Supernatural Hiatus Hunting: 4.03 “In The Beginning”
John and Mary are in the Impala, by the river, and John sweetly tries to propose. Bad timing dude. The moment is ruined when not!Grandpa shows up and yanks Mary out of the car. Careful John, this is the big bad, don’t intervene or…oops, he gets his neck broken! John Winchester dies??? Holy crap. Mary cradles his body in her arms and Yellow Eyes tells her he killed her parents too. John can live (but only John) and Mary can have her picket fence life if she gives him permission to come back in ten years for a little something. As long as I’m not interrupted, nobody gets hurt.
Mary didn’t remember that? Come on, she was warned twice. No, I get it, I’m a mom too. If there’s an intruder in my baby’s room, I’ll ignore warnings to ignore it. As for the deal, what choice did she have? If she didn’t take the deal, there would be no Dean and Sam, so she loses either way. Still, whose heart isn’t crushed right now by the fact that she unknowingly doomed her youngest son?
Dean arrives just in time to see Yellow Eyes and Mary kiss (no daddy kissing daughter comments please for this follows continuity). Dean was late because he had to gun a Pinto. If only he had the Impala. By the way, was anyone else thrilled that the Impala was there for all this drama? She’s been there for all the family heartaches. I’m even feeling sorry for the car.
The deal is done, Yellow Eyes disappears in smoke, leaving Samuel’s corpse behind, and Dean stares at a weepy Mary as John comes back to life. Cue the sad music, the touching reunion, and Castiel offering a look of sympathy to a heartbroken Dean. Oh man, I have to pause the TiVo again. I’m a mess! It’s going to take me hours to get through this episode. Poor Mary! She doomed her family to save her future husband. Poor Sammy! He never had a chance. Poor Dean! He had to live a rough life and see all that.
Mary looks back. Dean is gone, but the Pinto was left behind. Castiel forgot to send it back to 1979. How’s he going to explain that one to the man upstairs? John and Mary hug in distress over Samuel’s body and I need this commercial break. I have to pull myself together to get through the rest of this.
Dean wakes up in horror and sees Castiel. “I couldn’t stop any of it.” Castiel reveals the real reason behind the time travel. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You couldn’t have stopped it. Destiny can’t be changed Dean. All roads lead to the same destination.” Dean was sent back to see the truth and now he knows what the angels know. Dean is angry, confused, and frustrated all in one distressed glare. I love it when Jensen does that. Castiel’s head slowly turns toward Sam’s empty bed. A trip back in time to witness the tragic family history is a pretty elaborate way to break the news to someone his brother has been lying to him. Those angels do have their quirks.
Where’s Sam? Dean is worried. We know what Azazel did to your brother, we don’t know why. Dean doesn’t care and asks again, “Where’s Sam?” This time, Castiel actually tells him. The straight answer comes with a big tag though.
“our brother is headed down a dangerous road Dean and we don’t know where it leads. So stop it, (dramatic head turn) or we will.” Final shot of Dean’s aghast face, before we get the dreaded, To Be Continued. Arghhhhhhhh! I’m hysterical again.
– Was Dean yanked out of Hell to solely to stop Sam? It makes sense since he’s the only one that can do it. The possibilities now are huge. What’s Dean going to have to do to stop Sam? Will Dean have to kill Sam like John told him?
– Now we know why Mary said “I’m sorry” to Sam in “Home”. I’m dying to see if Dean tells him, or if Sam will be too far gone by the time he does. I know, trust in Kripke.
– The Winchester chain went back farther than we thought. Follow the bouncing ball. Mary made a deal for John, John made a deal for Dean, Dean made a deal for Sam. Frightening what the Winchesters will do for each other. I wonder why no one would deal with Sam. Maybe because of that end game thing?
– Samuel involved his young daughter in the family business. That’s what John ended up doing to Sam and Dean. That’s so tragic.
– Maybe Sam Winchester is the Antichrist. I’m convinced Ruby is evil. That argument will be explored further in another article.
– It was great to see John as the wide-eyed innocent in this one. Boy did he change. Think about it though. He became a cold obsessed bastard without Mary as the stabilizing force in his life. Isn’t that how Sam ended up without Dean?
– I loved when Mary looked through the albums. For those of us pushing middle age and beyond, who remembers doing that as a kid? Go ahead, raise your hand. It’s okay. I still have albums and turntable in the basement. It’s our little secret.
Grade, A+. The greatest episodes list is likely going to be drastically revised when this season is done. The damned Pinto was the only flaw in this one, but not enough to mark it down. I think someone put it there for my amusement. Next week, Dean confronts Sam. Ah the warm glow of brotherhood.
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There are lots and lots of images in our photo gallery for this episode! Check out some great expressions frozen in time! Alice’s original article can be found here.
Can you believe some of Alice’s innocent, naive, jaw-dropping comments??
“…John (Matthew Cohen) are two unknowns that we may be seeing a lot of in the future in other places after this one. They made a huge impression.” You think?? Matt Cohen is a cornerstone of every Supernatural convention now!
…or how about…
“The writer this week is the most incredible, awe inspiring, master of storytelling and dialogue known as Jeremy Carver (I’m still openly begging for that interview).”
No one would ever have predicted he would be running the show!!
…or how about her gushing over the new guy?
Dean rounds the corner and there’s lovely Castiel again. For a guy that never smiles and always has a rumpled appearance, he’s great on the eyes.
So having 5 more seasons of Winchester family drama to draw upon, how do you rank this episode in importance to the series? Did Mary really have a choice in what she did to her boys, given that fate was working to push them to the apocalyse anyway? What did you think or feel as you read Alice’s excitement over such big revelations?
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.