Mallena’s Musings: Supernatural 06.15 “The French Mistake”
January 8th is the birthday of the actress of one of my favorite supporting characters on Supernatural – Ruby Two. (I’m not really a big fan of Ruby One, Katie Cassidy, sorry) In my Ruby’s honor, I’m doing a retro review of “The French Mistake,” in which she has a memorable role. Genevieve Nicole Cortese Padalecki – this one’s for you.
The Road So Far
Aw, season six. After the glorious first five seasons, season six started out slow (for me, anyway) and didn’t get great until Sam got his soul back again. Sure, Soulless Sam has his share of fervent fans, but I adore Soulful Sam and watching him and Dean find their way back together again as brothers…that’s the highlight of the whole season, for me. After spending some time finding out what Sam did while soulless and sparring with a mannequin, it’s time for some crazy meta fun. This entertaining episode was written by Ben Edlund, of course.
Balthazar, the Playboy Angel, pops up to give Sam and Dean a talisman to watch over and protect – The One Ring to Rule Them All…no, that’s not right…it’s a Key to the Door of the Angelic Weapons of Heaven Closet. Balthazar gives them this key so that Castiel can try to keep Heaven safe from the intentions of Evil Raphael, and he decides that giving the boys this key and sending them to an alternate reality with it, well, that is a darn good idea.
Of course, this is where Supernatural goes completely nuts. Not only is our boy’s world a television show, Sam and Dean are now the actors – Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles – that play Sam and Dean Winchester in the series. Now, I have to say that I’m not enjoying Misha Collins’ Castiel, lately, but here he’s brilliant as Misha Collins, actor. Forget Castiel, what we really need is for Misha to come into the Supernatural real world; The real TV show world, I mean; I don’t know what I mean, but it would be great! Now, I’m watching Misha on my TV screen, reacting to the bizarre antics of Sam and Dean, while they are pretending to be Jared and Jensen, oh my. He’s trying to act with them while not knowing why they seem so bizarre and he’s a beam of light in the whole episode. His encounter with a hitman angel, and its aftermath, are some of the best parts of the show. His “attractive crying man” blubberings are gold.
Oh yeah, the brothers have many great moments as well. They get to venture into the Trailer’s of the Rich and Famous and into their lives. After poking fun at their actors’ somewhat unusual names and being driven to Jared’s palatial home by their bodyguard, Cliff, they are in for a shock. One of the jokes is that there is a huge picture of Jared on a horse, but honestly, I didn’t get that on first viewing. It looked like Michael Landon to me. I just thought that Jared had a Little House on the Prairie fixation, or something.
Then, we get one of Dean’s best lines in this episode: “You married Fake Ruby?”
I don’t think that Sam minds the fact that Ruby’s standing there, if you ask me. After appearing a little shell-shocked, he seems plenty willing to let Ruby take his hand and lead him to bed. After the weirdness of that big house, an alpaca, and the fact that Jensen doesn’t seem to have a home to go to, it’s sweet to meet up again with Ruby. Fine, she’s not really Ruby. She’s Genevieve playing a Genevieve who played Ruby. I think. No matter, I’m just happy to have a version of Ruby on the screen.
Back in the early days, the first Ruby was a blonde who seemed up to no good and she was snarky and mean. Then, we got a Ruby who also seemed to be up to no good, but she was gentle and sweet in comparison. She knew how to handle Sam, that’s for sure. The poor guy responds better to attention and affection than he does to threats and bluster (Ha, note to Dean.) I always enjoyed Gen’s every appearance on Supernatural and didn’t understand some of the negative criticism of her acting. I thought that she had amazing screen presence, even if she didn’t have a ton of acting experience. I was fascinated by her. For my musings, I’m going to educate everyone on the life and career of the lady. You’re welcome.
Of course, the best scene has to be the one of Sam and Dean trying to act. They’re awful actors. Jensen’s always the funny one, but Jared stole the show, I thought. The way that he kept looking up at the ceiling and the weird hand gestures were hilarious.
My favorite line of the episode comes from Genevieve herself: “Where?”
Yep, that’s the question that I would ask when someone told me that somebody I knew was dead. Where? Not how, or when, or God No, Why?? Just “where?” which makes me laugh every time I rewatch.
After some obligatory angst about Dean thinking that Sam would be better off staying in the alternate reality, the boys find their way home. I’m not really interested in writing about the ending with Virgil showing up and killing the writers and producers of the show because that all seemed dumb and pointless to me. I don’t want to see an actor, standing in for Eric Kripke, being shot dead; however miffed I might be at Kripke for leaving the show and not continuing the awesomeness.
Musings on Genevieve Padalecki
She was born in San Francisco, California. Along with two brothers and a sister, she grew up in Montana and Sun Valley, Idaho. She is Italian, German, Belgian, French, & English mostly. I’m Danish, French, German, English, and a bunch of other things, just in case you were dying to know. Gen went to college in New York and has a BA and Fine Arts degree in drama. I went to college in…never mind.
Her first screen acting job was as a troubled young woman in Wildfire. It was a television show on ABC Family that aired from 2005 to 2008. I’ve never seen it or heard of it, before. Anyone? It ran for 51 episodes, so it must have been pretty good. Before that, she was in regional stage productions. She also had a part in the television show Flash Forward. I remember that one, vaguely. I remember that it started out promisingly and then went quickly downhill and was canceled.
Of course, her biggest break came when she was cast as Ruby in our little show. Our biggest break, in my humble opinion, was when an astute casting director saw her and decided that she would look and act great with Jared Padalecki. There’s a small height difference, though. Jared’s height is sometimes in dispute, but is around 6’4, and Genevieve’s height is 5’4. Hey, that’s my height, too! I remember a scene when Ruby and Sam were eye to eye (and much closer, later). Conveniently, there was a storage chest, or something like that, placed at the end of the bed for her to stand on.
The rest of Gen’s story is pretty well known in Supernatural circles. A marriage to a handsome man and three beautiful children later, Gen now stays home with the kids, for the most part. That’s not all, though. She has a very active life hanging out with her neighbor and good friend, Danneel Ackles, and participating in athletics, charities, and a host of other interesting things. She has a blog called Now & Gen http://nowandgen.com/ that is of course perfectly adorable and interesting. If you want to learn how to be as beautiful, fashionable, slim, mothering, & multi-talented as Gen – this is the site for you. There are also tons of cute pictures of her and the kids. Check it out.
Thanks for reading and I’ll be seeing you here again, sometime. Hopefully. Anyone invent those robot people, like on AMC’s Humans, yet? If I had one of those to cook, clean, and shop for me, I’d have lots of time to write!
Bye for Now,
—-Mallena
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