Few things in this world should inspire stark terror more than the words Supernatural: The Musical.  Especially after Dean was hitting the karaoke scene with Crowley.  Not to mention that Stargate SG-1 essentially set the bar for uber-meta ridiculousness in a 200th episode celebration.  What exactly was Supernatural going to bring to the table?

 

Not unlike “Once More, With Feeling”, the Buffy special episode that sparked a slew of musical offerings from lesser shows, “Fan Fiction” takes the absurdity of its premise and turns it into a rededication to the core of the what the series is all about: the Brothers Winchester.  More to the point, the audience isn’t just reminded what matters, but the brothers themselves.  It sounds simple, but with so much baggage between them lately, it’s the right time for a “back to basics” lesson.

 

It doesn’t hurt that the Supernatural mythos has long embraced the meta notion of in-world fandom, thus the idea of students creating a musical version of the adventures of Sam and Dean’s first five seasons actually makes sense.  It also means that Sam and Dean get to come face-to-face with layers of subtext that the creators knowingly insert, yet the characters have to feign ignorance.  It’s built-in hilarity, especially when it comes to various iterations of Destiel (or any one of Sam’s twists on the naming convention) or “the BM moment”.

 

Previous meta-episodes have occasionally swayed too far into mockery of the fandom for the comfort of some, but “Fan Fiction” appears to have found just the right balance.  Even as a current fan, I have to admit that there is a certain sense that the Kripke years were the heyday of the writing, so it makes sense to focus on all the wonderfully nutty things about it.  And having the brothers consider how far they’ve come, and how much they’ve forgotten or pushed aside, is the perfect way to reflect on the road so far.

 

It’s a bit unfortunate that Misha Collins wasn’t in the episode, because really, wouldn’t it have been hilarious to see Castiel’s reaction to how he was perceived?  Then again, it might have been pushing things a bit too out of balance.  It was enough to remind the audience that there are some big loose threads out there, notably Adam stuck in the cage in Hell.  Considering just how much of Carver’s tenure and storytelling has been about revisiting or resolving elements from the Kripke era, that feels like significant foreshadowing.  And of course, there was the cameo by Chuck at the end, providing another reminder and justification for the theory that he is, in fact, God.

 

I don’t know anyone who would have predicted that Supernatural would last 200 episodes.  Back in the second and third seasons, there was even significant effort undertaken by fans to avoid cancellation before the end of Kripke’s five-season story arc.  With the series now twice as long as that original conception, is it any wonder that the fans still look back on those early days, when so much passion was needed to keep it alive, with a certain romanticism?  Supernatural lives on, and thankfully, does not forget why.