Trying not to think too much about if the cast of Supernatural has class consciousness
I reexamine my parasocial internet relationships and also take a day trip to McHenry, Illinois
What a week how’s everyone feeling? A little looser? A bit wilder? Take stock of your emotions, pay attention to what sets you off and what doesn’t.
What set me off this week? Well Supernatural for one, but else is new! I’m on season four—welcome to the party Misha Collins!
As is well documented on this Substack, I am a Jensen Ackles ride or die. I am a stan first and a person second, but this was a tough week in stan land. A thought came across my mind, one I couldn’t shake. One I knew, that would keep me from rest until I had the answer.
How did the cast of Supernatural vote in the 2024 election?1
I know what you’re saying to yourself, ‘Mary Rose, enough of the Supernatural content!’, Mary Rose no one wants to read anymore about Jensen Ackles! But here’s the thing, dear reader: I am on record calling Jensen a one man charisma machine, the highest honor I can bestow upon a man! I will not be able to sleep at night if this man does not have class consciousness.
So, let’s break it down.
We’ll start with an obvious cast member: Misha Collins, given name: Dmitri Krushnic.
What we know about him:
Misha Collins is a University of Chicago Alum2
Misha Collins is a published poet
Misha Collins was one of the top three choices for the role of Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones3.
Misha Collins was a 1994 White House Intern4.
He interned under Bill goddamn Clinton. He worked there mere months before Monica Lewinsky. He wrote this oped in the Chicago Tribune after the Lewinsky scandal came to light.
Who did Misha Collins vote for in 2024?? I beg you to go to his instagram feed. It’s full of stuff like this:
And this:
Here’s him in Chicago for the DNC answering an earlier question I had5:
Oof this one. I beg you to read the caption. If I had to see it so do you:
This last post isn’t about politics, it’s Hannah Einbinder making a joke that is 10000% about Misha Collins and I wanted to link it cause it delights me
Is that enough proof for you???? Misha Collins Patron Saint of Neo-Liberalism6! Misha Collins marked safe!
Misha was easy, but he isn’t really why were. Let’s get back to the core issue, we need to talk about Jensen Ackles.
What we know:
Jensen Ackles is from Texas and he still lives there
Jensen Ackles loves muscle cars
Jensen Ackles is co owner in a brewery
Jensen Ackles named his twins…Zeppelin and Arrow
Jensen Ackles is very likely the reason they didn’t let Dean be gay
His instagram has a lot of stuff like this:
Or this:
this:
He just looks hot in the next one, I beg you to let me live.
Jensen! Please don’t do this to me!
I couldn’t let this go at face value, I was losing sleep, I was a wreck, I had to know.
I needed to find proof. Jensen’s instagram gave me nothing, so like any social media stalker worth their salt, I followed the tags: I looked at his wife’s instagram.
What we know:
Danneel Ackles was on season four of One Tree Hill, if you even care.
Danneel Ackles lives in Austin
Austin was blue this past election
Danneel Ackles house looks like this:
That is a very Bohemian house.
Then, of course, there’s her Instagram. It’s full of stuff like this:
And this:
Here she is celebrating pride with her kids7.
This one is just a father’s day post for Jensen, but the pictures of Jensen driving his family around in the Impala Make Me Feel A Way that I Cannot Put into Words8!
She has posts about Hurricane Relief, posts supporting local boys and girls clubs, about the importance of Juneteenth, she posts about social justice, racial inequality and this from 2020:
Danneel Ackles marked safe! Danneel Ackles saved!
But this wasn’t enough for me. I needed more, needed absolute concrete proof, I needed to know that Jensen Ackles has class consciousness.
And then I had this thought: There is no way that political animal Misha Collins would let Jensen be apolitical, there is no way they would be friends for so long if Jensen was an alt right weirdo nutjob.
That’s Jensen reading Misha’s poetry collection9 from 2021 cause Jensen is a supporter of the Arts and a supporter of his friends.
It was a good thought, so I hit the books and went back to the primary sources and circled back to Misha’s instagram.
Lo and behold, when I dug just a bit deeper (Misha posts a lot) I found this, from September 23rd, 2024:
PROOF HUZZAH! Misha Collins hosting an event for Kamala Harris and Jensen Ackles confirmed to be in attendance!
Here’s a post from September 24th:
HUZZAH! EUREKA! RING THE BELL! SOUND THE ALARM! Our long national nightmare is over! Jensen Ackles has class consciousness! Jensen Ackles not a fascist! Jensen Ackles marked safe! Jensen Ackles SAVED!
Well how’s that for a happy ending folks? Isn’t it the best when you think the worst of someone and turns out not to be true? What a breath of fresh air! Supernatural’s hot lead actors are hot and have class consciousness!
Ah fuck—I forgot about Jared Padalecki. He probably voted for Kamala, idk. His wife is on booktok and always wears those big floppy millennial hats, which gives neolib, so he’s marked safe. I wasn’t losing sleep over him honestly. I’m more worried that he keeps getting arrested for getting into fights.
I love that TMZ clarifies that this is his “Go-To” Austin Club, just so people know he’s a club guy. You gotta be getting into fights at your Go-To Austin Clubs, amiright ladies?
One Final Word on this:
I saw a comment on one of these posts that said “Sam and Dean would’ve voted for Trump” and I had to laugh.
Who would Sam and Dean vote for you ask??? Sam and Dean live in their car! Sam and Dean are homeless! Sam and Dean do not have valid drivers licenses! Sam and Dean are considered legally dead! They’re not registered to vote! They have a lot of other shit going on! Do you really think they’re worried about a presidential election10????
Love Island Season 11 Update
I still follow a lot of the stars for Love Island UK series 11—to date the only complete Love Island season I’ve seen. I like to know what’s going on in their lives.
Matilda and Sean broke up—thank God! And now Matilda posts a lot of thirst traps. I commented on one of her posts and she liked it.
Nicole and Ciaran are still together, of all the couples this season they’re the one I think can make it. Nicole took a solo trip to New York last week for a White Fox Boutique event.
She arrived in the US…Tuesday November 5th. Babe the timing. Anyone gonna tell her?
I was all worried about her getting here that day, but then I remembered there was a clip from Season 11 where none of them could name the current British Prime Minister. So! There’s that.
A short story in the American Midwest
I spent all day Friday with my parents in McHenry, Illinois. My dad spent the earliest years of his childhood in McHenry. We have ancestors in the parish graveyard going back hundred of years. We were in town for a memorial mass for my Grandma who died last year on Halloween.
It’s been a strange week, things feel different. The air feels heavy. I’m taking stock of my emotions, I’m paying attention to what’s setting me off.
People are prone to nostalgia, we know this. We all have those self reflective moments where we sit back and say: now those, those were the good all days! I’ve got nostalgia for things I’ve never even experienced—it’s all very Midnight in Paris11.
On the drive in, my dad kept pointing out how everything had changed. How when he was a kid in the late 60s, the land was all fields. All the parking lots and strip malls, the Chipotle’s, Starbucks, the Targets used to be acres and acres of farm land—it was very Doc Brown of him12.
He showed us his childhood home, the pond out back where he and his brothers would fish, the rounded corner of a field where they would play baseball. His uncle lived at the farm next door, and his grandparents around down the road.
“I was a very idyllic childhood,” he said to me and my mom or maybe to no one.
We walked around the cemetery and looked at our ancestors graves, we got lunch at a restaurant that’s been open since the 70s, I had exactly one (1) beer and we went thrifting—because bargain hunting is my parents favorite hobby.
We ended up at this thrift shop called the “Pink Door” that was run by this coterie of old women in their 80s. These old ladies…there was something about them. They were talking behind the counter, having an animated conversation, and they were loud, every person in the store could hear them.
The topic of the conversation seemed to be “the good old days”, they were reminiscing, talking about the past, and one of them said: “The 1950s were the best time to be a teenager!”
And the other one loudly agreed. They squealed. They talked about how much freedom they had, they talked about the simplicity. They talked about Soul Train and The Mickey Mouse Club—the shows they used to watch when they got home from school. They talked about Rock and Roll, about how important it was, how there was nothing else like it, how it felt like it was made just for them.
Then they sang. They sang those OG 50s rock songs,“Rock Around the Clock” and “Hound Dog”, or something like that. They sang the theme song to The Mickey Mouse Club. They sang at full volume, they harmonized. They didn’t have a care in the world.
There is something about this interaction that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. Something about it that left my stomach uneasy, left a stick in my craw.
At face value, this should have been endearing to me! I should have loved these little old ladies and their memories and their cute songs and their smiles. But all it made me feel was angry. Why did it make me feel so angry?!
It think it was because there was this tenor to their conversation that made it feel like they were saying this: Things are terrible now! Isn’t it so lucky we got to live and grow up in the best time ever?
Maybe I’m being too mean, maybe it was just timing, maybe it was just rural Illinois—but it pissed me off. I don’t care about how everything was better when you were a kid, I’m glad you got to grow up in such a perfect time. I grew up in this time, so will you kindly shut the fuck up?
I’m just so sick of hearing things from their generation. It isn’t about them anymore. I’m so sick of listening to older generations who tell me they know what’s best for me. I’m so sick of people older then me telling me I’m too young to know better, that I’ll know more about how the world works when I get older.
Ask anyone in your life 40 or over: what did they think was going to happen last Tuesday?
They don’t know anything. They don’t have any greater knowledge then we do. So why are we still waiting for them for all of our answers?
Older generations still think the worst can be avoided, that in four years it will be okay, that this will all be over. In four years most of them will be retired, relaxed, backed down from the fight. Odds are in four years those old ladies in the thrift store’ll both be dead. They’ll never have to deal with What Comes Next. They get to go the grave believing they got to grow up in the best time, and fuck the rest of us right?
We’re the ones that have to deal with it. We’re the generation that was dealt this raw deal. We still have to live, grow up, find a way forward.
When is it my turn? When is it our turn? They all had these great years, these idyllic, perfect years and now they do what? Sit in disbelief at the world around them and look inward to cope?
So having them sing and be so gleeful and shove that in my face. It felt so out of touch—who are these women? Do they give a shit about me? What world do they think they’re living in?
And I don’t know how to end this piece, I’m still just sitting with the feeling. The rest of my day in McHenry was really lovely. I ended up buying two pairs of sunglasses from the old ladies. We went to Restore13, my parents got new bar stools and I got a lamp for $8. We got dinner at a roadhouse on the lake as the sun was setting, and had a really wonderful conversation with my Great Aunt and Uncle—my Grandma’s younger brother and his wife. We all went to mass together and it was very nice, and then we all went home.
And I was left with this. This feeling, thinking about what’s setting me off…thinking about why…thinking about the next steps forward.
That’s all this week. I’m seeing Dehd tonight at Thalia Hall and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna fucking rock. I’ll be in Boston this weekend taking my sister on college visits. Any recommendations? Otherwise, see me next week.
I told Jake the premise of my newsletter and he went “yikes”. It’s always so nice to hear from my fans <3333
Misha Collins lived in Chicago…do you think he ever went to Berlin?? Can we just say yes for wish fulfillment purposes?
This is not necessary info to solve this mystery, but it is a fact that drives me craazzyyy. Would he have been better then Hayden Christensen?? Who knows! But I will wonder that for the rest of my life.
As a trained historian, I did go to the source for this one and found myself deep in the Clinton Presidential Library Digital Archives cause they have records of intern applications. I could not find Misha’s which is a crime. People will tell you it’s because her intern too close to Lewinsky. I (smart) will tell it’s because he got too famous on Supernatural. What are the odds that the Clinton White House would produce two world famous interns???
Not a joke: at work today as I was giving my tour I kept thinking “if Misha was in town for the DNC then why didnt he do my boat tour??? It’s right up his alley! Misha if you’re reading this, please come on one of my boat tours. I still have some comps for the season! Please don’t bring Jensen though, if I’m up there, and I look out into the crowd and see Jensen Ackles looking back at me, I will hyperventilate, probably fall in the river and maybe even die.
I feel like I do need to say this: Misha’s particular shade of neoliberalism is not my favorite thing, as I think neoliberalism is a big part of the fucking problem with the Democratic party right now. But, I’ll take my victories where I can get them. They’re not crazy wacko fascists, they give a shit about their fellow man. And that’s got to be enough for now.
People will say Jensen’s not in the pic because he was taking it. I (wise) say Jensen is not in this pic because he knew if he was in a pride post every comment would be about Destiel.
Danneel’s insta turned out to be a goldmine. Here she is dressed as Robin Williams in The Birdcage!! This is important to me!!!
I have to confess: I read a few of the poems in this collection and they were very good. Misha Collins—third lead on a CW show and good poet, he has no bounds.
Except in season 12 where there’s an episode where they have to kidnap the President because he’s been possessed by the devil. It came out around the 2016 election and it’s ends with Sam and Dean being arrested for trying to assassinate the President. Honestly a banger, one of the better episodes of the later run.
Yes, I know this is a Woody Allen film. Can I save just one? If I tell you I hated Annie Hall does that get me a pass? Cause I could not stand Annie Hall. Perhaps this is one of my famous bad takes, but you’re telling me that this is the movie that beat Star Wars for Best Picture?????
“Back then this whole area was farmland. Old man Peabody had this crazy idea about breeding pine trees.” (Is this the exact quote? I wrote that from memory. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen Back to the Future.)
Jimmy Carter still alive!
Thank you for this
That’s some quality stalking right there. Well done.