All of us have our favourite episodes, haven’t we? A long summer hiatus is, for me, the perfect time to take a look back, and then take a closer look at some of my fave episodes. Houses of the Holy, directed by the ingenious and missed Kim Manners, is one of them. The inspiration simply struck, and I’d like to invite you, kind readers, to follow me down memory lane to an older episode, when the hunters didn’t have an inkling of what as waiting for them…
It’s time for the second season of episode titles. No better way to spend the hellatus then re-living the episodes of yore. This season was chock-full of great references to songs, books and movies. Enjoy!
I’ve been dying to do this retro recap for a very long time. This episode gives a recapper so much to work with! My last two were “Salvation” and “Devil’s Trap,” so now it’s time to look at the first season ending/second season beginning, third part of this gripping trilogy. Let’s take a close look at “In My Time of Dying.”
Open Supernatural Couch – Croatoan
Or
Infernal Virus Cocktail, Shaken, Not Stirred
Every sound echoes through the hallway as Dean checks his gun in slow motion, the click of the magazine like a metallic drum… takes aim at an unarmed, bound young man, listening to the others’ fearful arguments, the guy’s desperate pleading… but in fact – he’s already decided to have no choice. He hates to do this. In all likelihood hates himself this very moment for having to do this… and he shoots him…
Another week of Hellatus has come and gone so it’s time for the second installment in this five-part series.
I want to clarify my purpose in tackling this project, the purpose is to pick the one, and only one, episode per season that I believe is the pivot point for the season as well the series as a whole. Each season has many, many excellent episodes as well as episodes that are not so excellent but have excellent moments, with that in mind, I try to pick one out of 22 (or in one case 16) that is the pivotal episode.
“All Hell Breaks Loose” Part 2
--Robin’s Rambles by Robin Vogel
Sam is dead, and it’s been a couple of days. In some cabin somewhere, he lies peacefully on a mattress red with his blood, and Dean has been crying and talking to him, unable to accept his failure to protect his brother. Bobby keeps stopping by with different food, the latest a bucket of chicken. Dean just keeps drinking from a whiskey bottle, refusing to eat. Bobby thinks it’s time they consider burying Sam. Torch his corpse?--not yet, insists Dean. Bobby wants him to come with him, leave this place, so he won’t be alone. He needs his help; something big is going down, end-of-the-world big. “THEN LET IT END!” cries Dean—haven’t I given enough?—paid enough—I’m done. He literally pushes Bobby, then apologizes. “You know where I’ll be,” says Bobby, leaving Dean alone with his dead brother.
Jake, hiding in the woods, dreams of the YED, who calls him the American Idol for winning the competition. Jake orders the demon to go to hell. “Been there, done that,” quips the YED, who says he has a task for Jake, and if he refuses to do it, Jake’s mother and little sister will be the ones to suffer for it.
Dean talks to Sam, and it’s just heartbreaking, about how, when he was five, he started asking questions—why didn’t they have a mom, why did they move around so much, where did Dad go. I told you to quit asking, you didn’t want to know; I wanted you to be a kid a little longer. My job was to keep you safe, Dad didn’t even have to tell me. It was always my responsibility, my one job and I screwed it up, I blew it, and for that I’m sorry. He wipes his eyes. I guess that’s what I do—let down the people I love. I let Dad down—am I supposed to let you down, too? How can I? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? Standing, he demands, “What am I supposed to do?”
“All Hell Breaks Loose” Part 1
--Robin’s Rambles by Robin Vogel
Kripke wraps up the “special kids” storyline in this and the next episode, for some, in an anticlimactic way. Kripke himself said he was getting tired of it, so instead of an army of special kids, he wanted the group pared down to one, the “American Idol,” to use the YED’s own words.
Sam and Dean stop by a tiny café for a meal. Dean sends Sam in to get him a burger with extra onions (Sam argues about riding in the car with his brother and those extra onions), and some pie (pronounced “pah” by Dean). “It’s Been Such a Long Time” begins playing wonky on the radio when Dean realizes something is terribly wrong. He runs into the diner and finds everyone inside dead, their throats slashed. Horrible country music is playing. Worst of all, Sam is missing. There are sulfur remnants on the door. Dean calls “Sam!” and “Sammy!” desperately, running around searching, but his brother is gone.
Sam wakes up in what Andy, another special kid, calls Frontierland, a very haunted place in Cold Oaks, South Dakota. Sam finds first Andy, whose last memory is of his fourth bong-load, then Ava, locked inside something, who the Winchesters have been searching for for five months. She’s sure her fiancé must be freaking out if she’s been gone that long! They run across Jake, who was “imported” from Afghanistan, and Lily, from San Diego. Andy tells them he can make people “do stuff,” and confesses to making one dick guy have visions of gay porn 24/7. When no one but him finds that amusing, Andy is embarrassed. When Lily touches people, they die, and THAT is not funny! The group starts to argue, but Sam intervenes, explaining that a demon brought them together here.
“What is and What Should Never Be”
--Robin’s Rambles by Robin Vogel
Of all the episodes of SUPERNATURAL, this one is often given as many fans’ number one favorite. For me, next to the one in which Sam dies, it’s also the most heartbreaking. Trust me when I tell you that the first time I saw this episode, I pretty much cried from beginning to end. It was so sad and hard to watch what Dean had to go through and what he was forced to give up.
Dean, courtesy of a Djinn (genie), is given the opportunity to have the life he might have had Mary never died—Jessica alive, Sam in law school at Stanford and engaged to her, and Dean himself living with a beautiful nurse, working on cars at a garage. Missing: John, who died of a stroke in his sleep at age 52 (because JDM was unavailable), a close relationship with Sam, and the deaths of every soul he and Sam had saved as hunters. So the situation wasn’t completely idyllic, and forced Dean to make a tough decision.
Dean is captured by the Djinn in a warehouse. Sam is talking to him on his cell as Dean drives up and down, trying to find the genie’s lair. They’ve been forced to get a new plate for the Impala—CNK Q83—after their escape from prison; they’ve ditched the credits cards, too. Ignoring Sam’s directive to pick him up first, Dean goes alone to the warehouse he thinks the Djinn is holed up in. When the creature traps him, the seemingly multi-tattooed genie touches Dean’s forehead and blue electric sparks flash through his fingers into Dean’s face.
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Saturday, 03 September 2011 18:25 | 
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