Profile on “Supernatural” Writer Robbie Thompson – Part 3

Profile on “Supernatural” Writer Robbie Thompson Part 1
Profile on “Supernatural” Writer Robbie Thompson Part 2

We left of last time with Charlie Bradbury’s introduction. Thompson made the character endearing and memorable from the very start—and it only made sense to make her into an ally for the Winchesters. We’ll look at how she evolved into that during “LARP and the Real Girl” and how that only strengthens in “Pac Man Fever.” We’ll also have those promised fifteen lines and pop culture references along with that Twitter Interview. Onto Moondoor!

Thompson plays again with a grand entrance for Charlie, showing us two squires in the midst of combat. They parry swords until one yields on their knees. One removes their helmet, revealing Charlie shaking out her brilliant red hair with a pleased smile. The squire looks up in adoration and says, “I love you,” to which Charlie responds, “I know.” It’s a brilliant pop culture moment subtly slipped in—in particular from Star Wars. Thompson wisely shows us Charlie in her element, confident and full of charisma before Sam and Dean can shake up her world again. In this way, he allows us to see both elements of her character. As she starts to tell her people about Greyfox and Thargrim’s disappearance, she falters and a wild look of panic crosses her face. She spots the Winchesters in the crowd and realizes what was once pretend has now become quite serious—and therefore dangerous.

She makes a hasty exit to her tent, the brothers hot on her heels. Thompson doesn’t let the moment pass by, however, to have Dean stop and test out the fake swords. He twirls one, remarking, â”Nice balance.” Dean may be there for a job, but he’s indulging in the fun all around him without much shame. That doesn’t stop once he enters the tent—even if they are telling Charlie about what is really happening. He looks at her battle plans laid out on the map and starts to move them around, telling her, “move your archers back and your broadswordsmen to the west…”This all exasperates Sam to no end, and it is this aspect of the script that allows Thompson to connect this case to the brothers on a personal level. They are there to stop this, certainly, but it is also about having fun and enjoying what they do—something that Dean is trying to instill in Sam—and indulge in for his own sanity.

Thompson takes it even one step further, putting Dean into a LARP outfit. Instead of complaining or protesting, Dean puts it on with satisfaction, showing us in simple gestures that he does enjoy the perks of his job—and the escapism Moondoor obviously provides. As he accompanies Charlie around the grounds, Dean picks up a bit more swagger that comes with the change of clothes, slipping into the play surrounding him. He taunts the same Orc in the stocks that Boltar had, forcing him to talk. Thompson plays down the silliness of this situation—after all, Dean’s sword is wooden—by amping up how funny it can be. He has Dean protest Charlie’s disapproval by stating, “Well, there’s no laptops in Moondoor. There’s no Geneva Convention, either.”

Dean isn’t the only one to have “fun” on the case in Moondoor. Sam ends up in the “tech tent”to figure out what the connection might be to the two victims. He ends up next to Maria or Gholandria as they partake in a “genre mashup.” Thompson shows us that Sam is uncomfortable with it at first as he isn’t certain about talking with her. He tries to brush her away by saying, “It’s–it’s all just part of the game.” But by the end, we see Sam almost sucked into it. He may be actually working while Gholandria thinks its part of Moondoor, but the exchange was also fun, with a bit of play acting to make the mundane tasks of investigating less like a chore and more like a game. Thompson puts this into the script with great subtly that makes it work on multiple levels. It sets up the end scene well, as Sam rethinks “all work and no play” as a philosophy.

Thompson also builds into the story how one taking the game too seriously can lead to trouble when Boltar is exposed as the master of the fairy responsible for the deaths. Unlike Sam and Dean—and Charlie, who sees Moondoor as an escape—Boltar takes it extremely seriously, wanting to become the King of Moons alongside Charlie. To do so, he will go as far as to buy a real spell book on “Ebay” and enslave an actual fairy for his ends. For crossing these lines—taking play and turning it into vicious reality—he must be punished. After the spell is broken by Charlie destroying the book, we know that he will be.

 

But the crowning jewel of this particular episode is the battle scene at the end. Sam and Dean are about to leave the LARP game behind when Sam says, “And you’re right. Having fun won’t help me. It’ll help both of us. Shall we?” Sam spent the entire case in his FBI suit—but here he appears in a Moondoor outfit complete with red and white face paint—and a pony tail! Dean leads the army with gusto, delivering with all the boyish sincerity he can muster the speech from Braveheart. Thompson plays with this moment, too, making sure to draw out as much humor without taking it too far. Charlie questions the speech, with Sam replying with utter fondness, “It’s the only one he knows,” and a man in the park tossing his frisbee into the midst of the battlefield. It’s hilarious and endearing all at once, showing the brothers that they can have fun—and that being a hero comes with many perks.

Thompson explores Charlie’s vulnerability and sorrow in “Pac Man Fever.” Up until now, he’s allowed her to be the adorable and fangirl character with some kick—here we get to see underneath that to the true Charlie, the one behind the many aliases and disappearing acts. Charlie ends up in the area nearby to the Men of Letters Bunker—and notifies the Winchesters that there’s a possible monster hunt in the area. When they meet up, however, something seems different about Charlie. She’s always been a bit guarded as a character, but this time she seems not quite alright—and when she tells them that she’s in town for a comic book convention “on a Wednesday” they start to worry about their friend.

 

Charlie is not the only concern, though. Sam is suffering greatly underneath the weight of the Trials, and the second has hit much harder than the first. He is on shaky feet, sleeping for long periods, and struggling to fire weapons accurately. Even so, Sam’s a stubborn man, and he won’t go down without a fight. Dean insists that they lie low, rest, rather than go looking for Kevin. They’re both scared and trying to hide it in different ways. Sam does it by “playing through the pain”and insisting that he’s fine. Dean does it by mother henning his brother, trying to care for him above almost everything else. Thompson uses this set up to great emotional impact—and he brilliantly weaves this story into the one surrounding Charlie’s brush with the monster they’re hunting.

The hunt is a djinn—with a twist. With Sam under the weather, however, Dean will need someone to pinch hit, and Charlie volunteers. She proves her worth by firing two perfect shots at the target—both head shots—and Dean relents, allowing her to come along. They encounter the monster under the disguise of coroner, and run into more red tape than they’re used to. Charlie had managed to get a hold of the Carver Edlund book series online, and she says with a pout, “That never happened in the books.”  They’re going to have to go with a plan B—meaning physically breaking and entering, not mere computer hacking. It’s a bit more than Charlie gambled for.

 

What Thompson brings to these staple scenes is a panache in the interactions with Charlie, Dean, and Jennifer, their monster in hiding. We see Charlie have to pick out a new outfit, much more fitting to the task at hand than her Lying Cat shirt, all to her signature song, “Walking on Sunshine.” Of course the song choice is nixed quickly by Dean, who turns it off only for Charlie to pout and protest, “Montage!” Thompson states about the Lying Cat shirt, “i’m pretty specific in the script, w/ the references (and the Lying Cat shirt), etc. [sic]” At the coroners office, Thompson slips in a subtle shout out to Castiel’s turn at hunting in “Free to Be You and Me,” as Charlie flips open her badge—upside down. If anything, it proves that neither replacement actually filled Sam’s shoes, something that comes up as Sam arrives on scene.

At the fresh crime scene, Dean and Charlie run into Sam, who is already a step ahead of them. He tells them that the body was liquified—and that a blue handprint was on it, something new and worth looking into certainly. Even so, that doesn’t stop Dean from chastising Sam for joining the hunt while sick. Needing a moment with his brother, he dismisses Charlie to question the witnesses—even though she protests missing the “broment.” Thompson knows that this is the real heart of the show, and he puts us into Charlie’s shoes as she has to watch it from a distance. Sam and Dean argue about what to do next. Dean demands that Sam go back “home” to do some research, and storms off to the Impala, leaving both Charlie and Sam behind. It’s alright, since Sam stole her car, and now they can once again get ahead of Dean by rushing to the morgue to see the second victim.

It is in this that Thompson slips in subtle humor. Dean arrives in a huff to find that he’s been beaten by Sam and Charlie. He quips, “I stopped for gas,” a line Thompson states Ackles adlibbed into the episode. While not written in, it certainly added to what Thompson had put down already. Before the brothers can stop her, however, Charlie rushes to see who is crashing their party. It is the coroner herself, there to tie up loose ends about the bodies her son has left behind. Thompson puts a nice sweet awkwardness on the exchange as Charlie tries to stall her. In a way, Thompson is mirroring her interactions with the guard in “The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo,” and it works well. She drifts from the “official†business of getting a copy of the form to asking Jennifer about her pants suit. What works best about the exchange is Charlie’s sincerity. She may be trying to buy Sam and Dean some time, but she is serious in her line of questioning.

 

It is her nervousness that ends up getting her pegged for the djinn’s next victim—for the coroner is in fact the monster they’re hunting. As Charlie pulls away from the boys again, she retreats to a motel room and begins to transfer money with her laptop. In the process, she’s attacked by the djinn and dragged to the warehouse Jennifer owns. There she is put under the djinn’s spell—and cast into her worst nightmare. It is up to the brothers now to find her and do so quickly before she’s liquified like the rest of her victims. They trace her footsteps and realize that Jennifer owns two properties—one a house and one a warehouse. Dean remarks that “a coroner is a great way to hide kills†and they rush to find Charlie before it is too late. The antidote fails, however, leaving Dean to have to enter Charlie’s djinn world with African Dream Root.

Thompson again puts Dean in uniform—as the elder Winchester wakes up in a pseudo version of 1951. He faces down vicious zombies and encounters Charlie clad in a black outfit holding a machine gun. This is a video game—and there’s no level 256. Unlike the djinn dream world Dean experienced in “What Is and What Should Never Be,” this isn’t her happy ideal life. This is her worst nightmare. She is trying to save the patients—particularly her mother—and when she gets to that point it starts over. The zombies are faster, she has less ammo, and she has less chance to win than ever before. Dean realizes, when the reach the room with the patients, what this is really about.

 

In the real world, Dean has tracked down the money transfer to a hospital nearby—and connected the dots that the patient in question is Charlie’s mother. Thompson makes this revelation hit hard not just for Charlie or the brothers—but for the viewers. Sure, the djinn is the supernatural element here, the latest monster of the week, but the human story underneath is what undercuts everything making it powerful and gripping—one that lingers long past its viewing. He confronts Charlie, and tells her that the only way to win is to “not play” because if she doesn’t let her mother go, she will die. Charlie breaks, shattering into an emotional vulnerability, and tells Dean, “She’s why I’m in Kansas. I sneak into the hospital whenever I can, and I just… I read to her. She used to read me to sleep at night when I was a kid. Sh-she’d read me The Hobbit. She’s the reason I love the stuff I love,” and “I just wanna tell her that I’m sorry and that I love her. And just have her hear it again. I just need her to hear that one more time. But she can’t. She can’t.” Thompson uses the drama here to amplify the story, allowing the genre of science fiction be his vehicle to tell us a universal and heartbreaking story of grief and loss. The choice of The Hobbit is also a personal one for him—and he remarks, “The Hobbit was read to me as a kid. [sic]”

He doens’t forget about the brothers in this equation, either, showing Dean’s worst fear in the same room. He draws back the curtains on another bed, this one occupied by Sam. It is his fears for Sam and the Trials manifesting here in his little brother’s reposed body. It is the fear of losing him, of having to do what Charlie is doing that is embodied in this one moment. Thompson makes it all interconnect in such a way that it leaves a deep impact on us, drawing out our emotions and reminding us of what is important in life: those that we love. Sometimes we need story to do that for us, and here it does so with warmth, sadness, humor, and a tangible love for the characters contained with in the story.

Once Charlie and Dean emerge from the djinn world, we see  just how hard this is for Charlie. She must now make the hard choice of going to the hospital in an official capacity and do the one thing she’s avoided all this time: saying goodbye. In one more moment of beauty, Thompson has Charlie sit down by her mother’s bedside and pull out The Hobbit, and begin to read. It cuts through us and shows us the humanity that this show contains in one image. For the Winchesters, he also pulls the same strings. Dean has let Charlie go to do what she must, and as he enters the Bunker, Sam stands to apologize for taking the risk of joining the case. Dean doesn’t admonish or argue or belittle here. Instead, he simply enfolds Sam in a big hug, with no regard of the “chick flick moment” he’s just created, and holds what he fears losing most: his brother. This show may deal with demons and angels and creatures of every stripe, but Thompson proves to us here that it is a human story—and in particular about two human brothers that love one another very much.

Robbie Thompson may have only written seven episodes for Supernatural thus far, but he has proven that he is a worthy addition to the writing team. He remarks about his place on the team, “i’m very lucky to have the job i have and i hope to keep at it as long as i can [sic]” It’s safe to say a lot of fandom agrees!He has a firm understanding of the story, of the characters, and of the world they exist in. He knows how to take the genre and tell compelling, rich, complex stories that linger with the viewer. He also knows how to put in enough great one liners, great pop culture references, and human scenes that make us care deeply about what is transpiring on the screen. As we enter season 9 this fall, we can only wonder and wait in anticipation just where else he may take Sam and Dean—and us.

Here’s Thompson’s 15 Best Lines:

15 You don’t have a clue how to kill ’em or slow ’em down, and your plan is, what? Go right at ’em? Genius. —Bobby Singer, “Slash Fiction”

14 You know, it’s bad enough that they’re ganking people, wearing our mugs, but now this? Have us driving around in this… this caboodle while Baby’s on lockdown. —Dean, “Slash Fiction”

13 What, you going to look at more anime or are you strictly into Dick now? —Sam, “Time After Time After Time”

12 How does paper beat a rock? It’s stupid. —Dean, “Time After Time After Time”

11 So what bucket of syrup did you two idjits step into? —Ezra, “Time After Time After Time”

10 This is about knocking us off the top of the food chain. This is about them Levis living here forever, one percenter-style, while we march our dopey, fat asses down to the shiny new death camps at every corner. —Bobby, “The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo”

9 It means the Eye of Sauron is on me —Charlie, “The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo.”

8 Hey, I didn’t eat at Big P’s for at least a year, okay? Clear eyes and clogged arteries–can’t lose. —Dean, “Bitten”

7 These kids today with their texting and murder. —Sheriff, “LARP and the Real Girl”

 

6 I prefer the term “interactive literaturist.” —Boltar, “LARP and the Real Girl”

5 You saw the chain mail. This could be “Fifty Shades of Greyfox” for all we know. —Dean, “LARP and the Real Girl”

4 Crowley’s idea. Just another reason I want to stab him in the face. —Meg, “Goodbye Stranger”

3 I still don’t know who Clarence is. —Castiel “Goodbye Stranger”

2 Holy awesome! Too bad they got wiped out. Though that is what they get for the sexist name —Charlie, “Pac Man Fever”

1 If it’s any consolation, having read your history, there is pretty much nothing the Winchesters can’t do if they work together. —Charlie, “Pac Man Fever”

And Thompson’s 15 Best Pop Culture References

15 Leviathan Sam and Dean “Pumpkin and Honeybunny-ing” the diner in St. Louis, reflecting Pulp Fiction.

 

14 Charlie’s grand entrance, wearing the Rebel shirt from Star Wars.

13 Dean pouting about Baby being “put in a corner” with “All Out of Love” playing.

12 Charlie giving the brothers a Vulcan Salute as farewell.

11 Dean telling Sam that the Rudy Hobbit always gets a pass.

10 Charlie Bradbury’s ailiases, Christine Le Guin (from the car in the novel “Christine”, and writer Ursula Le Guin – US Passport), Annie Tolkien (Annie Wilkes from :Misery” and JRR Tolkein from The Hobbit – British Passport), and Susan Asimov (Susan from “Salem’s Lot”, and author Issac ASimov).