Elle2’s Review – Two and A Half Men
Two and Half Men, by Elle2
So Adam Glass writes for Supernatural…hmm.
This, his first ever episode of Supernatural, was pretty good. Of course I won’t be able to watch it again until CW posts it on their website – technology really sucks sometimes, especially if you have only a barely workable knowledge of it.
See, I got home from an assignment a little before 5:00 p.m. Fed my certain-they-were-starving-to-death pets and, spooned up two spoonfuls of salsa and gobbled a hard boiled egg – no yolks, gotta watch my cholesterol, you know – and then took my poor, deprived puppy for a walk. Got back from that about 6:20 and worked on the assignment I received today – and will be working on over the weekend as its turnaround is Monday, but hey, work has been slow and this is extra cash to get it turned around that quick, so I’ll do it thank you very much – and finally, at about 7:59 I stopped work, turned on the TV, the cable box and the DVD thingy so I could get watch Smallville, eat dinner and then record SPN.
That is when the monkey wrench showed itself for my evening ’cause the TV was all static. Sure, the TV worked just fine when the DVD thingy was off but try to turn that on and nothing but static. I worked and monkeyed and reset and tried everything for the next 56 minutes. Finally, the writing was on the wall (along with a few items that got thrown) – I could watch TV with the DVD thingy off, but there wasn’t going to be any recording. Darn it. (Kitty and puppy will assure you that I used quite a bit stronger language than that.)
So, sulking, I settled in to watch the episode, dinner finally occurred around 9:30 p.m. – bowl of oatmeal and a piece of lo-fat cheese – ’cause gotta watch the cholesterol and I’m trying to lose a few (thirty) pounds.
So, I watched it. And, I liked it.
I hate that Dean and Lisa and Ben had to move. I hate that Dean’s ‘new life’ is torn up and that while he’s happier because Sam is alive, he’s unhappy because ‘something is coming.’ Whether anything is coming I don’t know but like Bob Seger said, you just can’t have it all.
John Showalter has all the right moves as a spooky director. The woman fleeing upstairs, hiding under the bed, seeing her husband slaughtered and lying on the floor, the footstep shadow just outside the door, I was certain that there was going to be a sudden appearance of those feet and the door slamming open but no, more subtle and frankly more scary as she is somehow simply ripped out from under the bed and, well, we don’t see it but we ‘know’ what happened to her.
Sam is obviously the respectable face-man for the Winchester/Campbell clan for there he is in his suit and tie goodness mingling with the cops and searching the house for any and all clues and Samuel-intranet-Campbell is back ‘home’ doing the research, or trying to at least. The hunt and the exposition around it at this point is fairly straightforward and the scene of Sam in suit and tie intercut with Samuel in dreary lair is humorous because of Samuel’s obvious disadvantage with a computer, don’t slam the keys so hard, experience has taught me that all that will accomplish is just locking up your keyboard. ‘course, I was slamming keys and remotes and other things pretty well for the hour leading up to this so I’m not judging, just suggesting.
I wanted a scene with Ben and Dean but this was not the scene I was hoping to see. Guess I’ll have to comfort myself with those scenes I WAS ABLE TO RECORD – yeah, not getting over that soon – last week with the two of them working on the truck and the salty eggs in the kitchen. I do love that we see those shades of Ben’s experience with the changelings in that he’s ready to take action to protect his family and help Dean. Ben in TKAA was certainly brave and heroic and this Ben is no different. Dean, poor Dean, either it’s the fear of Ben being fed demon blood or growing up hunting, it’s too much and the apple pie life that was and wasn’t is gone, along with friend-Sid.
Sam, you may be all mixed up from hell but there’s no doubt then when you’re in trouble you know who to call – no, it’s not the Ghostfacers but I’m holding out hope that they’ll be in the mix this year. Come on, will all the scary things roaming planet earth post-apocalypse, something is sure to ‘blow up their skirts’ that’ll bring them into the mix. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, Sam calls Dean for help.
Here’s where the episode could have gone horribly off track into goofiness and absurdity but it stayed pretty much in place, it was absurd without absurdity. The boys need to get the baby some supplies, makes sense. Instead of going the easy route with homosexual jokes it was simply accepted that two men would have an infant and need to get supplies.
“Dean, make it stop.” Of course they’re overwhelmed but instead of dwelling on that and letting the story stagnate they make it evident that they are now being hunted. An encounter in the store with a shapeshifter – one of my favorite of SPN’s monsters – and then a brief moment of bonding and wonder at the motel – hello, the brothers are back in a motel together, when was the last time we saw that? Sure, I know it was in Hammer of the Gods but that doesn’t really count ’cause that hotel was a trap, and Point of No Return wasn’t really the same motel experience since it was only Dean’s room and Sam only showed up for a moment before Cas zapped him back to Bobby and before that was 99 Problems and the only motel was the one that Dean ran out of, so really Dark Side of the Moon was the last ‘real’ time in a motel and remember what happened there. Shudder.
A dirty diaper is handled quickly and with a touch of humor, Dean shows that humming classic rock not only calms him down but an infant and the magic fingers return!!! I imagined that it would be Dean with the infant on the bed both feeling the calming effects of the magic fingers but it was just Dean. I’m not complaining for Dean actually looked soothed and I can bet he needed it. Poor baby, that had to hurt splitting your skin and poof – or splat – becoming another!
Still the episode kept it all moving right along as Dean and Sam simultaneously discover the baby is a monster – and isn’t that shades of Sam’s prior ‘destiny’ of seasons past, as well as a bit of a shout out to Metamorphosis’ Jack and even slightly to Jesse from I Believe the Kids Are Our Future. There’s a monster, it’s a baby, maybe we can teach it to be, you know, not a monster.
Enter Samuel, I didn’t trust you last week and I trust you even less this week, and just who are you working with/for? Better not be Bobby. Better not be Cas, although does that mean Cas still uses a cell phone? Could it be Azazel? Don’t know. I’m still betting that Azazel was a one off this season, wonderfully done though but I wouldn’t mind if he’s the man behind the curtain. I have a feeling it’s not that easy, not that expected, but that there’s more going on.
This shapeshifter is very interesting, he shifts into Samuel, Sam and Dean, oooh, we were all fooled in one way or the other based on some of those pics released so many weeks ago. Mark, well, he’s the first of the red-shirt-Campbells to go. Kinda sorry ’cause while he didn’t say much I kind of liked him. Could be because he didn’t say so much that I liked him, the others really tick me off but I do believe they are supposed to.
What is this place they’re at anyway and where? Is it really a permanent compound – or semi-permanent? It’s the Roadhouse with no Ellen, Ash or Jo – ah, those days are still fond when I think of all that’s transpired.
The one slightly clunky note is the last conversation between Dean and Sam. It’s obvious that Dean doesn’t quite know what to make of Sam but this seemed a bit forced to make it seem as if Sam was using the baby as bait all along drawing the shapeshifter to Samuel. Maybe Sam was and maybe he wasn’t but it’s a little clunky in how it was handled. Perhaps it’s because we’ve seen suspicion between the brothers since Season 4 and really even a bit in Season 3 as Dean wondered if Sam came back to life all Sam so perhaps that’s my issue.
On the other hand, just like the handling of Dean’s second and supposed to be fatal djinn poisoning I just find the editing a bit off on what he learned about the shapeshifter when it attacked him. Granted, I’ve only seen that fight once so my memory isn’t great – and I was still sulking a bit – but I’m pretty sure the shapeshifter told Dean that he wanted to take the baby to ‘our father’ prior to Sam appearing. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was prior to Dean being flung across the room so what makes Dean so certain that Sam would have heard the shapeshifter say that and then wonder if that means Sam was keeping a secret? Don’t know. Again, like last week’s editing choices it’s just a nit and not a huge one. I get that we’re supposed to wonder about Sam and ‘feel’ Dean’s suspicions, just don’t club us over the head with it, we’ll go there with you.
What can I say about Lisa? I like this woman. I’m sad to see Dean raise stakes and head off but I gotta say I like how it was handled. Lisa maintained her sensibilities from last week, she loves Dean, she loves having him in her life but she can’t live the life the way it’s currently in front of her. Like she said, she needs to work and Ben has to go to school, and she completely understands who and what Dean is; a hunter. He can work at construction but that doesn’t make him a construction worker. He not only is a hunter, he needs to hunt.
Here’s where it gets a little tricky but I have faith in what the writers are doing and will watch and see how they walk this tight rope they’ve put themselves on with Dean and Lisa; Lisa wants Dean in her life whenever he can be there. In other words, she’ll take Dean as he is, when he is. This is an amazing woman. Clearly she’s not sitting back feeling deprived because she hasn’t gotten married. Although I am a complete fan of dad, mom and kids, but I also know that plenty of families can and do make it work in the circumstances they find themselves in. Lisa wants to be in Dean’s life and she wants Dean to know that she and Ben will be there for him and looking forward to those times but that she can’t be pushed and pulled from day to day, week to week, month to month just as Dean and Sam were.
I have faith they won’t go the Charmed route here – lately I’ve been watching episodes of Charmed and I really got frustrated with the way they pulled and tore at Leo and Piper, sheesh, so tiring after a while. Glad SPN has already gotten past the immediacy as I’m betting we’ll have an ongoing thread of Lisa and Ben for a while until Sera does whatever she’s going to do with them. Don’t kill them!!! But this is Sera-the-killer-of-many-characters.
The boys’ conversation in the motel room earlier told me this is where this episode was going to end up so I’m not surprised nor am I disappointed, especially with how the episode ended, with a dramatic flourish the tarp is on the ground, the Impala gets another glorious set of shots akin to Back in Black in Bloodlust and we’re treated to Smoke On the Water jamming out as Dean smiles, a full, complete smile, and stands a bit more erect, a bit more confidently, a bit more like himself, ready to go and be who he is and this time he’s not being dragged; he’s choosing to go.
Bob Seger said it last week: “You just can’t have it all.” However, what stood out for me on the multiple viewings of that opening montage were the lyrics that ended that montage, “You just don’t need it all.”
Thanks for reading, Elle2
Oh, yeah, by the way, finally figured out the problem with the DVD thingy, someone (now I’m not saying it WAS the puppy or the kitty BUT) someone must have pressed the input button on the DVD remote, cause it wasn’t turned to the correct channel (3) so thus it couldn’t receive the input from the cable. Finally figured that out at 10:19 p.m. Too late to fix the lost episode this evening but I’m good to go next Friday.
Thanks, again, for reading, Elle2
Hi Elle2
Wow great review and you’re so fast! So much detail after just one viewing..Man you’re good.
I too was expecting to see the feet again under the door, and was taken by surprise when the mother was suddenly grabbed from under the bed.
Samuel on the computer was humourous. I felt his frustration. You would think one of the other Campbell’s would be on research duty, but as I noted from last weeks episode….they don’t appear to be very bright.
The scene between Ben and Dean was sad. Ben wanting to help and Dean letting his protectiveness and fears take over. I thought for a moment that Dean was going to call Ben back and apologize. I guess I was hoping for a more bonding moment between the two. I guess Dean now understands how easy it is to become militant when your protecting someone you love. Although he doesn’t want to become like John, I think he can relate again to his Dad.
The supermarket scene had me giggling. It reminded me so much of Three Men and a Baby. I loved how Dean picked the name Bobby and Sam picked John. Kind of a Fatherly moment.
I had wondered at first who the baby was changing into, then I noticed the picture of the baby on the diaper box. I’m pretty sure it’s the same baby and I have to say that baby is pretty observant …I guess being part monster will do that for you.
I also like seeing some of that old chemistry back with having both brother’s simultaneously figure out the baby was a monster.
I’m starting to wonder if Samuel was brought back by Raphael or some other Angle trying to take control over Heaven. It looks like he’s to collect various supernatural entities as part of his deal in being resurrected. I do believe and hope that Sam isn’t aware of the truth and that he is being some what played…but it could be possible he does know and was put under the same deal. How far would you go to get out of Hell? I still have to question how these two crossed paths.
Lisa is amazing. I’m so happy that it was her idea to let Dean go and that she is willing to keep the door open for him. I would of hated for something horrible to of happen to her and Ben.
I loved it!! Feels like season one is back and that is my favourite season.
Here are a few things I collected when I rewatched:
Dean wears another print on shirt and it sure looks cool on him.
Loved the conversations in this ep. Like Dean in complete father mode: “Wow where is the fire?” And Ben accepting him in this role and actuall listens to him.
Last week I said that I think Ben already knows about hunting and staying at Bobbys will raise his curiousity even more. And the way kids are he sure will want to get into hunting himself and no adult will stop him from doing that. I believe he will teach himself or find a way how somebody will teach him certain things he thinks he needs to know. Conclusion of the whole thing. This is a way to have an open door for a sequal show in years to come after SPN.
Another good piece of conversation is when Dean gets in Sams car and talks to the baby and baby’s responses are smiles. And then Sams remark “Seat belt” – “What am I in third grade?” Clearly the impala doesn’t have seat belts and Dean never used one before.And then Deans remark “We need to get some surplies.” Sam: I got an arsenal in the trunk” Dean: Not that kind of surplies”
In the store, Dean: “Maybe he needs a diaper change.” Sam: “My god I hope not” Sams face when he says that is just wonderful. And then Dean whining with the Baby – so great.
Dean discovers in this ep a few things about himself or actually admits to it. One of them is that he loves Ben
“I know he is not my kid but I start to feel like he is” and that he starts to become like his father
The next lines I love. When they want to have a chat with the surving father and Dean gets up of the bed and is ready to leave with Sam and then he goes “You go” Sam “You sure?” Dean “Unless you got a batch for Bobby John.”
And here is just another reminder of the pilot. Sams conversation with the surviving dad reminds me a lot of his talk to bloody marys widow.
And then there is another amazing thing. When Dean puts the baby into the crib it immediatly shuts up. Sure wish my boys would have always done that once they were put in the crib.
And Sam finally has his James Bond moment when he shoots the shapeshifter in the motel room.
Oh how did I miss those conversations in the car. Even though it is not in the impala – yet. Sam: “Not every hunter is a headcase. Samuel is a lot like you.” Dean: “I am a freaking headcase.”
Samuels compound reminds me of Deans compound in The End.
And here is a mystery for me. When Samuel talks to Christian: “Christian you and Arlene still looking into the baby pond?” Who the heck is Arlene?
Daddy shapshifter seems to be different. Not only does he have enormous strenght and doesn’t seem to be able to die. While all other shapeshifters we met so far had to take off the old skin before moving into a new one. Daddy shapeshifter seems to able to move from one persona to the next without all of that.
I absolutly loved the shots when Sam is fighting Sam and Dean is fighting Dean. Jared and Jenson are so good at this.
And here is my complain about the ep. Wish they would have played a little more of smoke on the water and let us see Dean actually getting into the impala and drive off.
All in all the writers did a wonderful job and I love that they go back to the dark shots and the funny lines. After all that is when I fell in love with this show.
My first impression on catching a glimpse of 6.02.
I liked it. 🙂 Among other things, I liked :
(a) The mature and quite realistic way Lisa was written and protrayed;
(b) How the monster “won” at the end (instead of being killed off);
(c) The way the baby humor was not overdone.
One strikely feature was the way Samuel referred to “his people” (who are supposedly his relatives). I also thought Sam’s denial of using the baby as bait was a bit ambiguous.
I am a bit disappointed that the silent Campbell was killed off so quickly though. 😛
Hi, Karen, Yirabah, CitizenKane and Dany,
Thank you for the wonderful lists of favorite lines and moments from the episode. I got to ‘see’ it again through your comments.
There was quite a bit to like about this episode and how it was written. I think upon rewatch it is likely to grow on me even more as I see some of the moments that you all wrote.
I do think Lisa and Ben have been very well written and developed thus far and while I hope to see some more of them, I agree that it doesn’t have to be overdone. A little does go a long way. I hope that they’ll weave a bit in and out of the episodes and there will be some immpact on Dean for he did spend an entire year with them and there was a yearning prior for a family life that slowly morphed into more of the ‘apple pie life’ since he had no experience with it.
I don’t think (and hope not as well) that we’ll see Dean all mopey after Lisa and Ben but I do like this more mature Dean and really hope those Dean aspects of years past stay gone (porn and hungry looks after willing women) for I do think in his mind there is a core of him that really does like Lisa and what she represents, thus there is a commitment of sorts there.
I do like that the baby and the shapeshifter escaped. It was a tough set up and kind of the only way to go unless Sera and Co. wanted to endorse ‘baby killing’ on the show (yeah, I know it’s a monster…still, as Dean said, it is a baby!) and either it got killed or was raised by the Campbells and thus there would be a baby on board somewhere in the compound.
Speaking of that compound, I’m so with you on that compound being reminicent of The End. That’s immediately what I thought about.
Adam Glass did a really good job with the brotherly human and moments when these two are still a bit unsure of where they are at the moment. Still, they are brothers and when not concentrating on all the questions and shadows and mysteries, the usual brotherly banter comes quickly. That made me very happy.
Thanks for the tips on where to go for online viewing. I’ll be checking it out soon!
Great review, and I’m glad to see someone else had an issue with that final conversation between Dean and Sam. When I read reviwers stating as fact that Sam used the baby as bait when that’s not what I got out of the episode, I re-watched the specific scene Dean uses to base his assumption on.
There are 15 seconds of fighting between Dean and the shapeshifter between when the shifter says “our father” and Sam appears in the doorway to shoot the shifter. So either Sam was just standing around watching/listening to Dean get his butt kicked or…it’s more forced bad Sam
It just occured to me that in the scene after the shapeshifter walks out of the panic room with the baby (and Dean is on the floor gasping for breath), we see Samuel talking with Sam, with the rest of the Campbells tidying up the mess upstairs.
I think we see Samuel doing a “twisting” motion of his hand, presumably describing to Sam how Mark Campbell was killed by the shapeshifter killed Mark. There is a noticeable lack of any remorse or grief, I thought.
I see that reviwers are divided between those who think Sam did use the baby as bait, those who think his behavior was at least ambiguous and those who don’t. Mo Ryan, for example, thinks that he didn’t but also that he is surely colder and more calculating now than he used to.
I don’t know for sure if he did or did not. I hope not. But whether he did or not, every action of Sam is designed to create doubt and ambiguity to remind us that he is not the same person anymore, and in keeping with the general aura of mystery that involves this season.
Sorry for the digression – it has nothing to do with Supernatural – but all the doubts about Sam’s present behavior remind me of the movie Suspicion, when everything indicted that Cary Grant was guilty and in the end it turned out that he wasn’t.
BTW, now that we got a glimpse of this new Sam I was wondering how to interpret the lights going out as he stood outside Dean’s window in Swan Song. Any ideas?
Hey, shmrck14, CitizenKane, AndreaW,
Great comments. I’m leaning more and more to Sam knowing about the alpha and using the baby as bait but I do believe there’s more to it than that.
First off, the motel confrontation does nothing to sell me on that idea that Sam knew which is why Dean’s basing his concerns on that feels clunky to me. However, Sam is lying when he says he didn’t know. Sam is a terrible liar when faced head on with the question. He’s great at lying by omitting certain pieces of information but not when evading a direct question.
My bigger question is why exactly did Sam need Dean in the first place? We saw him working with Samuel just fine so why the frantic phone call and the threat of a ‘drive by’? I think it was Sam’s intent to bring Dean in on the first case he possibly could, especially if the case was an opportunity to further explore Dean’s increasing fears for Lisa and Ben.
I mostly base that on the fact that Sam was working with Samuel, then wants Dean to help without making any indication to Dean that he’s still working with Samuel as he and Dean are caring for the baby and continuing research and then, upon the grocery store incident Sam is all hell bent for leather at getting the baby to Samuel for safety. Me thinks Sam did know about the alpha and was using the baby for bait and further took the opportunity to work on Dean’s fears of turning into John and dragging his new ‘family’ into hunting
I’m pretty certain that whatever game Grandpa Campbell is playing at he wants Dean in the mix and was working on Sam to make that happen.
On the other hand….Sera and Company usually pull the rug out from underneath any and all of my assumptions so I toss that out there and will enjoy each weekly installment as bit by bit the mystery is revealed. I know it will be an enjoyable ride!
Two and a Half Men. So much good, so many more questions and a lovely, lovely little message. Family, no matter how screwed up it is, is still family, the only thing that matters. Awwww.
The snark is back. Yay. The banter was awesome. It’s great that Sam is not afraid to call out Dean on his bullshit. I also love that Dean didn’t get defensive when Sam did this. Character growth galore!
Every second of the scene in the supermarket was just WIN. Dean’s ‘hi’ as he rushes past the guy after grabbing everything in sight, Sams wave to the kid and ‘Oh God, I hope not’. Joy! Dean, um, are you trying to look up the leg of the kids pants? What do you think you’ll see up there? And Sam, did you just FLING the kid into the back seat and then drive off? What will the talking car say about that?
Sams look in the rear view mirror while talking on the phone to Dean was classic. From his expression you would have guessed he had the demonic offspring of a wendigo and a werewolf back there, though Sam would probably have preferred that.
Does the fact that Dean seems quite… clueless about babies mean that all of fandom is wrong when it says Dean raised Sam from a baby? Jeez, from the way some people were going on I thought Dean was nearly breastfeeding Sam! Now I know that nappies are tricky little feckers of things to manage but surely if he changed Sams nappies when he was younger he’d have some clue. I don’t think babies asses have changed that much.
I found Sams adamant ‘It’s a monster’ line to be quite poignant. Perhaps he feels that’s what he himself is, a monster from 6 months old, maybe wondering if the best thing for HIM would have been if someone had killed him young. I also find the detachment from the baby (constantly referring to him as ‘it’) to be quite upsetting.
I may be in the minority but I genuinely don’t see any valid reason to be mistrustful of the Campbells. Is it because Deans sees them as dicks and doesn’t trust them, we do too. I mean, based on their actions what have they done that’s so wrong? Rescued Dean, hunted with Sam, killed bad things and offered to give a baby a home. Ok, they don’t treat Dean with the respect he/we feels he deserves and they’re castigated for this?
Fair enough, Samuel came back from the dead but so did Sam and Bobby and Castiel and eh…. DEAN so why mistrust them based on that? I think the writers are doing an awesome job with them. We don’t know why we mistrust them; we just know that we do.
Sam’s quiet ‘You’re not the only one that wants to know’ and ‘Sometimes I wonder about me too’ almost fecking broke me. The uncertainty, the fear, damn…
A few (more) things:
There has been such a big deal made about how Dean hasn’t driven the Impala in over a year so how did it get to the new house? Did Lisa drive it? Was the car towed?? DEAN, DID YOU HAVE THE FREAKING IMPALA TOWED???
Ok sweetie, I’m not going to say too much cos you’re dead and all but in fairness, running up the stairs and hiding under a bed?? Y’know, what did you think was going to happen to you?
That comment about Samuel and Dean being alike actually makes sense. Samuel managed to juggle hunting and a family for years; this is what Dean now hopes to do.
Sams nod of consent to Samuel. Hmmmm. Are we sure it’s Samuel that’s at top of the chain of command here?
Sam, kindly don’t diss the X-men. They’re not freaks, they’re just…. atypical. It’s a genetic thing, like lefthandedness or hypertrichosis.
And here is where I start getting contrary…When the ‘Trust No-one’ tagline came out; everyone assumed it was in relation to Sam and/or the Campbells. But what about Dean? I think his behaviour so far this season has been…. weird. He’s irrational, illogical, confrontational and ultra defensive. More than once he’s thrown some snide little comment or look at the Campbells or Sam and then gets all irritated when someone dares to question him.
Gwen made, what could be taken as, a simple joke about the baby monster and Dean automatically gets his back up. Look at the prelude to Christians comment about hell. Who struck first there? Dean.
I’d written about 400 words about the need for Dean to spend some serious time on Jasminka’s couch but I had to delete them because I’m afraid of all the potential voodoo dolls with my name on them.
The answer to the exploding light bulb question is quite simple. Sam Winchester is so freaking hot right now he causes things, including light bulbs, to spontaneously combust in his presence. Be expecting a lot of mystery fires in episodes to come…
LOL, Tim the Enchanter, definitely I love your comments. 😆 Seriously, your explanation for the lights bulbs is SO much better than mine. BTW, next episode when the infamous shirtless scene bless our screens, I’m sure there’ll be no lights left.
Now, my humble interpretation for the lights in Swan Song is that the viewers – and Dean – are doomed to remain in the dark concerning Sam, at least for a while. Which doesn’t bother me at all. This dark side of Sam always fascinated me.
Don’t feel so guilty about Dean. I’m sure that both our boys would benefit from some time on Jas’ coach.
😉
Loved your review. I had to watch it more than once to catch everything you talked about. Impressive. You’re right. Sam was nowhere near the shifter when he mentioned “our father”. I thought it was odd as well and although I really like the episode I had a couple of nits to pick as well.
First of all everyone is giving Dean grief about trying to have a family when they all but said that Christian has a wife and that they want a kid. How is that different? Why is it ok for him?
Secondly, no one seemed that bent out of shape about Mark’s death. He was their cousin, right? Are the people at the gates cousins two. Samuel said he lost 3 of his men he didn’t say family. What’s up with that?
Finally, is it just me or is Samuel and whoever’s pulling his strings strike a little too close to The Initiative. If things are not what they seem than I’m going to trust that Samuel is not a bad guy or at least believes he’s doing the right thing but this can’t be a good sign right?
Thanks again,
Ashke
One down, two to go … Not bothered about Mr. Taciturn’s demise as there wasn’t really enough of him to miss and the general lack of sorryness just shows what a bunch of prize gits the clan C. really are.
Grandaddy is definitely up to something but I think the jury’s still out as to weather our Sam is in on it or not. I hope it’s not another storyline about him being led up the garden path by the forces of evil as we did that already with Ruby and I can’t face another Whoops Apocalypse scenario just yet …
I felt badly for Ben & Dean both. Ben is old enough now to begin to understand what is happening & what hunters are, & he certainly showed he had courage & spunk when dealing with the changlings several years ago. Dean is trying so hard to not make the same mistakes that John did, but that is exactly what he is doing, & he is more like John in that respect than he wants to admit. No matter his mistakes, John was a good man & tried to do the right thing. Like father, like son. I am tired of all the John – bashing, however; it seems that Dean has lost all respect for his dad. I hope I’m wrong. I would like to have seen Dean apologize to Ben & to explain to him why he was going back on the road with Sam.
Speaking of Sam, I really hope he wasn’t the one who told the Campbells about Dean’s time in Hell, & that he is not truly trusting them & making that mistake again. I do not think he was purposely using the baby as bait; he did not come into the hotel room in time to hear the shifter’s “father” comment.
On a lighter note:
The expression on Sam’s face when he 1st saw the baby was so cute! Loved the whole grocery store scene & I was so glad too that the writers didn’t go the whole homosexual route with the other peoples’ response; they’ve done that enough!
Tim, AndreaM, Ashke, Suze and BagginsDVM,
Tim, your posts always make me smile. You hit so many points and move so fluidly from one to the other (at least as it reads to me) that I look forward to reading your thoughts. Did Dean change Sam’s diapers? Uh, who knows. It’s never been established that he did and since he was only 4 and a half plus when Mary died I doubt he did any diaper changing for a while, maybe when he was six and Sam was only two, perhaps when he was seven who knows. Who cares. It’s only ‘canon’ in fanfiction so I’m glad the writers didn’t care to try to make it anything here.
Andrea, yep, in the dark for a while, but I’m enjoying the subtle layering we’re getting with Sam.
Ashke, As others have said, the anvils were flying hard and heavy regarding the whole baby, family as hunter point but sometimes that is the whole idea. We, the viewers may have been hammered by that but it’s obvious Dean needed to be as well so that Lisa could call him on it and make that fab scene work so well near the end. Yeah, Christian has a wife apparently and wants a baby. Shee, why hunters would want to bring a child into this life — we’ve never see that before. Isaac and Tamara got into hunting because of the death of their child and while we were never told how the Harvells (that’s Bill and Ellen) got into hunting we darn well know that it was not what Ellen ever wanted for Jo…they made it work, hunting and a family.
I think it adds a bit to John’s dilemma in Jump the Shark and all the pain that happened there for and with Adam. I felt badly for John then and still feel that he did the best he could in that situation. Dean is now somewhat in a similar situation as John was.
Suze, yeah, one down, three to go ’cause while Grandpa Campbell is an interesting character, there’s something shifty or shady going on there that has the hair on the back of my neck standing up…unless he’s holding a great big evil at bay to protect Sam and Dean…then he’s heroic and I like him. Well, I like the character but mostly ’cause I don’t trust him and I’m interested to know where this is going.
BagginsDVM,
I hope we’re not getting another trip down ‘oops lane’ for Sam either, I don’t think we are, mostly because I trust Sera not to go down a route that we’ve already been down before.
I don’t think John is being bashed, I think it’s just reality. Most of us grow up saying that we don’t want to become our parents — or at least those aspects of our parents that don’t work for us — and I see that as what Dean is doing. He used to love ‘the life’ but that joy in hunting akin to Season 1 is gone, long gone. He doesn’t want to become John in locking down his ‘family’ (Lisa and Ben) because he knows what that does to someone, heck, that’s not that different from Season 1 even, remember his wistful comments and look at the end of Something Wicked?
Did he tell the Campbells about Dean’s time in hell? I say no. I find it hard to believe Sam shared that information with anyone. Sure, he may trust them (or something else is going on) but I don’t think he’d betray Dean in that matter. He was sure quick enough to quietly and firmly back Christian down when Christian was looking for ‘something’ with Dean.
I find the whole Dean and Samuel dynamic intriguing, “Why can’t you give me an inch of trust?” Hmmm, harkens back to the arguments of Season 1 with Sam and John. I don’t think that is an accident at all. Also, we see Sam’s, thus far, trust of Samuel which is also similar to Dean’s trust of John. Also, do not think that is accidental.
Thanks for all the comments and thoughts.
Elle2, again I’m late to reading your review, since I needed some time to finish mine and, well, you know… I need to do something about that, since I’m always curious to see what you think.
I love this one, too. After just watching it you hit so many important points, it keeps amazing me!
This episode to me looked like a monster in disguise, just like the shifter. First, it makes you happy and grinning like a fool all day (come on, the cutest babies around, two guys helplessly trying to cope with them, Impala coming back, ha!), then, secondly, you notice all the layers underneath.
And the horrors hidden there – who is Samuel’s admin? What do the smiles between Sam and Christian mean? Dean is so damn on guard all the time and lashing out before having been given a reason. And many more.
I am so curious to find out where the show will be going with this! Chances are, we’ll find out together 😉
Thanks a lot for your thoughts! Jas
Hi, Jas,
This is a fun episode, the banter was there (and judging from the clip that’s out, there will be some more banter this week) and the questions abound. Mark is gone, so there’s one down, Christian…”The things I do for this family.” Hmm, what do you do for this family besides scowl and be dark and tweak Dean. How do you know about his time in hell? What’s up with Gwen. Last week she smiled when Dean made it clear he wasn’t so rusty, a smile that was more approving than anything negative. This week she’s the only one to react to Mark’s death and yet she’s got plenty of snark to her as well.
Just how was it that Dean was the last to come up from the panic room. Did Sam get tossed and then just head upstairs? (BTW, I think perhaps this and last week’s nonrescue of Dean by Sam at the end are two examples of how ‘big’ the stories are that these little scenes that add to the fluidity of the episode are skipped, no time for them….just an aside there)
I too am curious to see where this is going and very excited for the season.
Also excited for your Open Couch on this one.
Thanks as always for your comments. 🙂
I also wish that we could have seen the scene where Dean goes after Ben and they have a further heart to heart where Dean explains some of his feelings. It would have been great to see that father/son dimension a little more. Maybe in a future episode (hope, hope, hope).
Why did Sam call Dean? He has a whole compound of hunters that he has been working with this past year. He knows Dean is out and yet he calls Dean for help. Why?!? If not only for the fact that he thinks this would be the way for him to bring Dean back into the life. Get him involved with a hunt, especially if it involves a kid, which Sam knows would pull at Dean’s heart strings. I concur with the thought that someone else brought up that Samuel was behind the scenes pulling Sam’s strings. Samuel wants Dean back in and what better way than to manipulate Sam to get him to contact Dean to get him back in the picture.
I also don’t think that Sam was using the baby as bait or that he heard the shifter’s comments to Dean in the motel, but I do feel that he knew about the possibility of the ‘Alpha’ and that he felt they were possibly on the trail of said ‘alpha’.
As to the Campbell’s – why don’t we trust them – I don’t trust, not because of what they have done or not done, it is in their mannerisms, they way they are around Dean. There is something lurking underneath them that just screams at me and that they are not telling the whole story and that they have underlying motives.
I was also reminded of the compound in ‘The End’ when Sam and Dean drove up to the guarded gates of the Campbell’s compound. But, I don’t think it is just the Campbell family, I would bet that Samuel is the leader and that the compound is made up of many hunters on the same mission, of which we don’t know the whole story.
Lisa, isn’t she wonderful? I hope Dean and she can work it out.
I also think that Samuel was brought back by someone different that who brought Sam back. And I love Karen’s theory that it might have been Raphael or some other entity that wants to reignite the apocalypse. That would totally make sense. And I am thinking that that person might be the ‘admin’ that Samuel was talking to at the end of this episode.