The Use of Flashbacks in Season 8

        The popular television series Supernatural uses many techniques to portray its elaborate story line. The use of flashbacks is one that occurs quite frequently in the series. Supernatural is now on its eleventh season, and it manages to fit in at least one flashback a season, really picking up in season eight (Super-wiki). In season eight, there are thirty flashbacks crammed into eight episodes. While flashbacks can be a diverse way to add depth to the plot, they can also distract from the main story. While television has become more complex and slightly confusing to the audience, too much confusion could turn them away (Mittell). It is a delicate balancing act, and the first third of season eight of Supernatural flips between the present and the past so often, that it can be difficult to keep up.

            Flashbacks are scenes set earlier than the main story, and they can be used to tell backstories, fill in gaps between episodes and seasons, provide character development, and foreshadow events (Random House). Typically, they do not require much of their own exposition. However, many of the flashbacks in season eight are there for exposition purposes. Without them, the audience would be left wondering why Benny was around and why Amelia was okay with Sam just up and leaving in the middle of the night. These flashbacks are much more complex than the ones in previous seasons. Season three, for example, has flashbacks in “A Very Supernatural Christmas,” but they are contained within the episode.

The first episode of season eight, “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” has to set up the rest of the season while containing four flashbacks. The two flashbacks from Dean give the audience a first look at Benny. Within the four minutes of the flashbacks, the audience learns that Benny is not only a vampire, but that he wants Dean’s help to escape Purgatory. It is also learned that Castiel is missing and that Dean is on a mission to find him. Within Sam’s two minutes of flashback time in “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” the audience learns that Sam hit a dog and brought him to an animal hospital. While it is not yet revealed, this is also the audience’s first look at Amelia. These flashbacks mean that season eight has a lot to accomplish. It has to cover three different story lines; the present, Dean’s time in Purgatory, and Sam’s time with Amelia.

However, I am not sure all the flashbacks included in the first nine episodes of season eight were necessary. For example, Sam and Dean’s flashbacks in “We Need to Talk About Kevin” could have been combined into one each. There is no time break between their flashbacks, so one can only assume that the writer, Jeremy Carver, wanted to draw the audience into the flashbacks’ individual plot lines and how they relate to present day. The plot lines of the flashbacks are like little threads that ever so slowly unravel the brothers’ relationship. Every issue in the present day stems from the flashbacks. Dean is mad at Sam because he was left in Purgatory. Sam is brooding more than usual because he had normal with Amelia, and now it is gone.

Other flashbacks seem completely unnecessary and distract from the overall plot. In episode three, “Heartache,” there is a flashback involving Amelia and a picnic on Sam’s birthday. While it is a sweet memory for Sam, it does not add anything to enhance or further the plot. Episode five, “Blood Brother,” involves a flashback of Benny and Dean killing monsters in Purgatory. This memory is not sweet, nor is it important for plot development. Like Dean’s flashbacks in previous episodes, it consists of him and Benny killing monsters, but not much else.

“Blood Brother” is also one of the more flashback heavy episodes of season. The writer, Ben Edlund, somehow managed to fit eight flashbacks into a mere forty two minutes of screen time. Along with the previously mentioned flashback, there is alternating flashbacks from Sam and Dean. Sam’s inform the audience of how he got a job at a motel and found Amelia. Dean’s show the audience himself, Benny, and Castiel coming up with an escape plan out of Purgatory. Five episodes into the season, and the mini plot lines of the flashbacks are not just continuing, but they’re still setting up the events. By “Blood Brothers” Sam and Amelia are still not a couple, and all Dean has accomplished plot wise is finding Castiel and having an escape plan out of Purgatory. Then there is the ten second flash of Castiel being left behind in Purgatory at the end of the episode.

That same clip is later addressed in episode seven, “A Little Slice of Kevin.” It is elaborated upon by showing the audience that the leviathans had found them and were going after Castiel. Ten minutes later, and the audience learns that Castiel wanted to be left behind, making the information the audience learned from the previous flashback redundant. The full two minute flashback with what Dean thought he saw may have fit better at the end of “Blood Brothers,” as it would show why Dean felt so guilty.

Combined with these flashbacks are “monster of the week” episodes and plot episodes where the writers try to further the present day plot, while still reminding the audience of the flashback plots that are still moving forward in their time frame. By the end of “A Little Slice of Kevin,” The grisly details of Dean’s time in Purgatory have been revealed along with some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. In the present day plot, Castiel has miraculously been returned to the Winchester Brothers and Dean is barely coping. Sam, on the other hand, seems to be just fine, other than keeping tabs on Amelia. His flashback plot line doesn’t end until episode nine, “Citizen Fang,” when he meets Amelia’s husband and evidently decides that Amelia would be better off with her husband, especially after seeing them together through the living room window. What this plot line seems to do best, however, is resurrect the old argument from season one. Sam wants normal, but he is not likely to ever get it. Dean says as much in season eight in “Heartache,” when he tells Sam that Sam might want normal now, but he might not want it later.

After looking at the web of plot lines that exists in season eight, I believe there flashbacks in certain episodes that could be revised or completely omitted without disrupting the main plot of Supernatural. By removing or condensing just a few flashbacks, they could also move along the present day plot more rapidly, and make for a less confused audience.

Works Cited:

"Flashback". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc.

"Flashbacks." Super-wiki. 27 Nov. 2013.

Mittell, Jason. Comprehension. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York UP. 164. Print.