Let’s Speculate – Mannequin 3: The Reckoning
Warning!!!! If you haven’t seen the latest episode of “Supernatural” and the preview for next week, do not read this! There is going to be plot-based speculation and discussion! You’ve been officially warned!
This was a pretty standalone episode, so I really don’t have too much to speculate about. I do, however, just want to spend a minute talking about the Sam and Dean interactions this week. First up, the opening conversation.
Sam, Sometimes You Should Really Just Listen To Your Brother
I realize that Dean isn’t always right, of course. But man, he was so right about this one. And honestly, I’m really glad that he told Sam so because they did try it Sam’s way, and look what happened. Sam was unconscious for two or three minutes topside, and it felt like a week in hell to him. That’s pretty serious. And Dean is obviously worried about his brother and trying to protect him, but at least this time instead of just sort of ordering him to not scratch the wall, he told Sam some of the reasons he felt that way. Not a lot of reasons, but Dean is not exactly good at talking about his feelings. Understatement. And of course Sam is going to scratch the wall again at some point, but for now, I really hope he listens and just doesn’t. If not for his own sake then at least for Dean’s.
“I’ve Got Your Back”
I really liked the end conversation Sam and Dean had. Dean, once again, was feeling the weight of his life on his shoulders, and this time Sam was actually there for him. It’s been a while since that happened. And the fact that Sam thanked him for getting his soul back was huge. Dean went through a lot of crap with Robo!Sam, but to know that his real brother was glad he got his soul back was something Dean desperately needed to hear. And he also really needed to know that Sam had his back, for real this time. Compare this to the last conversation they had where Dean asked if Sam had his back, and the difference is huge. They really are back in this together.
Lisa and Ben
What do you think, everyone? Is it really over between Lisa and Dean? I can absolutely see Ben doing this and getting Dean back to Lisa’s house because Ben really loves Dean and idolizes him and misses him a lot. But the conversations Dean had with both Lisa and Ben felt pretty final to me. I think at this point, Dean would be more willing to stay for Ben than Lisa, which isn’t fair to anyone. I did like that Ben called Dean on the family thing, though. I don’t exactly agree with Ben that he and Lisa are Dean’s family, but he was right about the whole “people who love you even when you’re a dick” part. That might not make them family, but it does mean they’ve earned the right to a proper goodbye and not just avoidance on Dean’s part.
And that’s all I’ve got. Thoughts, comments, concerns? Who’s super excited about next week’s episode? I sure am!
Still gotta do a rewatch, but it’s one of those eps I’m not in a hurry to rewatch. Alice picked it, filler it is! But fillers are fun!
Loved that the beginning picked up where last week left off.
Loved the talks between the guys and how Sammy was busy being Sammy. 🙂 Especially loved the talk at the end.
Not sure if ‘loved’ is the right word, but I appriciated seeing a glimpse of RoboSam, except being majorly tempored by Sammy. I actually felt uneasy for a minute. “Is RoboSam making a comeback now that Dean’s not around?” But then Sammy just kept being Sammy. *happy sigh* Just not as much emo. He’s all grown up!
I am a big fan of Lisa and Ben, but this may be my least fav of the eps with them in it. Something just seemed off. Then again, still haven’t done the rewatch. Though I loved the line Dean gave Ben about planes not killing zombies! 😆 Awesome!
Poor Baby!! ((Impala)) And poor Dean!!! (((Dean)))
Really only two actual things that bugged me. The ending seemed a bit too convenient. Would have loved to see the HooDoo bit!
And the score. For the first time the music distracted me from the show. 😥
Everything else, excellent filler material. I like fillers! 🙂 Though the way the boys relationship is growing is SO much better than filler! (((Show)))
Hello? Where’d my comment go? Is this on?
Testing…
The comment did post! I’ll do some checking, see if it was a delayed reaction or the browser didn’t refresh.
Ah yes, there is it. 😳 Not sure why it didn’t show up at first.
Oh, and did a rewatch and liked it better the second time through. It’s growing on me…but then most episodes do. I say it again, (((Show)))
I must be in the minority because I didn’t regard this as a filler – I really enjoyed it and thought it gathered up some of the loose threads.
Finally some open conversations between the brothers and Lisa & Ben. This relieved the growing frustration I felt about the constant ‘unspoken’ issues of the past episodes.
I also liked the fact that the previous 12 months of Dean’s life were being referenced. We know that Sam was out being a Soulless and efficient Hunter but Dean had a family and as Ben beautifully pointed out they loved him despite his Dickness. (I am a bit over the angst “I’m not worthy of your love and affection” pose – we all know he is : ) )
I loved Dean’s response to ‘Baby’ being possessed – again. it reminded me of his reaction in ‘The End’ when he saw how his beloved Impala was neglected by FutureDean. It seems in this episode everything he loves is having a piece of him – poor bugger.
I’d put this episode in my top 5 for the season if only for the poignant music and images as Dean recalled his time with Lisa & Ben.
I really did enjoy the moments with Dean, Ben and Lisa, and I did love that scene in the Impala with Dean remembering their times, but I wish they had devoted more time to that. The MOTW stuff chewed up too much time that could have gone to that plus it ended up being a waste anyway.
I didn’t watch the episode because Lisa/Ben were in it, but I’ve caught up with what went on from various boards. Here’s my concern:
Dean’s year arc, the Lisa/Ben stuff, ended with this episode (for the time being anyway). Sam’s soulless arc ended a couple of episodes ago and this episode he is not scratching the wall (for the time being). The brothers are back together (for the time being). Lisa/Ben and Sam came back wrong were the storylines for our boys this season.
We do know that everyone has said the second half of the season focuses on Cas’s Heaven civil war. My concern is that now that the boys’ story arcs have ended for this season, they now become the support characters to Heaven’s civil war story with a little angsting, woo-is-me, comfort, flashes of Hell experience, will the wall fall thrown in to give the appearance that the story is still on them.
Unlike some, I like Lisa and Ben and feel we have not seen the last of them (especially if there’s another season). In these kind of situations, children suffer more and don’t understand. As far as Ben is concerned, he’s losing his father. I saw the preview of next week’s eisode and it’s hilarious. Can’t wait.
So, Lisa is ending the relationship because she can’t live with Dean going off and maybe getting killed? Tell that to a soldier’s wife. (Or cop, firefighter, etc…). Poor Ben.
I loved Lisa and Ben in the previous episodes this year. Lisa was so understanding and gave Dean the love he is so missing out on. (come on, Sammy and Bobby are fellas, after all, and they love him but he should have a good woman who loves him unconditionally too).
Dean was Lisa’s “best night of my life” about ten years ago, and “the happiest year of my life” the past year. That’s why I was disappointed in her this episode. If I was Lisa and been with “THE DEAN” for a year I wouldn’t be looking for some other substitute guy, but be waiting for Dean to come back home, either as a soldier on leave or after the hunting is done. And I’d be reassuring him that was how I felt. I’d wait for ever for that!
So sorry for Ben who really misses his “dad”.
Loved the talks the brothers had, the ‘possessed’ Impala, and the creepy mannikins. Liked the episode a lot actually. The female dummy at the end REALLY creeped me out! Yikes!
I think Lisa was so different in this ep because of the writers. I didn’t recognize their names. Are these new writers for SPN? I don’t think they really ‘got’ Lisa when he wrote her part.
And since Lisa was the one who ended it in “Live Free or Twi Hard” why would she suddenly be the one who had been calling Dean? (her words when Dean showed up at the door – not the current calls that Ben made to get Dean there).
But I did like the convo Ben and Dean had. Finally we got to see a bit more of their relationship, heartbreaking as it was.
I enjoyed this episode.
I am glad that the whole Dean and Lisa thing, has reached a conclusion. I didn’t like Lisa, but I am glad that she and Ben are still among the living. 😀
For Ben to yell at Dean that he should stay with ‘his’ family, it made me mad. Dean was with these people for just over a year. Dean was with Sam all of Sam’s life, he is Dean’s real family. The boy needed to be put into his place.
Dean at the beginning when Sam was unresponsive, poor Dean. He didn’t know what to do. 🙁
In the recap, I wondered why they showed the Soulless One lying to Dean that he had Dean’s back, but when Sam told Dean that exact same thing at the end, Dean (and us) believed him. 😀 Sammy is back. 😀
I forgot about the Impala. 😳
Dean apologizing to her just before she goes into the storefront. poor Impala. 🙁
It is canon, Dean calls the Impala, ‘baby’. 😆 😆
I really liked it. It probably won’t be in my top 5 at the end of the season but there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Again, as with last week it was the human element that drew me in more, though it did raise a few supernatural related questions, including the rather innovative ‘donor recipient’ ghostly element. Good to see Sam didn’t just kill her and burn her kidney as he would have done two weeks ago! I wonder what the boys would have done if she hadn’t been so conveniently killed by the glass (and how that glass got stuck in her I’ll never figure out!)
I liked that it picked off right where it left off last week; it would have been a fierce anti-climax if it hadn’t. The terror and desperation on Dean’s face as he checked Sam’s pulse and the flicker of fire in Sam’s eyes were painful to watch.
Also, I love Deans ‘effective’ answer when Sam queried as to what the pills were. (Dean, you pill pushing tease you!) Of course, if it were Mind Herpexia, Sam should probably take two!
It was good to see some old fashioned ‘police’ work. The tediousness of the interview, the waiting around….. God, that would wreck my head.
Um, the mannequins didn’t freak me out. Once you’ve slow danced with one, they tend to lose that eerie factor. The blow up doll was a bit of a shock though. I wasn’t expecting that one.
I loved the role reversal with Sam now being the one to try and persuade his brother about the virtues of hunting. It pangs me that they can no longer say ‘hunting things, saving lives, the family business’ because that’s not what it is any more. It’s now ‘Let’s hope we can win more than we lose’. Jeez, the boys are finding it harder and harder to find reasons to stay hunting. It’s strange, hunting will probably kill them (again) but I think they’d fade away without it. I wonder at what stage (if any) they will say ‘We’ve done enough’ and put the guns down.
I also really liked that Sam used Bobby’s words on Dean about how you just have to ‘keep swinging’. Shows how much of an influence Bobby is on Sam. (Awwww Bobby, and you like Dean best….)
However, despite the whole MOTW element, it was Dean/Lisa/Ben that made this episode more than just another filler episode. I hope that Dean now realises that there is more to family than just blood. Hell, the Campbells are blood and Dean wants to kill them. Family is also what you make it and so Dean has a larger family than he thought. Should anything happen to Sam again, Dean won’t be alone. He’ll be devastated, obviously, but he won’t be alone.
As regards Dean and Lisa; Lisa is in a no-win situation here. We have no clue how much Dean told her about hunting. Does she know the full extent of what is out there? Given Dean’s secrecy in Two and a Half Men, I doubt it. She still doesn’t appear to know why Dean pushed Ben in Twihard. It’s possible that she (and Ben) have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to hunting therefore she simply cannot comprehend the enormity and importance of Dean’s job. I mean, for her, it’s just a job. She now knows Bobby; she knows there are other hunters out there who can do Dean’s job so why doesn’t he just hand in his P45. Dean isn’t Buffy…
From the way she was talking in ‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’, she doesn’t know about Sam’s … ahem, predicament (hell, soul, wall etc. I’m adding hair to that list cos seriously, the amount of product that guy must wear in his hair is unreal. It was rigid in this episode!) Had she known this, would she have reacted differently, would she have been more accepting of Dean’s situation?
From her point of view, Dean did ignore her calls. He has shown up at her door numerous times over the years and each time he has walked away. Why would she assume it would be any different this time?
I appreciate that it is, given her attitude, hard to be sympathetic towards Lisa but I think she has to be hard. She has to be cold. She has a child to think about, she needs to ensure his safety and give him some stability and unfortunately with Dean, where he is at the moment, she can’t ensure him that. There are times love isn’t enough. It should be, but life isn’t a Mills & Boon novel (my mother read them, that how I know what they are. I never read them. Honest.)
Lisa has to be concerned about Dean ‘bringing his work home’ with him because like I said, she has a child to think about and the safety of your chid takes priority over everything. She’s probably (rightfully) terrified that her involvement with Dean will lead to Ben being hurt or worse. Being involved with Dean makes her son a target, how could she sit back and let that happen?
I think Lisa loves Dean (I mean, who wouldn’t? C’mon!) but it’s a case of head v heart. She follows her head, her heart gets broken. She follows her heart it could put her son in danger. From my (possibly incorrect) reading of the scene, Lisa put herself on the defensive from early on. She spoke with her back to Dean more than once. I feel if Dean gave Lisa even a glimmer of hope, she’d have crumbled and she couldn’t let that happen.
I think if Lisa were on her own, she’d risk it (if Dean were willing) but I do understand where she’s coming from. I feel we’ve seen the last of Ben and Lisa, though I wouldn’t be ticked if we saw them again.
All in all, a dang fine episode. Nothing spectacular but it checked all the boxes for me. It was like a good traditional Sunday dinner with something extra special for desert (like chocolate fudge cake, heated, with raspberries and ice-cream…)
I thought this was a great episode. I hope we haven’t seen the end of Ben. I would like to see a definite answer as to whether he’s actually Dean’s son or not. I know that wouldn’t change Dean’s feelings towards him, but it would satisfy me. I also think that it would add an interesting layer to the brother’s relationship. After all, they are getting older and it’s time for these avenues to be explored. I would like for Sam to get involved with someone. Maybe Sarah from Season 1? I really thought they were good together.
As for the MOTW, those mannequins were creepy. I’ve always felt like their eyes are watching you when you’re going through the store. I thought the death of the sister caused by the ghost of other sister troubling and very sad.
Well, I loved a lot of it! I agree with Tim that it was the character stuff that worked really well this week again. I actually liked it better on first watch, but on re-watch the MOTW story rather fell apart – influenced somewhat by some negative reviews I read I have to say. A few reviews slammed the episode, but while I thought it was flawed, for me it was nowhere near ‘All Dogs Go to Heaven’ territory (I think Yuri’s score of 7 ish is fair).
The MOTW story did have potential with really creepy eyes in the first scene and a haunted kidney twist. But there were too many plot holes (culminating in random sister death) which rather spoiled things. And I felt sorry for the ghost not the victims, so was not interested in them being saved.
I loved the Dean-Lisa-Ben story though. I thought it was a mature, realistic look at a difficult situation with no easy answers. And Dean saying Lisa should ask him for something, her replying she is trying to get over him and then his telling Ben that he loved both Lisa and Ben. As Dean said at the end of the episode, with tongue firmly in cheek, ‘It’s the little things’. These statements were huge for Dean. I hope and don’t think we have seen the last of the Braedens. I absolutely love Lisa, although I think they need to tone down Ben’s plaintiveness a tad.
Other stuff:
• Humour-wise, while the third date line creeped me out, I did laugh at the Snooki joke, ‘have a heart’, Dean’s indignance at the Impala being possessed and ‘son of a biiiiiitch! And the self-aware line about alcoholism rang true.
• The Wall: Opening scene was really good, Dean’s desperation and ring of fire in Sam’s eyes. Sam’s lack of concern about reliving his Hell memories is odd though. Not sure if he will scratch it or it will just give way periodically and then heal itself.
Production-wise I thought the MOTW story suffered from some pedestrian writing, a talent-free male guest star (female was good), a LOUD generic soundtrack and the reaaaaaaaally long, like soap-opera long lingering shot at the end of the interrogation scene (same with the end of the Dean-Lisa and Dean-Ben scenes). Perhaps they were trying out a new editor? Cos you also kind of felt the gear changes when they switched between the two stories.
But, I loved the bookend Impala talks of the episode, particularly the end. And while Dean did say he was tired of all the bad luck, he seemed more frustrated and upset with the sister and the Braeden situation, than bone-weary and defeated like in Season 5. And it was so, so lovely to see the sincere ‘I have your back’ moment. *Happy sigh*. They are back to Sam ‘n’ Dean. Yes!
OH!!! I just had a light bulb moment. So Death has said Sam should not scratch at the wall. I think most of us think that if the wall comes down, it means that Sam would go catatonic. Based on what happened at the beginning of this episode and the fact that Sam said that 2 or 3 minutes felt like a week to him……..what if Death has hidden Sam’s soul behind the wall and if the wall comes down, Sammy’s soul gets yanked back to Hell????!!!!!!!
::distressed face:: Sam, please, PLEASE leave the wall alone!!!
And I really enjoyed this episode too. The only part that I thought was cheesy, was Johnny and the mannequin, HOWEVER, I think the reason he sympathized with Rose is because he was just like her. So I can forgive the cheese. 😆
I also thought the whole Dean/Lisa/Ben story line has been handled very well and this episode has left Dean with something to think about and a huge chance for character growth and development.
I found the whole car chase with Dean and the Impala very exciting too.
All around good episode from my stand point.
This episode really got to me emotionally. Ditto for what Tim & Magichappening said.
I was glad to see the conversations between Dean & Lisa & Ben. I’d hoped Lisa would continue to have the “soldier’s wife” attitude about waiting for her man, but I understand her need to move on when she has a child to protect. It was good to see that Ben still loves & admires Dean despite what happened with the vampire incident. I wish that Dean would still have tried to explain to both Lisa & Ben what had happened to him.
The ghost story was sad but the haunted kidney rather intriguing. That presented quite a moral dilemma but was solved way too conveniently. Oh, well, they had less than an hour to tell the story.
I was just as indignant as Dean with the Impala’s possession & then her injuries. Poor Baby!
It was so good to see the guys back in sync & more mature. Dean did trust Sam enough to leave him alone to finish the case. Sam’s thank-you & sincerity in “I got your back” this time, & Dean’s shadow of a smile as he acknowledged the truth in Sam’s words…. that’s why I love these guys!