Supernatural Hiatus Hunting: 4.03 “In The Beginning”
John pulls up in his new Impala, and Dean pulls up in that time warped 79 Pinto. Angels must be pretty talented, for they can transport vehicles too. Dean is in shock over seeing the younger version of his mom. Later, while watching the young, star crossed lovers through the window at the diner, a still in awe Dean admits Mary is a babe. “I’m going to Hell. Again.” That’s so priceless. After John and Mary have a sweet conversation discussing the future, Mary excuses herself. Dean spies on John looking at the engagement ring that he obviously plans to give Mary, and then Mary comes up behind Dean and starts kicking his ass! Dean eventually overtakes her and his shock is the same as ours once he sees her bracelet. She’s a hunter! Um, er, yeah, I guess that explains a lot.
John pulls up in his new Impala, and Dean pulls up in that time warped 79 Pinto. Angels must be pretty talented, for they can transport vehicles too. Dean is in shock over seeing the younger version of his mom. Later, while watching the young, star crossed lovers through the window at the diner, a still in awe Dean admits Mary is a babe. I’m going to Hell. Again. That’s so priceless. After John and Mary have a sweet conversation discussing the future, Mary excuses herself. Dean spies on John looking at the engagement ring that he obviously plans to give Mary, and then Mary comes up behind Dean and starts kicking his ass! Dean eventually overtakes her and his shock is the same as ours once he sees her bracelet. She’s a hunter! Um, er, yeah, I guess that explains a lot.
John brings Mary home in the new Impala (new to him anyway) and I guess they got to finish their date. Dean appears and insists on meeting her family of hunters, pulling the “I’m a hunter, too” card. He gets introduced to Mary’s dad, who basically hates other hunters and doesn’t want Dean in his house. Mary’s mom does an introduction though, Deanna and Samuel Campbell. So Dean was named after his grandmother and Sam grandpa? How funny. Why didn’t Dean know this? Didn’t he ever look at a family tree?
Dean’s at the dinner table, throwing around the mistrust with the Campbell family. They aren’t the Bradys, that’s for sure. Mary wants to know why Dean was following her and John. He thought something was up with her “boyfriend,” but apparently he was wrong. Good cover! Samuel talks about John Winchester with a “sour lemon look.” John is a nice “civilian” guy. Oh, just wait and see what happens to him. Mary asks if he’d rather see her with a guy like Dean, and suddenly Dean feels a bit awkward, breaking in with the “no, no” answer. After both Dean and Samuel refuse to talk about what jobs they’re on, Mary spills the beans about something suspicious at a nearby farm, a death involving a combine when the crops are all dead. Dean gets it, demonic omens. Dean asks, “Did you find anything on the web?” then covers his tracks, throwing in “of information.” Deana says it could be electrical storms, and the weather graphs will be there on Friday. Dean says “That long?” and Samuel quips, No, we hired a jetliner to fly it here to us overnight. Ha! How did people survive before the Internet and Federal Express? Dean insists they work together, but Samuel is an old school hunter. “What part of ‘we work alone’ did you not understand son?”
Hey, it’s throwback Thursday on TWFB. This continued a run of great episodes in Season 4. Much of the speculation in the article is very reasonable given what was known at this point, but in hindsight, not much was known 😉 And Alice was spot on about Ruby. When I first watched the epsiode, the Pinto did look strangely out of place but didn’t realize they were that far off. I guess they couldn’t go with an earlier Pinto because they had all caught fire and were destroyed by rear-end collisions 🙂
Usually not a big fan of time travel episodes but this one was great; everything we learned “fit”, and made sense; none of it felt like a retcon and you saw how big YED’s plans were. We got some great history on the Campbell family, and Dean talking John into buying the Impala was a nice touch. Otherwise, Sam and Dean would be cruising around in a 1964 VW Bus.
It is an important episode to fill in missing information and nail down the canon. I still get the emotional responses to the events even though I have seen where the whole story goes. It was important to miss Sam as it verified that the show is about both brothers and their journey. The subsequent return to John and Mary’s time with Sam and Dean gives Mary another chance to save Sam, but Michael takes away that possibility thus letting us know that he too is not so savory a character. The reintroduction of Samuel in season 6 was planted here as well. MP does a skillful acting job despite the season being uneven, but back to this episode.The lessons we think the episodes are about are often not the ones that we are left with at the end. Castiel’s head turn and comment about Sam are a turning point for Sam as well as Dean and how he views his brother. I forgave the Pinto error a long time ago. I loved seeing the Impala purchase. Baby is an important symbol in episodes that came after this one…especially season 5. She purrs.