Bardic’s Descant: 6:14 – I Had To Deal With My Past Year, You Gotta Deal With Yours
6.14 Mannequin 3: The Reckoning: I Had To Deal With My Past Year, You Gotta Deal With Yours
Shy girl’s vengeful ghost
Targets men whose prank killed her.
Dean gets parent-trapped.
Episode Summary
Alone, helpless, desperate, and very afraid, Dean tried to revive Sam from the seizure he suffered at the end of Unforgiven, but Sam, although alive, was unresponsive. After a few minutes, he finally gasped and woke up, the image of flames in his eyes fading to simple disorientation. Dean got him to his feet and out to the car, eager to put Bristol behind them.
Meanwhile, in Paterson, New Jersey, a janitor mopping the floor of a chemistry lab at a community college saw his breath in a sudden chill and began to bleed from a cut that appeared mysteriously on his forehead. He was attacked and killed by an anatomy dummy that came bizarrely to life, only to return to immobility after the murder.
Stopping at a roadside catering truck, Dean asked Sam how he felt, and Sam, wincing from a headache, said he felt as if he’d been hit by a planet. Dean offered caffeine, food, and pills, but Sam declined the pills while accepting the coffee. He admitted that, although he’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, it had felt like a week to him. Dean pressed him to admit that the seizure had been Sam getting a face full of memories of Hell, and refused to accept Sam’s attempt to deflect his concern by saying he was fine. Dean insisted Sam take what happened seriously, asking if he realized he could have died, and insisted they leave his memories alone in the hope of avoiding more cracks in the wall in his mind. He advocated Sam doing what he did: shoving his memories down, and letting them emerge only in spurts of violence and alcoholism. For distraction, he asked if Sam was up for a case, and described the janitor’s murder, which the newspaper reported as pretty much a locked room mystery since no one else had been in the school at the time.
At the school posing as FBI agents, Sam dismissed Dean’s concern about smelling sulfur, pointing out they were in a chemistry lab, but he couldn’t explain away the EMF meter reacting when he was near the anatomy dummy. When Dean’s phone rang and he declined the call, Sam correctly guessed it had been Lisa’s number, and asked when Dean was going to talk to her; Dean dodged, and changed the subject when he noticed security cameras on the lab walls. The brothers watched the video footage, hoping for a clue, but the coverage fuzzed out at the critical moment, leaving them with no images of the janitor’s killer. They split up to investigate, and while Dean waited outside the janitor’s girlfriend’s apartment to pick up Sam, he declined to listen to a voicemail message. Sam reported the girlfriend telling him how perfect a guy the janitor had been, while Dean reported finding nothing unusual about the lab building or its grounds.
That night at a clothing factory in Passaic, New Jersey, a night watchman heard odd noises, saw his breath in sudden cold, began bleeding from a cut across his forehead, and was murdered by mannequins.
Investigating, Sam’s EMF meter reacted to a bin of mannequin parts the same way it had to the anatomy dummy in the lab, and he guessed that perhaps a ghost had possessed and animated the dummies. Dean questioned a ghost having jumped county lines to hit both the college and the factory. Checking files and the internet, they found nothing on either victim, but Sam located a news story about a seamstress, Rose, who had vanished from the factory a year before, survived only by her sister Isabel, and Dean bet on the perpetrator being a vengeful spirit. As they were about to leave to question the sister, Dean’s phone rang, and this time, Sam insisted he answer it. Instead of Lisa, however, the caller was Ben, who pleaded for Dean’s help because he said his mom was in trouble, having locked herself in her room and refused to respond to him. Dean promised to call Ben back in five minutes, and Sam persuaded him to respond to Ben’s plea, arguing that he could handle the ghost case for 24 hours while Dean helped Ben and Lisa.
Interviewing Isabel, Sam learned Rose had been shy and socially awkward, but very close to her sister. Isabel said she had defended Rose all her life, but that Rose had done more for her than anyone else ever could. Looking at a photo album, Sam saw a photo from a company party a couple of years earlier, and realized that not only had both sisters worked in the factory, but so had the janitor who’d been murdered at the community college. He called Dean, on the road to Lisa’s, to report that Steve the college janitor had quit the clothing factory just after Rose’s disappearance, and then proceeded to interview other employees at the factory. One man, Jonny a friend to both the victims aroused Sam’s instant suspicion because of his nervousness at being questioned.
At the Braeden house, Dean rang the bell insistently, only to be surprised when Lisa answered the door, obviously dressed for and looking forward to a date with another man. He realized he’d been deceived by Ben attempting to bring him together with Lisa again to prevent her involvement with another man, and Lisa, understanding the situation, reluctantly invited him in. He asked about her date, and she told him the man was Matt, a doctor. When Dean reacted with snarky jealousy, Lisa asked him if that was how he was going to be, and he backed off. Irritated, she said she’d called him six times, and he responded he’d almost called her back a hundred, telling her, if she wondered whether he cared, that he’d dropped everything to respond when Ben said she was in trouble. She said that didn’t help, and when he asked what she wanted from him, she said she wasn’t asking for anything from him. He told her to ask for something, and they stared at each other, lost for words. When Ben tried to interrupt them, they both told him in unison to go to his room, although Dean softened the snap with a little acknowledging smile.
After Ben left, Lisa told Dean she couldn’t ask for something. She said she knew what she wanted but couldn’t have it, not the way Dean lived. She said when her phone rang, she thought there was a small chance it would be Dean, but a much larger chance it would be Sam calling to tell her Dean was dead. She told him not to apologize, but said she was trying to get over him, and that every time she got to this place where she was okay, Dean would show up at her door, every time she thought she was never going to see him again. She asked him what he wanted of her and Ben, and he couldn’t answer.
At the factory that night, Jonny talked on the phone with another friend, saying he was flipping out because he was being questioned by the feds and because two of his friends were dead. Hanging up, he found himself bleeding from a painless cut across his forehead. As he began to freak out, he found himself confronting a mannequin and then Sam grabbed him, bundled him into the break room, and salted the windows and doors to protect against ghosts. Having realized Jonny was involved because of his suspicious interview, he told Jonny that Rose was back trying to kill him for being a dick, and demanded the truth. Jonny finally admitted he and his friends at the factory, seeing shy Rose as an easy mark, had planted things in her locker to make her think she had a secret admirer who invited her to his apartment for a romantic dinner. When she arrived, however, she found only a dressed-up mannequin and at least six guys from the factory who ridiculed her for falling for their prank. Steve, the janitor, had grabbed her wrist when she tried to leave, chiding her to take a joke; when she tried to pull free, she lost her balance and fell, striking her head on the corner of a table and dying instantly. Although Jonny initially tried to call 911, Steve persuaded them all they needed to hide her death, and so they buried her in a shallow grave. Sam got the location from Jonny and ordered him to remain inside the salt lines until Sam called to say he was safe. Sam found and dug up the grave and burned the bones, and then called Jonny to tell him it was over.
At Lisa’s, Dean talked with Ben in the boy’s room, gently chiding him for having lied to get Dean to come and telling him that his mother going on a date wasn’t an emergency. Ben objected that it was if it was a third date, and plaintively asked why Dean didn’t just say he was sorry and come home. Dean said he couldn’t, and when Ben asked if he meant “can’t” or “won’t”, Dean admitted it was both. Ben jumped to the conclusion that Dean either hated his mom or was reacting to something Ben had done wrong, and Dean tried to assure him both that he still loved them and that it wasn’t anything Ben had done that had driven him away. He told Ben that just because you loved someone didn’t mean you should hang around to screw up their lives. He said he couldn’t be there, not because he thought something would follow him home, but because he thought his job turned him into somebody who couldn’t sit at their dinner table, and if he stayed, Ben would turn out just like him. Ben asked why he said that as if he was so bad, and Dean answered he wasn’t anyone Ben should aim to be. He apologized, but said that without him around, Ben had a shot at living whatever life he wanted. He told Ben to pick one, or even five, saying that with him, it was just the one road. Ben lashed out by calling him a liar, saying Dean said family was so important, but asking what he called the people who cared for him and loved him even when he was a dick; he challenged Dean to acknowledge he knew he was walking out on his family. As with Lisa, Dean, stunned, had no answer to give.
Driving back through the night to meet Sam, Dean recalled all the memories of turning up at Lisa’s door to be welcomed with every conceivable emotion from surprise to delight to concern to regret, and recalled happy memories of times with Lisa and Ben, now all turned bittersweet and redolent of loss. He kept driving.
In Passaic, Isabel and some of her friends from the factory entered a local bar called McOwen’s just before Jonny, freed by Sam’s call, arrived and went upstairs to his apartment above the bar. Jonny talked to the mannequin he treated as a girlfriend, telling the doll to pack because it was time to leave and the doll turned to look at him and then killed him. Arriving at Jonny’s apartment to check out the police call, Sam saw the doll sitting on the sofa, and called Dean to tell him the case wasn’t over; that burning the remains hadn’t stopped the ghost, indicating she was tied to something else. Getting Dean’s voicemail, Sam left the message that he was going to talk to Isabel. At Isabel’s apartment the next day, he looked though the scant box of Rose’s belongings, finding nothing. Seeing some chemistry textbooks on the table, Sam asked if Rose was a student and where she went to school, and she reported attending the same community college where the janitor had died. Realizing she had been at the college and at the factory on the days the men had died, he asked if she’d been at McOwen’s bar the previous night. When she said it was the local hangout for everyone who worked at the factory, Sam realized Isabel was the common element, and asked what thing of Rose’s a ring, a locket, whatever she always carried with her, insisting there had to be something. Increasingly freaked out by Sam’s agitation and his insistence that she was at the center of the murders even though she hadn’t committed them, Isabel finally realized there was one thing of Rose’s that had become part of her; she told Sam Rose had donated one of her kidneys when Isabel was 16. He promised to tell her what it was all about, but said she had to come with him.
That night, Dean rendezvoused with Sam, who left Isabel waiting in his car. Dean asked what Sam wanted to do about the girl’s haunted kidney, noting they couldn’t exactly burn it since she needed it. Sam argued that they couldn’t leave her walking around with it because the spirit was attached and wouldn’t stop killing, using Isabel to get close to anyone Rose had a grudge against. Dean suggested calling Dr. Robert, the associate of John’s who had killed him to let him contact Death in Appointment In Samarra, to see if he had any non-haunted, black market replacement kidneys; Sam countered with the suggestion they use hoodoo instead to at least buy them some time to figure out a permanent solution. Overhearing just a part of their conversation, Isabel incredulously asked if they were talking about voodoo, and realized they weren’t FBI agents. Before she could take the thought further, however, the Impala’s engine roared to life, and the brothers realized Rose was possessing the car despite Dean’s objection that the car wasn’t a sex doll. As Sam ushered Isabel back to the relative safety of his car, Dean ran from the Impala, eventually with apologies to the car suckering it to smash through the front wall of an abandoned store. The car shattered the plate glass window and ground to a halt. Having come closer to watch, Isabel was stabbed in the kidney by a piece of flying glass, and collapsed. As Isabel died, Rose appeared to apologize to her, saying she’d never intended that to happen, and the ghost vanished with the same burst of flame as the brothers had seen when they’d burned a ghost’s bones.
At Bobby’s salvage yard during daylight some time later, Sam brought Dean a beer as Dean worked to repair the damage to the Impala. Dean asked just what they’d done, and Sam agreed he didn’t put it in the win column either. Dean observed they’d saved a few dicks and killed an innocent girl, and observed he had a heartbroken kid and a woman who was too pissed at him for words. He said all they did was make a mess. Sam objected that wasn’t true, saying they did save lives sometimes. Still depressed, Dean said he was just tired of all the bad luck. While Sam noted bad luck was in the job description, he offered that it wasn’t all bad, telling Dean to look at him and saying at least Satan had left the building. When Dean responded half-heartedly in kind, saying it was the little things, Sam pointed out he had a soul because of Dean. Realizing he hadn’t thanked Dean for that, he thanked him then with all sincerity. Still trying to cheer Dean up, Sam told Dean they’d lose some but hopefully win more, and earnestly said he had Dean’s back. With a faint but genuine little smile, Dean finally responded that he knew.
Great recap. I’m one of those who also liked Lisa and Ben. They were important,as you said they made Dean see the side of himself he didn’t know existed.
“Knowing they have each other to lean on if they need the support makes each of them stronger, not weaker” getting back to the “We are Stronger as a Family”
Thanks, Laura! We are family … 🙂
I’m with you on the MOTW. While I liked the anatomical dummy, especially w/the creepy smile. The white dummies didn’t scare me at all. It would have been better it if the security guard had been stabbed multiple times by the dummy with the scissors and then have had the scissors found in the dummies hand at least IMO. I would have loved seeing the cops trying to figure that one out.
And a sex doll, seriously? Forgive my naiveté but I didn’t get that right away until it was mentioned later on. I just thought it was odd that he had a really ugly looking mannequin in his bed. Silly me.
The one scene I really had a problem with was the car chase scene. It seemed too humorous considering what happened only moments after wards. An THATS how they choose to get rid of the ghost? The sister with the ghost kidney dies so the ghost sister disappears? And the expression on her face…I couldn’t tell if she was sad or what. It just didn’t seem like an expression some one would have had, having just accidentally killed the one person you so obviously loved or you wouldn’t have donated your kidney to, would have had. I blame it on direction of the scene.
I know the director has scores of experience directing TV shows in the past but he has never directed an episode of SN before and I think it showed. Combined with the fact that the writers had only written one other episode before, made it a rather medium episode in my book. Definitely filler. Enjoyable for the most part, one I will probably watch again, but filler.
For the record, I love the idea of Lisa and Ben. I think Dean needs them almost as much as he needs his brother. To me they keep a little light lit in the darkness of his life. I think they help keep his “monsters” at bay. While the reality of his life means he has to give them up he still got to live that life with them even if it was for a short time. It might just be enough to get him through the times when he thinks he’s not gonna make it, emotionally, mentally, or whatever.
One the the other things I loved was that they started right where they left off with Sam in the middle of his seizure and Dean freaking out. It totally appealled to the angst junky in me. Bad I know, but I’m in recovery. Its a 22 step program. One episode at a time.
I also liked that casting once again chose regular looking actors to play the smaller roles. Very realistic.
Of course I loved the Dean/Ben and the Dean/Lisa scenes, but lastly I loved that the brothers are back together again. Its about time.
Thanks, sn_chills! I’m right with you in being DELIGHTED they began this episode precisely where the last one ended; I really needed to see Dean distraught and Sam waking up. Loved that!
I would put most of the episode’s problems at the writers’ door; I thought Szwarc did a nice job with the direction overall. When you’re given a “funny Impala chase scene” you srt of hve to roll with it … didn’t do it for me either, obviously, for the same reasons it rubbed you the wrong way. Oh, well – other moments were GREAT, including the brothers being back on the same wavelength!
This was a great recap and I agree with you. I liked Lisa and Ben, too. I hope this is not the last that we see of them. I think it would be fascinating to see this family work. I believe that it can. Jo and Ellen gave us a peek at a successful hunter family that they shared with Bill. Also, when we were first introduced to Mary Campbell’s family, Samuel and Deanna seemed to have a warm family relationship with their daughter and themselves. The whole family was in on the hunt. So, I believe it’s possible.
Thanks! I do think there could still be hope for a hunter family: with you, I saw that promise in the pre-demon Campbells. I hope Dean and Sam could find that for themselves … 🙂
It is interesting how people view Deans needs to Sams. And how the show presented so differently the boys individual desire for normal.Sam was done negatively with selfish being used commonly in both word and how scenes were presented Dark side of the Moon being a prime example but Deans presented has he deserves it and needs it.
Lisa seem to resent Sam and I dont believe she would of welcomed him so if Dean went with Lisa? how much do you think Mary that Sam would be part of Deans new life ?. I dont have a issue with Dean wanting normal or him and Lisa if that is what he truly desired but where would that leave Sam? who would he have? Bobby nope I dont believe in the Sam / Bobby relationship. Dean? how often . Dean would naturally put his new family first and if Lisa was receptive towards Sam then that closes the door.Sam pretty much as it stands is in a no win situation anyway which sums up most of his life but Dean has avenues that Sam simply doesnt have. Would I lie to see the writers give Sam a friendship he can forge outside of Dean ? that doesnt leave him alone if something ever happened to Dean or Dean does decide to see if he and Lisa can have a life ?I would love it . Sadly I dont think they will .
If Dean did go back to Lisa and Ben I would wish him good luck because I agree he derserves it but I would also feel sorry and sad for Sam because out of the two he really is the one trapped .
Totally agree. I don’t begrudge Dean his happiness, if he wants to quit hunting and go play happy families then so be it. There is nothing and no one stopping Dean from doing so other than Dean himself IMO. He uses Sam as an excuse when he doesn’t want to admit the truth to himself.
I highly doubt Sam would ever stop Dean from going to do his own thing, he knows Dean and I think he’s fully aware that Dean wants out and if Dean had called and told Sam he was staying with Lisa/Ben I think Sam would have been happy for him. Shame he never got treated the same when he wanted something other than the hunting life?!
I highly doubt the show will ever bother giving Sam someone in his life outside of Dean/away from Dean who isn’t evil/going to betray him/die. I never realised how truly alone Sam is until this season.If anything were to happen to Dean or Dean left hunting to peruse his own happiness where would that leave Sam? I imagine Sam has long since resigned/accepted his life as a hunter, he either doesn’t want normal any more, knows/thinks he cant have it or doesn’t think he deserves it. I get the impression that he feels he fells like he needs to redeem himself (still/again) and he equates that to hunting things and saving as many people as he can. Either way all it leaves him with is hunting, most likely alone and most likely till he dies a bloody death.
Gladiator, I disagree with you in one respect: I don’t believe Dean is using Sam as an excuse not to admit to himself that he wants to quit hunting. I think we saw Dean’s truth in [i]You Can’t Handle The Truth[/i], and it’s that he wants [b]both[/b]: he wants to save people by hunting with his beloved brother at his side, and he also wants to have a woman and child who love and welcome him. I can’t fault him for that.
Sam is as screwed up as Dean by thinking he doesn’t [i]deserve[/i] a normal life any more. I hope Sam’s ongoing story might become one of finally learning to accept that the things others did to him – Azazel feeding him demon blood, Ruby deceiving him into breaking the last seal releasing the apocalypse – didn’t render him either non-human or irredeemable, and that the sacrifice he made at the end of season five really did amount to redemption for his errors. And I hope Sam’s story will include Sam finding more to life than hunting, including love.
I have faith.
You know, Ellie, I think how we saw things in the show always depended very much on whose eyes we were seeing them through. I never Sam as selfish; every time we were given that impression, it came when we saw things from Dean’s perspective. Dean’s focus was always family, and understandably so, I think: the formative event in his life was losing both his mother and the loving warmth of his father when he was just a child. Sam’s focus was different, because he’d never known Mary and had always known John only as a driven, uncompromising, demanding man. Dean, I think, was always very aware of what he’d lost; Sam, on the other hand, was always aware of what more there could be, what more they could have. And when we saw things through Dean’s eyes, we saw him giving up uncertain things in order to cling to what little he had, while Sam – to Dean, anyway – appeared to be abandoning what he had in order to pursue things meaningless to Dean.
I don’t think Dean would ever have chosen Lisa and Ben over Sam, and I think that is also what Lisa saw. She obviously knew from Dean that Sam had died; her shock at seeing him back started with knowing he’d been dead, and continued with knowing that, given the relationship between the brothers, Sam would always come first with Dean. I don’t think Lisa’s reaction was resentment of Sam nearly as much as it was simply knowing that this unnatural development would totally disrupt the balance she, Ben, and Dean had achieved through a year together.
Dean isn’t the only one who thinks himself unworthy to have a normal life; you’re dead right that Sam began suffering from the same problem all the way back in season one, when he began having visions that started with Jess’s death. Learning that he’d been fed demon blood as a baby and was the focus of demon plans really screwed him up, and his later demon blood addiction, seduction by Ruby, and unintentional triggering of the apocalypse just made it worse. He hasn’t managed yet to come to terms with that, or to properly weigh in the balance the selfless sacrifice he made at the end of season five to imprison Lucifer again. Right now, he’s still trying to make amends not only for what he did before, still seeing fault and responsibility in his own eyes, but for what his soulless self did while his soul was still in Hell. I don’t believe for a moment that he deserves all the blame he’s putting on himself, but until he learns to forgive himself for not having been at the controls, he’s still going to be as screwed up for outside relationships as Dean is.
I think they BOTH deserve more than just each other. But I also think we need to have patience, because it’s going to take a lot of time for them to come to the acceptance we’re already ready to grant them.
And that’s where I come down on this. 🙂
I meant if Lisa was not receptive to Sam it closes the door.
I agree with you that presently the one with no escape is Sam. And me too, I would like to see him find some friendship or love interest for himself.
But in a way it seems to me that he, despite what we see or learn about him in S1, in the end embraced hunter’s life with less regret than Dean. For Sam family never meant as much as for Dean, he was always more independent. When he walked away from his family to go to Stanford, or when we see him in that house in “Dark side…” it seems to me that he wasn’t dreaming a family of his own, i.e. loved and loving people around him, someone to care for and be cared by, but rather a more “normal” life, a “safer” life, like he said to Dean in the PIlot. Also, he tried to distance himself from his father and from the life he forced on his sons, a life that Sam refused, not only per se, but because it was forced. He hates to be forced, he always was and always will be.
Since the start we see Sam frightened to be “different”, the “freak”, the abnormal, both for his family and for the society. So I think that his attempt to find a normal life was not because he needed a “family life”, but because he was trying to be accepted at least in the society, since his father apparently didn’t accept him.
When he learned that he had demon’s blood in his veins, he convinced himself that he [u]really [/u]was a “freak”, so he had no escape. He was “cursed”. There could be no way out, no happy ending for him. So in a way he embraced the one life that’s was left to him: to be a hunter. He gave up any thought of a normal life and since then he never seemed to turn back to watch what he left behind. From which came his new womanizing attitude in S4 and (as soulless) S6, his new developed “hardness”, and his attempt to draw even Adam in the “life”, while Dean would let and secure their half-brother the chance of a normal life.
When Sam told Dean to go find Lisa and live with her the “apple pie life” that Dean dismissed so sarcastically in the Pilot, I think it was a sort of “transfer”: he transferred on Dean his old desires of a normal life, not only because he was going to die, but because that was a life he could never have (so he thought), no matter what.
Now, it seems to me that since S5 “redemption”, “righting the wrong done” (and in a way, so was in S4, but more in the meaning of “drawing the good from the evil”) has become the new main issue for Sam, instead of “being normal” (since he isn’t)or “living normal”, so he doesn’t seem too eager to find a love or a family for himself. While for Dean since S3, and mainly since his encouter with Lisa and Ben, this has become more and more an issue, or at least a wishful thinking, a secret regret.
Excellently put, Brynhild – I agree!!
Great recap. I agree with every word. I would just add that Dean was unable to stay with Lisa once he knew Sam was back. As soon as he realised Sam was alive, his life with Lisa – previously his only option other than suicide – turned into a choice between Sam/hunting and Lisa and Ben/domesticity/suburbia. At that point all his doubts, depression, drinking etc that he had been ignoring came to a head. If Dean has to choose he is always going to choose Sam. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Lisa/Ben, but Sam will always come first. Realising that was hard for Lisa I think, and even harder for Ben.
Now real Sam is back the choice is even tougher for Dean, because he genuinely has back the relationship he has been desperately missing.
I don’t think Dean is capable of living a domestic life while his brother is hunting on his own. If Dean is ever to make a life with Lisa and Ben while Sam is alive, I believe Sam will have to give up hunting too and move in down the street. Sam wouldn’t be in danger and would also be on hand to help Dean protect Lisa and Ben. If the real Sam had come back this is what he would have done to help Dean keep the life he had built, rather than the non-sensical decision not to tell him that soulless Sam made.
As you rightly say, Dean also needs to believe that he is worthy of Lisa and Ben’s love, and that he can be good for them. That is probably the toughest nut to crack.
Great analysis. Thanks.
Thanks, geordiegirl! I agree that Sam will always come first with Dean; Sam’s part of his hard wiring, but that doesn’t make his feelings for Lisa and Ben any less real or less important to him. Rock, meet hard place.
You know, I think there still might be a third possibility: that Sam and Dean could still hunt together, but eventually have home ports to which to return. That’s evidently what Bill Harvelle did, up until his death, and it appears to be what Samuel Campbell did after Deanna got pregnant and had Mary. Their ladies would have to be able to accept them as hunters, as Ellen and Deanna did, but given the right ladies, I don’t see that as insurmountable.
Then again, I am an incurable romantic, despite being in my 50’s with no significant other … *wry grin*
Hi Bardicvoice
I loved the Brotherly and Lisa/Ben moments in this episode.
I so agree with you about having the brothers talking and being honest with each other, finally seeing two grown men working as a team. This is what I had expected to see in the beginning of the season and I have to say I’m ecstatic that it has finally come.
I really do like Lisa and Ben and feel they are good for Dean. I just feel so sorry for Dean, wanting both worlds but not believing he can or deserves having both.
I think that Lisa and Dean do love and care for each other, but are not head over heels, madly IN LOVE with each other. I believe that during ‘The Kids are Alright’ a strong connection or bond was established not only between Dean and Ben but between Dean and Lisa as well and it’s something neither one will ever be able to shake off.
I do hope when this show does come to an end that they will have Dean reunite with Lisa and Ben. And I hope Sam some how reconnects with Sarah from Provenance or at least finds his own happiness.
With what both these two have endured they deserve some kind of happy ending or at least a peaceful life.
As for the motw, I was intrigued by the ghost inhabited mannequins and by the kidney angle but I really believe they tried to fit too much into this episode and that the final confrontation with Rose was rushed.
I had thought that maybe they should of saved the motw for another episode and just focused on the relationship side of things.
Instead of working on a case, they could have had the brothers go to Bobby’s. This would have been a great opportunity for Sam and Bobby to reconnect while Dean was at Lisa’s.
Or maybe that would have been too boring…:zzz
Oh well…thank you for your wonderful review.
Thank you, Karen – and WORD on everything you said about Sam and Dean and the brothers having enduring relationships with others!
Given the nature of television, I think they needed an adventure – but I do wish they’d done something more interesting with the MOTW. Said enought about that in the commentary, though, I think … *grin*
Awesome recap & analysis! I think Dean has always wanted that idealized family too, no matter how he tried to ignore those desires or rationalize the impossibility of them in the life he was living. The earlier season episodes you mentioned clearly suggested that IMO.
As many times as he was shown contemplating calling Lisa, I was surprised to learn that she had called him & disappointed initially that he had not returned her calls. It did change my perception of Lisa & actually made me like her even more, but it was classic Dean avoidance technique again at play. I really wanted to see his response to both Lisa & Ben & agree that those scenes were cut short. I think it does leave the door open for their continued part in Dean’s life, & hopefully one day when the show ends, that they can be together. (And yes, I think Sam would have to live close by with a family of his own too for Dean to ever be satisfied with at least partially settling down. Let’s have Uncle Bobby close by too…. ok, just my dream for a totally sappy happy ending to the show someday, but a girl can dream…)
I am thrilled to have the brotherly dynamic back! I loved how Sam sent Dean off to check on Lisa & Ben & worked the case himself, yet kept in touch with Dean. The trust & support of each other is back. I think it was also a nice touch that they were back at Bobby’s, back with the family that doesn’t end with blood, by the end of the episode.
We are on the same wavelength, BagginsDVM! Welcome to my couch for uncurable romantics … 🙂
Oh Mary, I loved your recap. You express my feelings so perfectly that I am unable to do nearly as well.
I just loved the Dean/Lisa/Ben scenes and that Sam had persuaded Dean to go to Lisa.
The scenes between Sam and Dean I have been waiting for 2 and a half years to see. I have been angsting for the understanding and love to return to these two guys it seems like forever! Please I hope they don’t get torn apart again!
As for the MOTW, that is a secondary concern to me as the relationships were what I was so very interested in. Mind you, dummies do creep me out, so not too disappointed in that area, but would have liked more time spent on the relationships.
Like others here, when the series ends, I would love to see Dean, Lisa and Ben happy ever after and Sammy down the street with Sarah, and Uncle Bobby visiting often to interact with the kids. I don’t care if its shmoopy and cheesey, it’s what would satisfy me at the very end. Don’t need any tragedies to end this saga! 😥
Thank you, Bevie!
I really would love to have the series end someday on the note of the brothers still having work to do, but also having families to come home to, with the suggestion that ther sons and daughters might become hunters less broken than their fathers were. Saving people, hunting things: the Winchester family business, incorporated.
I’d draw up those business papers!
Yume, I agree! Nicely put. 🙂 And rather more briefly than I managed …
Thanks for another great review. I also hope that we have not seen the last of Lisa and Ben and I hope that Dean and Lisa can work things out. I had missed the parallel between the sisters and the Winchesters but that probably was due to the MOTW being so uninteresting. I did like the scenes between Sam and Dean but I too felt cheated in the scenes between Dean and Lisa and Ben and Dean. The audience should have seen Dean’s response.
Thanks, Marlana! I hope that we – and others who loved the Dean/Lisa/Ben relationship – get the chance to see more of it!
Great analysis as usual, Mary. Overall I enjoyed this episode, mostly for the scenes between Dean and Sam and between Dean and Lisa/Ben.
The MOTW storyline was okay, right up until Jonny’s sex doll was revealed and my mouth literally dropped and I thought WTF?! That was so out of left field and from then on the story got quite bumpy, especially how the writers tied up the possessed kidney problem. Too easy, too contrived.
That said, I have to disagree with one point you made … “the ghost destroying herself out of regret for the unintended consequence of her actions were both empty and contrived” … I don’t think the ghost killed herself. Her bones had been salted and burned and now the last remaining piece of her was destroyed when her sister died so there was nothing left for her to hang onto in this world. And off she went to wherever it is that vengeful spirits end up!
I enjoyed reading everyone’s comments about where they hope Sam and Dean finally end up when the show ends and I for one am firmly in the camp of having a happy ending though with this show we’ll probably get a twist on that too!
Thanks again, Mary. Can’t wait to read your review on The French Mistake. That one ranks up there as one of my all time favourites!
Cheers!
Thanks, Rose! My review on The French Mistake is finally done and up; I hope you enjoy it!
My reason for believing the Rose-ghost destroyed herself was that her kidney was still physically in existence; while her sister died, her body was physically there, including Rose’s kidney, so technically, Rose wasn’t destroyed. But that’s a nitpicky detail I won’t insist on! *grin*
[i]What did work for me was the overall message that both the Dean/Lisa/Ben storyline and the MOTW storyline had:
We give all we have, and sometimes it´s not enough. And I like how this double-message is sandwiched by Dean being there for Sam at the start and Sam being there for Dean in the end.[/i]
WORD, especially for this! Thanks, Yume!
Heh: guys are guys. You’re definitely right there!