Initial reaction 11.12: On and on forever

[caranfindel]

Then: Alex! Jody! Claire! Looks like we're getting the Wayward Daughters tonight, y'all!

Now: Teen couple drinking and making out at the lake. Heh, that brings back memories. Someone's sneaking up on the truck, and the door opens and the guy is yanked out and oh, hey, hi Claire. Claire puts her knife under the guy's chin, rather than against his throat, and demands to know "what are you?"

Swirly title card of Darkness!

At the bunker, Sam is on his laptop but he seems to be perusing Tumblr or Buzzfeed, not researching, when Dean shows up bearing food bags and beer. They exposition for us that Cas is off working on the Amara issue and they haven't heard from him in a few days, but they aren't concerned about it, because let's face it, these guys are even more unspoiled than I am. Dean is ridiculously excited about the food he presents to Sam: the "Elvis." It looks like two donuts, a hamburger patty, and bacon. Sam's disgust is palpable, and priceless, and Dean's just a tiny bit crushed.

The "Elvis" is a peanut butter and bacon sandwich, dude. Not this mess.

But Dean's despair over Sam's dietary concerns is short-lived, because he gets a call from Claire.

Marshall High School, Sioux Falls. Alex is apparently dating the most popular guy in school, and is expected to be voted prom queen? Is that still a thing? (Ha, she wonders the same thing.) (Also, it's kind of early in the year to be voting for the prom queen, but whatever.) I don't know about this, Alex. I see some pig blood in your future. She also likes a teacher named Mr. P, and since he has a speaking role, we know he'll be back as a monster, a victim, or a witness. Place your bets now. Jody picks her up and can't help grinning at her normal teenage behavior, including a package of birth control pills sticking out of her bag.

They get home and see the Impala in the driveway, which confuses Jody since "I didn't put up the bat signal." And now I'm thinking about what the bat signal would be. I need your suggestions. (Is it gonna be in the poll? Damn straight it is.) Jody doesn't look thrilled to see them, but it could be because Dean parked like a real asshole. Look at this. Not only can she not park close to the house, but she's going to have to walk through the wet grass to get inside.

Not cool, Dean.

Sam gets the first hug \o/ and the girls snipe at each other, so it looks like they're not getting along. Turns out Claire's been hunting something that Jody insists is not a monster, but now that the guys are here, she's going to use them as backup. I guess as backup to prove it's not really a hunt.

Those who are cherishing the headcanon that Dean is thriving as a cook now that he has a kitchen can unfortunately consider it an AU, because the brothers are both pretty excited to see a chicken that actually looks like a chicken and isn't formed into patties, so it looks like Dean doesn't cook anything beyond burgers and John Winchester's beef stew. The dinner scene is annoying as hell because Sam isn't that uncouth. Sam wouldn't eat like a damn caveman, with food literally hanging out of his mouth. So I'm going to ignore it except to point out all the green. Dean's in green, Claire's in green, Sam's shirt has greenish stripes, Jody's walls are green. Green, green, green. And we know what all this green could signify - danger!

Well, okay, I can't completely ignore it. Claire says three people are missing and people are seeing weird animals, but Jody and Alex give her absolutely no respect. Odd, considering that these two know, better than anyone in Sioux Falls, that monsters exist. And maybe Alex is going to have sex, so there is some talk of protection that really, really makes the guys uncomfortable. And Claire has no friends. And Jody's drinking a lot. Also, she says "po-ta-toes" in a way that reminds me of Samwise Gamgee.

After dinner, Dean sends Sam to talk to Claire while he helps Jody in the kitchen and they discuss how Claire is hiding from life in hunting. Why would anyone do that? Unless I'm very much mistaken, Jody's dinner plates are Fiestaware in Shamrock. I have multiple colors of Fiestaware, but my Shamrock plate broke. Apparently green is danger in my house too.

This second one isn't strictly necessary to illustrate the green, but it's an awfully nice cap of Dean and I'd hate to waste it.

Also of note: my kitchen countertops are green as well, but forest green, not apple green like Jody's. Green is my favorite color but damn, it's limiting when you have green countertops, because I'd love to paint my kitchen walls red, but with the green counters it would look like Christmas all the time. And you know what's sad? I did this to me. I picked out that color. (Shakes angry fist at past me.) Now I know how Endverse!Dean feels about Past!Dean's decisions.

Thanks, Cas. I like past you too. He was a BAMF. I miss him.

Sam's sweet and supportive, of course, and tells Claire not to use hunting to escape what's making her unhappy. She doesn't feel like she fits in with Jody and Alex, and Sam advises her not to drop out of life, because monsters will always be there ("on and on forever" sob), but the chance to have a family, home, and school will not. Oh, Sam. You would know, better than anyone. (sob)

Damn, Claire's room is HUGE.

At the school, we see Mr. P going to his car, alone, at night, and yeah, that's not going to end well for you, Mr. P. Cut to the next morning and Alex and Mr. Popularity see everyone standing around staring at dead Mr. P, who is hanging from the flagpole.

Claire shows up and is generally annoying, though I can see why she's irritated that no one paid attention to her suspicions. Dean lectures her for not appreciating what Jody's done for her ("Nobody wants to go to school, Claire! It's school.") and then gives Alex and Mr. Popularity a dirty "I know what you're up to" look when they say they're going to go "hang out" since school was cancelled.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I really like the guys in big overcoats.

Jody and Sam interview a teacher who has an overactive revenge instinct, while Dean roams the halls searching for EMF.

Here's one for the Robert Frost fans.

Then Sam and Jody are seen in the green-painted basement talking to the custodian who first saw Mr. P's body, and he's the least-upset witness you can imagine.

Have you noticed anything weird or out of the ordinary going on at school lately?
You mean, weirder than a dead teacher taped to the top of a flagpole?

Dean finds nothing, and Sam only finds that the custodian is "squirrely," and he doesn't mean the Dean/Crowley type of Squirrely.

This is a really nice shot. Look at those bow legs.

Meanwhile, Alex and Mr. Popularity go to a wooded area to "hang out," and she's feeling guilty about Mr. P's death. She talks about the "awful things out there" and starts to confess her history, and we're treated to some flashbacks of her acting as bait to attract victims for her vampire family. You know, Show usually does a pretty good job casting teenagers, but Mr. Popularity looks like he's about 30 years old. And his hair is kind of ridiculous. But he swears he doesn't care, whatever Alex did. Oh, what a nice guy.

Back at Jody's, the lab has returned the results from lab tests on fiber found at the base of the flagpople - it's asbestos. And the creepy custodian is using the SSN of a woman who died decades ago. And the disappearances started when he started working at the school. Claire's all "told you so" and Jody's kind of inappropriately annoyed by that. She does have a point, Jody. She's ready to put on her fed suit and join the investigation, and I kind of wish she had, just so she'd be forced to wash off that dark punk/goth makeup. But she has an appointment with the college registrar (at night?) so that's not going to happen.

Also, Sam's doing the loosened-tie, rolled-up-dress-shirt-sleeves thing that makes me weak in the knees. And Dean's wearing a polka dot tie?

But as Jody and Claire are leaving for their appointment, they're attacked by someone in the garage. Is it the creepy custodian? Why, yes it is. Jody manages to dial Dean's number before she's knocked out, so he knows something's up. He calls Alex, who's out with Mr. Popularity, and tells her to come home immediately. Oh, but Mr. Popularity isn't interested in taking her home. Surprise!

Sam figures out that the creepy custodian is probably hiding his victims in the abandoned swimming pool. And it's not just the creepy custodian - Mr. Popularity is in on it as well. It turns out the creepy custodian is someone Alex lured into her vampire den long ago, and when they turned him, he killed his wife and child. So now he wants revenge. Oh, creepy custodian. You should have watched last week's episode, when Sam told us that revenge doesn't make you feel any better. Anyway, he turned Mr. Popularity, for the sole purpose of having him get close to Alex. And he killed Mr. P just to hurt her. Damn, this guy's all about the long-term plan. Alex volunteers to do for him what she was doing for her old vamp family - find him victims - in order to save Jody and Claire. But instead he bites Claire, just as the cavalry arrives, in the form of the Winchesters. Heads are sliced off, Sam gets thrown into the empty pool (aw, no wet Sam tonight), and the good guys win. Yay!

When the guys take their leave, Alex tells Sam that she thinks she needs to leave. Not necessarily for Jody and Claire's safety, but because she can't be around hunting? I'm not sure. Honestly, I'm too distracted by Sam's hair in this scene, blowing gently in the wind, to pay a lot of attention.

Yeah, I need a slo-mo gif of this scene.

Well, so much for prom queen. But I think Alex's social life is still going to be okay. She was dating the popular guy, and no one knows he was only with her as part of an Evil Plot, so she's still in with the popular crowd, even after they "break up." I know this because it was the plot of an 80s teen movie called Can't Buy Me Love, where an adorkable teenager played by Patrick Dempsey pays the popular girl to date him briefly and then break up with him. And why is this relevant? Because Patrick Dempsey was later cast as Dr. McDreamy (I think that's his name?) on Grey's Anatomy. A character who was the inspiration for...

Because everything comes back to Supernatural in the end.

So I think the only point of this episode is to show us two people mirroring the Winchester's current situation, ala #THINMAN, and if that's the case. Well. The only thing I can take from it is that Dean=Alex. Who did bad things in the past, and then got very close to someone without realizing he was a monster. And was willing to die, or at least go back into victim-baiting, to save the people she loved. And now is planning to leave. While Sam, as Claire, is the one who won't drop the hunt, and who maybe gets bitten (we can hope, said the chorus of sadistic Sam!girls) but comes to the rescue in the end. And if we accept the Sam/Eileen parallels we were given in last week's episode, Sam's going to go on hunting alone.

EXCUSE ME. I NEED TO DEAL WITH SOME FEELINGS.

You know what I'm afraid of? I'm afraid {completely unspoiled speculation ahead} that Dean is going to defeat the Darkness by being cast into the Empty with Amara in his clutches. And if they do that, if they take Sam's greatest heroic act and recast it with Dean...

Comments

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Mmmm interesting speculation right at the end there... I don't know if I like it or hate that idea! Whereas I don't have any qualms about loving Sam's fluffy fly-away hair. So there's always that.

By the way, I think Mr. Popularity might be a little old because they were trying to cast someone who looked like Robert Pattinson. That's just my speculation though.

[casey679.livejournal.com]

I thought Claire was a Dean parallel, TBH. Specifically, Dean is trying to give Claire the chance that no one gave him (except maybe Sam) and he certainly never gave himself: "You can be more than this. Take advantage of your family while you're here. Go to school." All the things Dean gave up for hunting.

Despite Dean's plotline connection to the Darkness and the whole Amara thing, I'm actually beginning to think this whole season is actually about Sam:

• Sam confronts a whole city scarily resembling the Croatoan scenario, except this time a) he's not immune and b) he saves what's left of the town, the inverse of Croatoan.


• Sam confronts sex and gets laid for the first time in a long while, even thinking about what it would be like to settle down - but with a hunter, staying in the lifestyle.


• Sam confronts what being soulless meant.


• Sam goes back to trying to save the hosts of demons, which he stopped after the whole demon blood thing.


• Sam confronts his fear of clowns.


• Sam confronts abandoning his imaginary friend


• Sam confronts his greatest fear, Lucifer and the cage. And his greatest sorrow, that no matter how much he believes in God, being tapped to be a servant of heaven is just not happening.


• Sam confronts letting Dean down. (not well, but eh, at least it's no longer a rhino in the room)


• Sam confronts not returning to college, in the form of Eileen. Sees all the parallels to his own upbringing, revenge and resolution as a hunter. They're legacies; this is what they've inherited. He's still a man of knowledge.


• Sam confronts that he can't run away from hunting and never could, in the form of Alex. "I can't be around the things that you are around" sounds just like Sam's Stanford flight, but now we see it from way-down-the-road Sam's perspective of how pointless that will be. Alex, who will constantly be drawn back into the world because of the Bad Things in her past and what they did to her. And Sam knows that, now. He can see what his dad saw then, that it isn't something that can be run away from.

Whereas Dean's plotline seems to be:

• Dean has creepy connection to Amara.


• Dean shouldn't have punched the hell out of Cas, but it's okay because Cas returned the favor. Bros? Bros.


• Dean and Sam! We're brothers! Fuck yeah.


• Dean has creepy connection to Amara. But will still try to kick her ass if she hurts Sam.


• Dean has creepy but romantic connection to Amara. She'd rather swallow his lips than his soul.


• Jensen Ackles does a lot of non-verbal acting to show how uncomfortable Dean is to be going down to hell, but he'll do it to save Sam. SAAAAAYAAM!


• Dean has creepy but romantic connection to Amara.


• Dean is told to follow his heart. By Satan-in-disguise, and then by hot grandma. We're all pretty damn sure by now that it leads to Amara.


• Dean follows his heart to a truly horrifying heart attack of a sandwich, and later tells young DeanClaire to follow her heart to non-hunting stuff.

If I'm right, I'm not really sure where they're going with it, or what it means. Just my observations.

But back to this episode, one last thing: Let us not forget the sheer gloriosity of Sam subduing a vampire by just punching the fuck out of it.

[kazluvsbooks.livejournal.com]

Gosh yes, that is about right!! Excellent rundown and yes, Sam has been so awesome this season!

[kazluvsbooks.livejournal.com]

awesome rundown as always!!

i just LOVED the whole dinner scene..argh..so cute. I think the guys hardly ever have old fashioned food, with a family, and lots of it. I am sure Dean has his specials that he cooks, but yes more like toasted sandwiches and hamburgers and steak!
and made with LOVE. //wibbles.

anyhoo as far as parallels go, i am thinking Dean and Claire, who just want to hunt, and forget about everything else.
and Sam with Alex, who wish for a normal life with friends and study etc.

gif set showing all the sam/Alex parallels here
http://lipglosskaz.tumblr.com/post/138662962657/themegalosaurus-samalex-parallels-from-11x12

oh, i also noticed that the last two weeks Dean has been out of breath etc (at the grave, and then complaining about the school being so large this week) so i am wondering if amara is sucking the life right out of him. eek.

and Sam was just so beautiful the entire ep..and he got HUGS.

This ep was way better than i thought it was going to be.

[madebyme-x.livejournal.com]

I actually really enjoyed this episode (and it kind of surprised me!) I enjoyed the writing, especially for the girls. I think it would have been easy to travel down the 'big hugs, all is forgiven and fixed now route', but no, it was done subtly with looks and hidden meaning, and what was unsaid. I really appreciated that.

I adored that dinner table scene - it was hilarious! And my head canon isn't ruined, I just can't see Dean roast a chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies (those were green beans, right?) And also, food also tastes way better, and is more enjoyable, when someone cooks it for you. So yeah, maybe I'm grasping at straws, but it's still intact.

And your speculation interests me...but it would be so boring if they gave us all the shivers with the Empty and Billie and then Sam just gets Dean out...lather, rinse repeat! I want that threat and fear of death back, and the only way to do that, is to mean it! So if they have to put someone in there, they have to stay there (I fear for Cas at this point!)

Great ep reaction, thank you!