The WFB Spoilery Lite/Speculative Preview: Supernatural Episode 11.12 Updated
Here’s what we know about Supernatural episode 11.12.
We have the official press release:
SUPERNATURAL “Don’t You Forget About Me” — (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET)
KIM RHODES RETURNS AS SHERIFF JODY MILLS — Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) drop in on Jody Mills (guest star Kim Rhodes), Claire (guest star Kathryn Newton) and Alex (guest star Katherine Ramdeen) after receiving a panicked phone call from Claire. She believes the recent murders in town are supernatural and wants the boys’ help. However, Sheriff Mills tells Sam and Dean that Claire has been getting into trouble lately as she’s been attacking normal people and accusing them of being monsters. Stefan Pleszczynski directed the episode written by Nancy Won (#1112). Original airdate 2/3/2016.
The official promo:
The sneak peek from EW, along with an interview with Kim Rhodes:
https://ew.com/article/2016/02/03/supernaturals-kim-rhodes-jody-mills/
The Mary Sue wrote an article about this episode Carry On, Wayward Daughters: Is Supernatural Turning the Focus on Women?.
Each season finale of Supernatural opens with Kansas singing “carry on, my wayward son, there’ll be peace when you are done.” But what about the wayward daughters? Well, on Wednesday’s new episode, we get to find out. The newest installment of the longest running genre show in American television history is entitled “Don’t You Forget About Me.” Written by Nancy Won, the episode will shift focus from just Sam and Dean to some very awesome ladies: Alex Jones (Katherine Ramdeen), a teen essentially raised by vampires who was saved and adopted by longtime fan favorite Sheriff Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes) back in season nine; and Claire Novak, semi-daughter to Misha Collins’ angel Castiel, who also ended up with Jody after fighting her own battles last season.
Finally we have the promotional pictures:
The show is also running a Thunderclap campaign to promote #WaywardDaughters on Twitter tomorrow Information for those not familar with Thunderclap.
What is Thunderclap?
Thunderclap is the first crowd-speaking platform that helps people be heard by saying something together.
How does it work?
If you reach your supporter goal, Thunderclap will blast out a timed Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr post from all your supporters, creating a wave of attention.
Interested? Just go to the Wayward Daughters Thunderclap page, add your Twitter account and tomorrow, when the show starts you will be part of an email blast. Asyou may know, Nielsen now reports Twitter ratings that are considered in convincing advertisers the worth of a show. Signing up for this campaign means you will be helping show the popularity of Supernatural. Even if you don’t care for teenaged girls, you may want to support this to show we still love our show.
UPDATE with 2 new interviews with Kim Rhodes. From TV Goodness Kim talks about her fears about the fate of Jody.
And, also, when we expressed a bit of worry over her character’s fate — after all, we did just lose Rowena — she replied with a little bit of a silence
“The thing is I only hesitate with a long slightly sad sigh. Because that’s the same state I live in,” explains Rhodes. “Every time [the producers] are like, ‘hey we want to pin you for an episode.’ I’m like, I’m dying this time, right? Am I dying this time? They’re like, we can’t tell you. We need to send you the script. We just want to know if you’re available.”
and about her relationship with Claire and Alex.
TV GOODNESS: Paint a picture of what life has been like for Jody, Claire, and Alex. KIM RHODES:
You know what? It’s Supernatural: Mom. She’s got one girl that she’s been through hell with. So, of course, they’re bonded. They understand each other. They’ve spent a lot of time together. And this girl wants to leave the monsters as far behind her as possible. Then she’s got another girl that she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t really know. She hasn’t really earned the trust of and this girl is out looking for monsters. And so Jody just has her hands full.
Katherine Ramdeen was interviewed by Supernatural Fever Rol & en Español (SF). The interview appears in Spanish, with an Englis translation after the full interview. She talked the experience of working on Supernatural but gave no spoilers explaining
Because of the NDA’s I’ve signed and to keep my job, I can only say that you can expect Jody, Alex, Claire, Dean and Sam… lol
Claire is a controversial character. Many fans have expressed their dislike of her. Jody seems to be pretty well loved. We have only seen Alex once. What do you think about visiting this makeshift family? Do you think Claire really is seeing monsters? How is Jody coping with two teen aged, traumatized girls? Would you like to see a spin off with Jody and the girls? Should Donna or the new hunter Eileen be part of such a show? Let us know in the comment or in the discussion thread for episode 12.
Claire is just terrible, should never have become a recurring character. If the show is trying to make her into a hunter, that’s just a slap in the face. If any character should be paranoid about monsters possibly lurking around the corner, it should be Alex — the girl who actually lived with monsters. I wanna give Nancy Won a shot because she’s new, but ugh, the whole episode concept reeks of the show trying to prop up Claire for whatever reason.
Vince, I agree 100%!! It had to happen sooner or later.:)
Agree also Vince. What is the writers interest in Claire anyway? I can’t fathom why they are even bothering with her character development. She’s a distraction and annoying one at that. She’s become the “lets give Jared and Jensen a little time off” tool. Poor Nancy Won. I thought her first outing (Thin Lizzie) was very nicely done and her character of Len was interesting and compelling. Well, she’d better pull out all her writing chops here because I am not only not interested in Claire I am fairly actively resentful of her character; it’s going to take some serious writing chops to bring me around to her side. I fear that this will be a “Mary Sue saves the day” episode. Barf.
For me, Claire has the potential to be a really interesting character. As the only other person on the show who has been possessed by an angel, she should connect with Sam. Sadly, that has been ignored by making her connect with Dean, so he could see how violent he became and she could see why she needed to forgive Cas.
For me the writing for Claire fell down because TPTB decided that her legitimate story had to be downplayed. If you look at her backstory she is an eleven-year-old kid who had a powerful man tell her that she had to let him into her body and allow him to do whatever he wanted with it or he’d let her mommy and daddy die. Then he extorted her father into giving his body to him and kidnapped him, never allowing him to return home. Then her mother tries to find her dad, possibly after seeing him murder hundreds or thousands of people on TV. Then when the guy wearing her dad’s body shows up, she is told by everyone that she must understand and forgive him because he made her father a hero, instead of the nothing burger he would have been if he had just stayed her boring, unimportant father. All this was done because the writers were engaged in their continuing attempt to give Cas as story line that would fit into the show. Since Cas is the main focus they had to have the guy who basically raped a child, kidnapped her father and got him killed be the sympathetic one. They went with Claire is a whiny teen who must be annoying and unlikable so Cas can be the poor misunderstood woobie in all this.
Haha. I (sort of) agree with you on this. Claire, Alex and even Krissy had the potential to be great young female characters in this world. I am confused as to why the writers want all strong young females to be snots. Is this really the way they see them. If so, it creeps me out a bit. As a former young female I can attest to the fact that we made mistakes, took things the wrong way, over reacted to stupid things but young boys do that too and it appears they don’t have the same issues on this show, at least to this extent. Jo was a bit snotty too but where was Kevin’s snot. Maybe it’s because the writers are predominantly male and they think the snotty female is attractive? That’s creepy too.
I am hopeful that this writer can keep the snot to a believable level and I will watch at least once, but if they damage Jody I will be blowing my own…nevermind.
I agree, they seem to be trying too hard to find a place for Cas that goes beyond just being there when needed. I also think they may be listening to some loud fans that wanted closure on their own particular items, but Jimmy Novack was a done story and I’ve yet to see much point in it. Honestly, if one was to look for a spin off with a slant on the feminine I would have preferred Jody with other adult characters and this just proves my point, tv has no idea how to write for young females like this, at least in a way that would make me watch it. Most shows are way over the top frivolity or hormonal psychosis or whatever these guys think girls do mixed with the damsel in distress (even for the most competent females) trope.
Ok, now I’ve gone off topic a bit. Anyway, I’ll give it a chance and hope for the best. Certainly there is potential in the characters and some very good actors so that’s a start.
I agree with your view except, I would not give it a chance and see no potential.
Can we please stop with the irrelevant and factually incorrect use of rape? Fandom throws that word, phrase, scenario…around way too much. I can’t be the only one out here that feels that way.
I agree. I do not think angel possession should be called rape.
I also agree. I am baffled by what people characterize as rape on the show.
Dean being kissed by Amara = sexual assault (even though he kisses back).
yep, not seeing any sexual assault there in any way, shape or form.
The show has always treated possession as a sexual assault analogy. Ever since ‘you full on had a girl inside you for a week, that’s pretty naughty’ all the way through to ‘angel condom’ They make regular jokes using sexual references to describe the act of another being having control of your body. Sera changed Ruby’s story so that she wasn’t having sex with Sam while forcing an unwilling person to be involved. The show is aware of all this. Nowadays they are trying to downplay it because of the Gadreel Zeke Sam business, but it is really too late for that.
Still not buying it. For one thing, the vessels actually consent to angel possession, ceding full control of their body to the angel. As far as demon possession, it’s obviously a violation of the person in every way, since they are consenting to nothing that the demon does. But it puzzles me that some people are not outraged that the show portrays possessed people as committing horrible atrocities, including killing babies and drinking their blood, as well as suffering terrible abuse of their bodies (like Meg), but they draw the line at the possessed person having sex with someone who is typically unaware that the person is possessed. It’s all part and parcel of why demon possession is a horrendous fate, which is why the brothers’ detente with Crowley and treatment of him as a frenemy is simply inexcusable in my opinion. I’m not minimizing the horrors of rape, but that is just one in a long series of horrors potentially suffered by the possessed person. IMO of course.
It is an analogy. It is also actual assault. The angels have been shown to be willing and able to get a ‘yes’ by coercion (Dean) or by deceit (Sam). We have seen angels reducing their hosts to drooling messes – so now they are mentally incapable, does the ‘yes’ still stand? Yes doesn’t always mean yes, ask any court. Analogies reflect how we see the world. Justifying what the angels do as ok because a host said yes in any number of dubious situations is meant to be a reflection of the issues surrounding consent. You can agree or not agree as it suits you. *shrug*. I have my own opinion of all this, I don’t actually agree with everything Percy said in her first post. But there are very good reasons why people are angry about the whole possession thing being treated as a joke, or ok because now it can be used to trick people. And I dont feel that I am ‘throwing around’ emotive words I am looking at emotive concepts and shaking my head at how they are being ignored.
ETA: For anyonw who read my post I changed the word ‘underage ‘up there because it was a complete freudian slip on my part because of the Claire story and it derails my point to leave it as it was.
Also I agree with you completely SamanDean about how the possession thing is a package deal of awfulness – but it applies to angels and demons both. Angels have it in them to be better to their hosts if they feel like it but, they don’t have to. Possession is not something that is ok when our heroes decide it is ok. That is the problem.
[quote]But there are very good reasons why people are angry about the whole possession thing being treated as a joke, or ok because now it can be used to trick people.[/quote]
Well, I agree that in a few instances where the show has treated possession as a joke it has been inappropriate or even offensive. the Crowley orgy scene is the one that leaps immediately to mind. I found it repugnant in every way that the orgy and subsequent slaughter of those people was played strictly for laughs. Black humor is one thing, but that went over the line by my standards. And tricking Sam into being possessed was also not something to be shrugged off no matter how understandable it was. That’s why I was so outraged that the show didn’t let Sam fully express his sense of hurt and anger about that violation of his person. But I just don’t see this pattern on the show of making possession into a joke, and I do agree with leah that the word rape should be reserved for those situations to which it explicitly applies. But hey, my philosophy is that reasonable minds can differ. That’s what makes the discussions here so interesting.:)
I agree Samandean and alycat. I don’t think possession has been pushed as analogy to rape on the show at all. Some tasteless jokes doesn’t make possession the same as rape. There is more than one definition of rape but most people mean it in the forced sexual assault way. I find it very disrespectful to anyone who has been sexual assaulted to compare the two. The word is used too freely by the fandom IMO.
rape
/r?p/
noun
1.
the crime, typically committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with the offender against their will
“he denied two charges of attempted rape”
synonyms:
sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual interference, ravishment, defilement
2.
the wanton destruction or spoiling of a place or area
“the rape of the Russian countryside”
synonyms:
destruction, violation, ravaging, pillaging, plundering, … more
verb
1.
(especially of a man) force (another person) to have sexual intercourse with the offender against their will
“the woman was raped at knifepoint”
synonyms:
sexually assault, sexually abuse, violate, force oneself on, date-rape, … more
2.
spoil or destroy (a place)
“the timber industry is raping the land”
synonyms:
ravage, violate, desecrate, defile, plunder, … more
Hi Leah, I know we don’t agree on this, and that is fine, but I will say that it is actually a legitimate point, and personally I don’t think I am throwing words around I think the show has been messing with the idea of consent, and that it is ok to ignore it (and to ignore other people abusing consent) in circumstances where it suits you, for a long time and it is a very dangerous line for the show to mess with.
eilf, I just think assault and rape are two different things. Some assaults are rape. Others are not. Not all assaults are rapes. Rape has a forced sexual aspect that assault doesn’t. Consent in a sexual situation is also different to me than a possession situation. That’s how I see it anyway. There have been a few sexual situations that I felt were similar to rapes. Like when Crowley was possessing that woman and had an orgy with those other people. They consented to sex with the humans not to Crowley. That was up for debate too. But rape to me is a sexual encounter that is forced on another. Take the sex out and it may be assault but not rape according to the definition of rape. Forcing someone to do something (non sexual) against their will is not rape to me. But we can disagree on that.
I will keep an open mind like always. Great that the boys are seeing Jody again and I liked Alex also when she was introduced. We will see what Nancy Won has up on her sleeve and hope she continues to write like in Thin Lizzie. This is her second so she has a long way to be an old timer writer on the show. 🙂
– Lilah
I reject and dislike the character and storyline of Claire for numerous reasons.
I dislike her personality. She is a self centered/ absorbed whiny, self pitying, cocky, rude, ungrateful, immature teenager with an oppositional defiant disorder.
I dislike her actions. So far she consistently runs away, trust the bad people and commit major crimes (stealing (Cas’s wallet, stealing, attempted armed robbery and conspiracy to commit murder with Dean). She is a user of people and a taker. She liked learning about stealing and hacking into credit cards from Sam and she takes a major weapon, demon sword allowed from Dean and goes along with the plan to stay at Jodi’s – free food and warm bed.
Claire and her story is one dimensional. She lacks insight, intelligence, maturity compassion, appreciation, concern, curiosity and any type of discernment.
She is unrealistic and is being turned into a hunter without any training or ability or good character traits. She was able to kill an angel that unrealistically could not be taken down by the combined forces of Sam, Cas, who was at the time a full powered angel, and Dean who was at a violent peak with the MOC. She has no training… she is taught credit card fraud, takes an angel blade, possibly reads a lore book and now she is a hunter. She lacks all the other character traits of a good hunter.
I dislike that Sam and Dean act out of character or diminishes their character. I do not think Sam and Dean with their experience and knowledge of the character, and strength and training it takes to be a hunter would teach or encourage Claire in any way to be a hunter or would turn her loose armed with credit card fraud, a book and sword..
I dislike what the character does to the show. It turns it into a boring mundane domestic family drama. It causes the characters to become un- interesting . Cas, an angel became a daddy who is concerned that a teen who won’t talk to him, Jodi is relegated to mommy duty and dealing with bickering teens. Sam and Dean are seen helping with the babysitting. It creates melodrama that is not part of this show including her Mom and Dad together in heaven forever.
Unfortunately this is the type of teenager and drama that is being lauded in television; particular family drama shows. I am just vastly disappointed that SPN has seen fit to go down this same mundane path. Perhaps it is to add the family drama viewers to the fold.
[b]What do you think about visiting this makeshift family?[/b]
I do not care about Jodi’s mom problems or the dynamics of the relationship between her two damaged teens. This is not SPN material.
Do you think Claire really is seeing monsters?
Yes, because the show wants to turn her into an adept hunter.
How is Jody coping with two teen aged, traumatized girls?
I do not care.
Would you like to see a spin off with Jody and the girls? Should Donna or the new hunter Eileen be part of such a show?
Yes, I would like to see a spin off then I do not have to watch it. Jody could come back to SPN if she leaves her mommy problems behind. Donna would be good to go with the spin off although I would feel sorry for her. Eileen needs to stay on SPN and be a friend MOL college, and confidant to Sam.
Sam Winchester. Man of Letters, Tupperware sales person.
I bet he’d be a great tupperware salesman. I’d certainly buy some from him, purely because of the amazing quality of tupperware, of course.;)
Ma’am would you like to b….
Yep!
I’ll take everything you have with you sir, and can you come back tomorrow with more samples?:)
IF the spin off could be woven in and out of the current SPN world…THAT would be more satisfying than either/or. I think it would be great to see all of them….Jody, Donna, Claire, Alex…along with Krissy and visits from Kate. Eileen and Mildred would be welcome as well, especially Mildred, with her happier (?)outlook and generational difference. The stories of dysfunction, grief, and the power of hope and forgiveness…not too mention, hunting, could be endless. Though I’m not ready to give up Winchester World in order to have it.