The show certainly can't stay this narrow forever, although how much the focus can/should expand is up for argument. I don't ever remember seeing the "there are no women!" issue framed in terms of that, though. If that were how it was phrased, my reaction would be different (see below, which got awfully long, sorry).
One of those problems, a huge and nagging one, is Why don't women exist past the end credits of any given episode?
Well, one, I'd say that they do. Beyond Meg and Sarah, I know you say to Vanzetti below that you don't count Mary and Jess, but I do. No, they can't contribute any new dynamic, but as she said in the post, that's the point. The story so far has been a story where the women have been deliberately removed and where that's been shown to have both general and specific bad consequences. So far. The story is just getting started. And if Mary and Jess hadn't been removed -- if it had just been two random women in their lives, like a babysitter and a girl in calc class -- Dean and Sam would be in an entirely different place as characters, because for the story as an ongoing story it's not that Mary and Jess aren't there in a "were never there, because the writers are ignoring them" way, but that they were there and that they were taken away. There is a difference in how that affects the characters we do see on a weekly basis, and their presence is felt on a weekly basis in Dean and Sam's actions, imo.
But two, and this is what really confuses me, why separate out the women in order to frame that "how can this story continue?" question? To me, the question is more "Why does hardly anyone exist past the end credits of any given episode?" Although really, a more constructive question would be "Isn't it more likely that this story won't stall out if the pool of players is a bit bigger?" Leaving aside the Winchesters (which, in my mind, include Mary and Jess) Pastor Jim and Caleb are the only repeated "good" presences for a very long time, and even they hardly show, while The Demon is the only repeated "bad" presence. Then we get Meg on the bad side, which, the people who complain that the face of the bad guy is a woman, whatever. But Sarah is the only repeated reference on the good side, and yet all of the victims have the potential to be like Jerry the airline guy; they could all call on Dean and Sam again, or refer other people to them, and I'd love to see the writers use past one-offs like that across the board.
Frankly, though, it seems to me like part of the point of the story up until now has been that Dean especially holds off from making a true connection with the people he saves. Even Jerry, who doesn't exactly call as a friend; he calls as a pleased former client. Dean and Sam are contractors, basically, who need to get to know their clients, but who certainly don't need to become friends with them, and Dean actively discourages continued friends-type contact with almost everyone he talks to. That makes sense as part of the life of someone who doesn't settle down, but for Dean, I think, it's also a fundamental part of his character that will have to be changed slowly, because it ties right back in to Mary's death and is how he functions. His mom and everything that, at four, he was just beginning to truly understand as "life" were taken from him, and then between, a) apparently moving around a lot growing up, so even if he did make friends, it's highly likely that he did it knowing that he wasn't going to be keeping them, b) Sam deciding to leave the family for college, c) Cassie deciding she doesn't want to be with him (twice, now), and d) John just taking off on him, and then doing his damnedest to get himself killed...if Dean's form-no-deep-ties approach to life had done anything other than solidify, I'd have been shocked.
So the way I see it, having people repeatedly pop up in their lives is something that will be good for the story, but will have to be introduced gradually and logically. And it only makes sense for the story that those people to be both women and men, so focusing only on wanting women doesn't make sense to me.
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One of those problems, a huge and nagging one, is Why don't women exist past the end credits of any given episode?
Well, one, I'd say that they do. Beyond Meg and Sarah, I know you say to Vanzetti below that you don't count Mary and Jess, but I do. No, they can't contribute any new dynamic, but as she said in the post, that's the point. The story so far has been a story where the women have been deliberately removed and where that's been shown to have both general and specific bad consequences. So far. The story is just getting started. And if Mary and Jess hadn't been removed -- if it had just been two random women in their lives, like a babysitter and a girl in calc class -- Dean and Sam would be in an entirely different place as characters, because for the story as an ongoing story it's not that Mary and Jess aren't there in a "were never there, because the writers are ignoring them" way, but that they were there and that they were taken away. There is a difference in how that affects the characters we do see on a weekly basis, and their presence is felt on a weekly basis in Dean and Sam's actions, imo.
But two, and this is what really confuses me, why separate out the women in order to frame that "how can this story continue?" question? To me, the question is more "Why does hardly anyone exist past the end credits of any given episode?" Although really, a more constructive question would be "Isn't it more likely that this story won't stall out if the pool of players is a bit bigger?" Leaving aside the Winchesters (which, in my mind, include Mary and Jess) Pastor Jim and Caleb are the only repeated "good" presences for a very long time, and even they hardly show, while The Demon is the only repeated "bad" presence. Then we get Meg on the bad side, which, the people who complain that the face of the bad guy is a woman, whatever. But Sarah is the only repeated reference on the good side, and yet all of the victims have the potential to be like Jerry the airline guy; they could all call on Dean and Sam again, or refer other people to them, and I'd love to see the writers use past one-offs like that across the board.
Frankly, though, it seems to me like part of the point of the story up until now has been that Dean especially holds off from making a true connection with the people he saves. Even Jerry, who doesn't exactly call as a friend; he calls as a pleased former client. Dean and Sam are contractors, basically, who need to get to know their clients, but who certainly don't need to become friends with them, and Dean actively discourages continued friends-type contact with almost everyone he talks to. That makes sense as part of the life of someone who doesn't settle down, but for Dean, I think, it's also a fundamental part of his character that will have to be changed slowly, because it ties right back in to Mary's death and is how he functions. His mom and everything that, at four, he was just beginning to truly understand as "life" were taken from him, and then between, a) apparently moving around a lot growing up, so even if he did make friends, it's highly likely that he did it knowing that he wasn't going to be keeping them, b) Sam deciding to leave the family for college, c) Cassie deciding she doesn't want to be with him (twice, now), and d) John just taking off on him, and then doing his damnedest to get himself killed...if Dean's form-no-deep-ties approach to life had done anything other than solidify, I'd have been shocked.
So the way I see it, having people repeatedly pop up in their lives is something that will be good for the story, but will have to be introduced gradually and logically. And it only makes sense for the story that those people to be both women and men, so focusing only on wanting women doesn't make sense to me.