Why do some of you think it will become a soap opera? Hell no, it’s Supernatural.
Daisymae, we’ve seen a great deal of Sam’s compassionate side the last season and a half. Dean has actually been the darker, angrier character recently. Sam has been shown reaching out to Dean even when he himself was in crisis, reaching out to and wanting to help Cas even when Cas had injured him terribly, helping someone in trouble even when he was dying of organ failure, insisting that they take time from pursuing the Leviathans to help Krissy, etc. I know it seems fashionable at the moment to dismiss all of Gamble’s work, but the events of the last two seasons are part of the canon. And they fit very well with the Sam of s5, who learned from his mistakes, saved Dean by trusting Dean even when Dean couldn’t trust him, and was saved and saved the world in turn with Dean’s trust and love.
A Sam who lacks either competence or commitment to pursue much of a search for a Dean who has vanished before his eyes doesn’t look much like Gamble’s Sam, Kripke’s Sam, or anyone’s Sam.
Speaking for myself, I was initially excited about Amelia, before spoilers indicated that this wasn’t a relationship that would share the stage with, and maybe be part of, a storyline about Sam trying to find out what happened to Dean and rescue him, and dealing with the remaining Leviathans, Kevin’s kidnapping, and the other major loose ends of 7.23, but rather one that would take place as part of Sam turning his back on all those things.
If there were a spoiler that Dean was going to mug a little old lady and use the money to buy a four course meal, and the showrunner were going on about how he was sure the audience would be fascinated by the ups and downs of Dean’s dinner and how it was restoring his energy and giving him enjoyment, wouldn’t you expect most people to be not so much “can’t wait to see what Dean has for dessert” and more “what, wait? Dean mugs an old lady and buys himself dinner?”
I’ve found Sam a consistently fascinating character for seven years, not always likable, but sympathetic and, to me, more intriguing than Dean. Unlike cd28, I think, with a few glitches, that his characterization has been quite brilliant and consistent, though it tends to be developed through a more allegorical mode than the more realist, psychological take the writers have usually pursued with Dean. I actually agree that it was time to switch modes a bit, and take a more mythical, allegorical approach to Dean and a more human, psychological approach to Sam. But having him healed in flashbacks by a character designed for the purpose looks more like a facile copout than a real development, and it’s hard not to be suspicious of the constant repetitions of “mature” and “maturity” given that both the characters and the setup of the show bear a startling resemblance to where they were in s1.
“I’ve found Sam a consistently fascinating character for seven years, not always likable, but sympathetic and, to me, more intriguing than Dean. “
Hey Caelius, I can’t deny that Sam has been a bit more interesting than Dean in the last year. He has so much more to work through, while Dean just edged downward into denial, depression, alcohol abuse and obsession. What a downer. It makes sense in the grand cycle that Dean will come under the influence of whoever this evil new guy is. It’s just his turn. I have always loved Dean, and I hope he will ‘mature’ by becoming less judgemental, more willing to forgive others, and less of an angry, sorry sack of self-pity.