The bar quite genuinely could not get any lower (as in, it was straight up on the floor) yet CW’s Supernatural managed to tunnel under it like a groundhog come to signify sending Castiel to superhell for being in love with Dean Winchester. Welcome to the 11-year-long finale of obvious romantic and sexual subtext! Surprise, it really sucks.
It’s no question that Supernatural queerbaited its fans. Having first watched the show as a young teenager (it being my comfort show since, unfortunately), the queer coding of monster hunter Dean and angel Castiel was offensively obvious. I recognized them as queer before I did myself and boy, I treated those two like the unicorn guy in Tangled.
Characters in Supernatural have (an inconclusive list) killed Hitler, defeated Lucifer himself, gone to hell multiple times (each), killed the four horsemen of the apocalypse, wiped out a legion of unkillable supermonsters from another dimension, come back from the dead like seven times each, and killed THE Abrahamic God. But unapologetic queerness is too much.
Many point out that Dean and Castiel would have had a relationship of some kind in a few episodes’ time if Castiel was a female — the albeit genderless angel possesses a man’s body and thus presents as male for most of the show — and I tend to agree. There are too many scenes of suggestive dialogue and body language between the two to even count, but here’s the most forward one I can remember.
“Cas, not for nothing, but the last time someone looked at me like that… I got laid.”
Seriously?
Clearly, the showrunners wanted the best of both worlds: to pull in a massive queer audience without making the show or characters undoubtedly queer. 2020’s Season 15 finale, which included Castiel confessing his love for Dean and promptly being sent to gay turbohell (it’s as funny to watch as it is to hear about), was Supernatural’s final attempt to “represent” their “beloved” queer fans, ultimately resulting in an ending that disappointed everyone so much fans pretend that it doesn't exist.
15 years of character development blatantly thrown away in a finale that could just as easily have been season 1’s finale, ending the show after a year in 2005. It’s frankly offensive to both the actors and fans. What on earth were you people thinking?
Essentially, Castiel goes to superhell for gays. Dean anticlimactically dies soon after. Sam lives a long and peaceful life, complete with terrible aging effects! And then he dies and they all meet again in heaven “happily ever after” like that wasn’t the single most disappointing finale to a show I’ve seen in my entire life. I have to laugh. Twitter’s raging hate-boner after the finale aired is surprisingly still erect and gives me probably about 73% of the entertainment I get in life.
I need to go meditate.
Compared to the raging dumpster fire of dog feces, rotting durian, and used foot masks that was Supernatural, HBO’s 2022 show Our Flag Means Death is a heart-shaped king mattress stuffed with ethically-sourced wool from sheep that are hand-fed exclusively baby carrots with swan towel origami on top of silk sheets.
No one expected much from the show. The romantic comedy got little-to-no marketing from HBO and was expected to fly under the radar of most viewers. It turned out to be HBO’s top trending show for weeks in a row.
It was more unexpected when HBO renewed the show for a second season two months after it aired, on the first day of pride month. A little on the nose, yes, but most fans were thrilled at the continuation of the story and authentic queer representation, including myself. Despite its massive queer audience, many were skeptical about a renewal because the show is so unapologetically and authentically queer.
The show’s main relationship, between wealthy landowner Stede Bonnet and legendary pirate Blackbeard (Edward Teach), is complex, dramatic, and SO queer. Their characters compliment and validate each other so well; they’re just enough the same and just enough different. Watching their love bloom and the tragedy that follows is truly a thing to behold, being so unaccustomed to authentic queer representation.
Other featured wholesome queer relationships are between Oluwande and Jim and Lucius and Black Pete, as well as, though much less wholesome, Blackbeard’s first mate, Izzy Hands, being clearly in love with him.
Supernatural and Our Flag Means Death are very, very different shows. Our Flag Means Death was queer from the start, queer in concept, with real queer and POC writers and actors providing real representation. In Supernatural, queerness was clumsily shoehorned into the show in a desperate attempt to expand the audience and reach of the show; its awkward ending reflects practically nothing but that.
I still find myself wishing that Supernatural had ended differently. As campy as the show is, it’s still a comfort watch to me, and I often think of how it could have turned out to be a truly queer love story if handled by the right people. It’s sorely disappointing to think of what the finale could have been: a staple for queer people and queer representation in media, instead inevitably turning out to be a cruel queerbait playing into the bury-your-gays trope.
Our Flag Means Death undoubtedly set a precedent for queer media. It showed queer fans that they don’t have to settle for barely-there representation, that they don’t have to whine at the ankles of showrunners and beg to prove they exist. It’s an authentically, unapologetically, and wholly queer love story.
