And while we're talking of Jared Padalecki....

I would like to say a few words in praise of the recently greatly improved CW series (and new Padalecki home) Supernatural. It's still a mix of Buffy with Boys and a non-governmental X-Files, but it's certainly come a long way from its first season's horrible "Native American spirits send angry swarms of wasps after suburban sprawl" plotlines. The just-concluded second season has set into motion not one but two "I was dead! Why did you bring me back to this world of suffering?" plotlines, with, dare I say it, less pointless angst and Spike-boinking than Buffy ever could in a similar situation. What I've come to appreciate most about the show, though, is its willingness to address the cold truth of the Midwest: there are many demons here. Destroy them all!

Okay, I'm kind of joking. But I do think the show's version of the red/blue, fly-over/fly-into divide is interesting. Take, for example, the excellent episode of a few weeks back: "What Is and What Never Should Be." This is Supernatural's entry into the science fiction series' apparently narratologically mandatory category: episodes where we get to see what would have happened if the central event that defines the show's entire story arc did not occur. It's so mandatory that Buffy did it twice at least: once awesomely when Anya appeared and got Cordelia to wish that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, and once much less awesomely when Buffy was temporarily convinced that she wasn't the chosen one, just gravely insane. In Supernatural, Dean, the rugged older brother and demon hunter 4 life gets ambushed by a djinn and finds himself in a world where 1) his mother was not pinned to the ceiling and set aflame by a demon with yellow eyes, and 2) his pretty-boy younger brother Sam, (the aforementioned Padalecki), got to go to Stanford law school like he planned and didn't have to join Dean in his quest to rid the Midwest of creepy girls in white nightgowns. The separation there is crucial--Sam (somewhat improbably for Gilmore Girls fans) is the smart one of the two Winchester brothers, and much of Dean's anguish throughout the show has revolved around bringing his brother down from the cultural and class elite to which he rightfully belongs into the world of Metallica-blasting ghostbusters who stock the trunk of their Impala with salt-loaded shotguns. And the show kind of agrees: it's not the kind of Republican-approved fantasy where everything would be great if all the white people would stop thinking about things and just go back to growing sod, waving flags, baking pies, and kissing babies.

And this is what I find interesting about the show. Episodes are set (nearly) exclusively in heartiest heart of the heartland--Arkansas, Iowa, Wyoming, and every other stretch of corn country in between--and the show's not especially sorry about that, nor, (when it's on its game at least), does it collapse into heartland cliche. People can go a long way without necessarily getting anywhere, and smart, capable people continue to exist more than 500 miles from any ocean. Sure, this is often not true: the show can be clunky in 10 different ways without trying; there's no Whedon-patented sidekick to bring the funny; the CW could lay off with the promos reminding us that Padalecki and Jensen Ackles are smokin' hot examples of manhood; but for all that, I'll take it. Missourians, unite! We're more than Matt Blunt, and Kit Bond, and all the rest. We have demons too! And we're not afraid to salt and burn their bones!