Previously: A bunch of ghosts were stalking the boys, and it turned out to be a sign of the Apocalypse. WOO.
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In the Beginning
Kirsti: Sam watches his brother sleep in the Motel of the Week, then sneaks out the door. Outside, Ruby 2.0 picks him up and they speed off into the night. Back in the motel room, Dean has nightmares about being in Hell, and wakes to find Castiel sitting on the bed.
Marines: Castiel, friend. We’re not fond of characters who watch people sleep around here. Just FYI.
K: Truth.
Dean jumps, and asks what Castiel wants. “You have to stop him,” Castiel says. He presses two fingers to Dean’s forehead, and Dean wakes up on a bench.
A cop tells him to move along, and Dean looks around in surprise to find himself in a small town. The cop leaves, and Dean grabs his phone from his pocket. But there’s no reception. “Perfect,” he complains, then gets up and heads across the road to a diner. The camera stays focused on the bench, which features an advert for TAB.
In the diner, he sits down next to a young guy with dark hair and asks where he is. A little confused, the guy tells him he’s in Lawrence, Kansas. He asks if Dean’s okay, and Dean says he’s had a rough night. The guy orders coffee for him. Dean asks where he can get phone reception, and the guy suggests he try the USS Enterprise. Dean jokes about the waiter’s outfit, which is hella 70s, then looks around the diner and realises that EVERYTHING is hella 70s. He looks at the guy’s newspaper, and realises it’s 1973.
“Hey, Winchester!” comes a voice from behind him. Dean and the dark haired guy turn in unison, and it’s very Back to the Future.
An old guy greets the dark haired guy as John, and welcomes him home from the war. “Dad?” Dean mutters in confusion. John notices him staring, and asks if they know each other. Dean awkwards, and John looks confused before leaving. Dean gets “WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING??” face.
CREEPY BIRDS.
After the Not Credits, John walks down the street, Dean following a few metres behind. He rounds a corner, and when Dean follows, he finds himself face to face with Castiel. Dean asks what the hell is going on, and Castiel says “Time is fluid, Dean“. Just like Dean’s sexuality in my head canon! HEEEEEEYO. (M: I’m surprised it took you 3 episodes with Castiel to mention it.) (K: I restrained myself.) Anyway, angels can bend time occasionally, and when Dean asks to be sent back, Castiel’s all “LOL NOPE”. He says Dean has to stop something, and Dean freaks that something’s going to happen to John. A car screeches behind them, and Dean turns towards the sound. When he turns back, Castiel’s gone.
Cut to John at a car dealership. He’s buying a Kombi van. LOL. Dean appears and says it’s not what he wants. He’s leaning against the Bromobile. He tells John to buy it, and says he’s just repaying John for the coffee. John looks dubious, but Dean gushes about how great the car is, and he agrees that it’s awesome.
As John looks over the Bromobile, Dean talks about how out of it he was when they met, and asks if John felt any cold spots in the diner. Nope. He also didn’t smell sulphur and doesn’t know about any cattle mutilations. With that last one, he freaks a little and tells Dean to back off. Dean tells John to be careful and leaves reluctantly. The car salesman returns, and John says he’ll take the Bromobile.
Mari: I’ll admit that I was amused by this scene involving the Bromobile. I fear Dean’s life would’ve been very different had he inherited a Kombi.
K: It’s hard to be badass in a Kombi. Plus, they break down a LOT.
Cut to John pulling up outside a typical suburban house in the Bromobile. Dean follows in a crappy looking tan car. A blonde girl runs out of the house to greet John, and asks what happened to buying a Kombi. “Mom?” Dean says in confusion. Later, Dean watches them chatting at a diner. He ogles his mother a little, because that’s not at all Oedipal.
Once Dean recovers from the surprise, he easily overpowers her. He pins her against a wall, then notices that she’s wearing a bracelet of protective talismans. “Are you a hunter?!” he says in confusion, staring at his not-yet-mother. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, the Bromobile pulls up outside Mary’s house where the mailbox reads “The Campbells”. Mary kisses John goodnight and watches as he drives away. This gives me further proof that John Winchester is a douchebag: if you drop someone home after dark, YOU WAIT UNTIL THEY’RE SAFELY INSIDE BEFORE YOU DRIVE AWAY. It’s not rocket science, people.
Mari: OMG this episode is going out of its way to show us Nice Guy John and you’re like NOPE. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. I respect that.
K: Young John Winchester may look like an adorable puppy, but he can’t hide his douchetastic ways from me!
Anyway, Dean appears from behind a tree, and Mary says she’s not sure he should come inside. Dean says that she can trust him because he’s a hunter: “We’re practically family“. Oof. Mary eyerolls a little and starts to say that her dad’s kind of intense. Dean insists on meeting him. Cut to inside where FREAKING WALTER SKINNER is testing Dean’s hunter-y knowledge. Sorry, Mitch Pileggi. I’m sure you’ve had many roles over the years. But you’ll always be Assistant Director Walter Skinner to me. Dean answers gleefully and Mary smirks.
Walter Skinner tells Dean to GTFO because hunters are untrustworthy. Mary’s mother walks in and tells Skinner (FINE, I’ll use his actual name: Samuel) to knock it off because she’s inviting Dean for dinner. Her name’s Deanna. Dean gives Mary side eye. Still better than Albus Severus. (M: What kind of nonsense is it that Dean didn’t know his grandparent’s names?) (K: I guess Papa Winchester wasn’t big with the talking about Dead Mommy??) Over dinner, Samuel asks if Dean’s working a job. Dean’s cagey, and says he doesn’t trust hunters either. Mary and Deanna smirk. Mary asks why he was following her, and he says he thought something was after John.
“John Winchester mixing it up with spirits, can you imagine?” Deanna asks. Dean’s face says he can imagine it all too well. Mary spots Samuel’s pissy expression, and Samuel says that John’s nice, but he’s a naive civilian. Mary asks if he’d rather she date a guy like Dean, and Dean’s all “EW NO STOP OMG”. Deanna tells them to stop bickering in front of company.
Dean asks if Samuel’s working a job, and he is. There’s a dead guy and a bunch of possible demonic omens at a farm outside town. Dean asks if Samuel’s found anything on the web and then has to awkwardly add “of information that you have assembled” to the end of it. Deanna fills him in on how they’re waiting for information to come by mail. Dean suggests that he and Samuel work together seeing as they’re hunting the same thing, and Samuel’s all “LOL NOPE”.
At the farm the next day, Samuel’s dressed as a priest and has Mary along with him. She wants to know why the hell she’s there, and he insists that hunting is a family business. Oof. (M: Did these boys ever stand a chance?) (K: NOPE. Because I can see the future.) She spots a teenage boy standing outside and heads over to him as Samuel heads inside, carrying a fruit cake. Except Dean, also dressed as a priest, is already there. He smirks a little, and informs Samuel – who he calls “Father Cheney” – that the dead guy’s wife was just telling him about how normal everything was the day before he died.
No omens at all. Dean smirks some more and bails, leaving Samuel awkwardly standing with the widow.
Dean heads over to Mary and the teenage boy, who informs them that his father was big into domestic violence, and that a stranger came to the house a week or so ago. The stranger asked if he wanted the beatings to stop, and the next thing he knew his father was dead. All the stranger said was that he’d swing by in ten years, but he has no idea why. Dean, who’s so tan he’s practically orange, gets judgey face. Mary asks what the stranger looked like, and the kid says he was totally normal except for the fact that his eyes were yellow. Dean and Mary exchange a look. (M: I made a AH! noise.)
Back at the Campbells, Dean freaks out. Samuel tries to calm him down, saying that no one’s ever heard of a yellow-eyed demon. Dean says it killed his family, and that they need to get somewhere safe while he kills the demon. Samuel scoffs because no one can kill a demon. Dean’s plan is to drive to Colorado and steal the Colt from Daniel Elkins (remember him? The dude that was in season 1 for a red hot minute and then got killed by vampires?). Samuel and Deanna exchange a look, and Samuel says the Colt is a bedtime story for hunters. Dean insists that it’s real.
Samuel asks how he’s going to find the demon once he has the Colt, and Dean pulls out the Filofax of Shadows, because he conveniently had it in his jacket when Castiel popped him back to 1973. (M: He sleeps with it I guess. Like a normal dude.) Apparently Papa Winchester made a list of anyone who came in contact with Azazel. Samuel’s shocked to see the farm on the list because it literally just happened. Dean awkwards that his father could see the future. Papa Winchester’s list says the demon will strike nearby tomorrow night. Deanna and Samuel exchange a look and declare Dean to be crazy. Dean tears up a little as he says he’s going to stop the demon once and for all. He walks out.
He heads in to say goodbye to Mary, and says that he likes John no matter what Samuel says. Mary smiles. Dean asks what John’s like, and Mary tells him that he’s sweet and kind, even after the war. “He’s everything a hunter isn’t,” she says. Dean looks surprised. She asks if she can tell him a secret and Dean nods. Mary gushes that John’s going to propose, and her dad’s going to freak out but she doesn’t care. She’ll run away if she has to. All she wants is to not be a hunter any more.
“You know the worst thing I can think of? The very worst thing? Is for my children to be raised into this like I was. No, I won’t let it happen,” she says. Dean tears up. She asks if he’s okay, and he tells her tearfully asks her to promise him something, even if it sounds totally weird. She laughs a little and agrees. “On November 2nd, 1983, don’t get out of bed. No matter what you hear, or what you see. Promise me you won’t get out of bed,” Dean says. One manly tear trickles down his cheek, and Mary agrees. Dean smiles tearfully and leaves.
K: Truth. And Jensen does the manly tear so well.
On a highway somewhere, Dean drives through the night and freaks when Castiel appears in the passenger seat. He asks why Castiel didn’t bring Sam too, and Castiel says this is something Dean had to do alone. He also says that Sam’s not looking for Dean in the future. Dean wants to know if doing this will mean his parents live. Castiel points out that it means Sam and Dean won’t be hunters, that all the people they’ve saved will die. Dean’s okay with this if it means that his parents live. Oof. (M: This episode is full of oofs.) Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Dean not-even-remotely-sneakily breaks into Daniel Elkins’ safe. He grabs the Colt, and Elkins appears behind him with a shotgun. Dean pretends to put the Colt down but instead spins and points it at Elkins. He says he can’t do it, and calls him by name. He tells Elkins that he’s a hunter and needs to borrow the gun for a few days to save his family. He says if Elkins wants to stop him, he can just kill him. Elkins lowers his shotgun, and Dean says the Colt will be with the Campbells in Lawrence. He heads out, and Elkins stares after him.
Back at the Campbells, Mary and Samuel are cleaning weapons. She casually asks where Dean went, and Samuel fills her in on the demon killing thing and where it’s supposed to strike next. She says the girl in question, Liddy, is a friend of hers and that they have to help. She rushes out to the car, and Samuel asks Deanna if Mary’s flip-flopping over hunting is a period thing. HAHAHAHA, GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH A CACTUS.
Mari: It was purposefully meant to be a OOF moment, though, right? Like a-ha-ha 70s dad? Am I giving this show too much credit now and who am I?
K: I mean, it’s possible that’s what they were going for? But it just came across as another misogyny shot. So…yeah.
Cut to Liddy’s house. A doctor (not to be confused with The Doctor) informs her that her father’s dying. She begs him to do something, and he says there’s a cure but it requires her help. All it will take is her giving him something in ten years. His eyes turn yellow. Just then, the door bursts open and Samuel storms in with his shotgun out. He shoots Azazel in the chest, and Azazel collapses as Liddy screams. Azazel’s eyes pop open and he gestures just as Samuel goes to shoot again. The gun flies away and Samuel gets slammed into a wall.
Azazel stalks towards Samuel, then spins to grab Mary’s throat just before she stabs him. She slices at him and he backs off. She attacks again, and he grabs her arm, causing her to drop the knife. She punches him in the face, and he slams her into a wall. Dean bursts in, and Azazel uses Mary as a human shield. Dean cocks the Colt, and Azazel looks scared. He asks where Dean got the gun, and Dean nods to Mary, who breaks away. Azazel nopes his way out of the doctor, black smoke disappearing into a wall vent. Dean sighs.
Outside, Dean asks Mary what happened. She looks terrified when she asks what Azazel meant when he said he liked her. Samuel joins them, and Mary asks if they can leave. She heads to the car. Samuel compliments Dean on his work, and Dean hates on himself for missing the shot. He tells Samuel that they need to talk alone, and they head to their respective vehicles.
Back at the Campbells, Dean peers anxiously out the windows, and tells Samuel that they have to kill Azazel or Mary will die. Samuel freaks and asks how Dean knows. Dean pulls out the Filofax of Shadows and flips through it some more, and says he just knows. Samuel wants more answers, and Dean reluctantly admits that Mary’s his mother. Samuel’s all “LOL WHUT”, and Dean’s all “Yeah, I’m your grandson”.
He tells Samuel his name and date of birth, and who his parents are. Samuel scoffs – mostly when Dean mentions John – but Dean keeps talking, saying that Mary dies in 1983 at the hand of Azazel. He thinks this is when Azazel caught her scent. If they don’t catch the demon, Mary dies. Dean begs and Samuel looks thoughtful.
Outside, Mary runs into John’s arms and asks him to take her away from Lawrence. He helps her into the Bromobile, looking confused. Back inside, Dean’s trying to provide evidence to prove his case, like the Colt and the demon and where it would be. Samuel says that his gut tells him to kill Dean, but he can’t do it. He reluctantly admits that he believes him.
Samuel asks how they find the demon, and Dean points to Papa Winchester’s list. He pulls out the Colt and puts it on the table. Samuel asks to see it, and Dean insists he doesn’t let anyone touch it. Samuel tries to pull the “I’m your grandfather” card, and Dean says it’s nothing personal. “Sure it is, especially when it’s me you’re trying to kill,” Samuel replies. His eyes turn yellow, and when he gestures, Dean’s chair goes flying across the room. He ends up against the wall, unable to move. He glares as we fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Dean glares some more as Azazel!Samuel sasses at him. He asks if Dean’s one of his psychic kids, and leans in close to sniff him. Dean turns away in disgust. Azazel speculates that maybe one of Dean’s siblings is a psychic kid, and says that why he’s here. He’s not making deals over people’s souls. He’s making them over their future kids.
Mari: This demon is real confident that all these people would procreate in 10 years. Some people choose not to have kids, gosh Azazel.
K: SERIOUSLY. How great would it be if the best laid plans of demons were destroyed by birth control?
Dean asks why, and Azazel says it’s because they’re strong and good breeders. Dean looks grossed out, which is totally legit, but Azazel insists he’s not breeding with them. He just wants to create a master race, though he’d make an exception for Mary. Dean looks grossed out again and struggles against the magic pinning him to the wall. Deanna sneaks in from the kitchen.
Dean sees her, and distracts Azazel, asking why he’s making deals. Azazel says he needs permission to come into their houses and bleed into the mouths of their children. Dean sasses about the children leading Azazel’s shitty demon army, and Azazel smirks that his end game is much bigger than that. Dean asks what it is, but Azazel’s all “LOL NOPE”. Dean snaps that he’s still going to kill Azazel, whether it’s now or in the future.
Azazel chuckles and says that Dean wants to save everyone, but he’s not going to save his grandfather. He pulls out a knife and stabs it into Samuel’s gut. Deanna and Dean scream in unison. Azazel flicks a hand, and Deanna flies across the room. She crawls away into the kitchen as Dean fights to get free. Azazel follows Deanna and snaps her neck. Dean’s suddenly free. He grabs the Colt and rushes to the kitchen, but Azazel’s gone and Deanna’s dead. He screams Mary’s name.
Cut to the Bromobile parked beside a river. Mary says there are things John doesn’t know about her. John has no fucks to give, and pulls out the engagement ring. She leans towards him with a smile, but Samuel opens the car door and pulls her out. John tries to intervene, and Azazel snaps his neck. Mary cradles his body and looks up to see that her father’s possessed. “You killed him…” she says quietly. Azazel smirks and tells her that he’s killed her parents too.
Mary tears up and says that she’ll kill him. Azazel sits next to her, and says he can arrange to bring John back. She’d be done with hunting for good. All he needs is permission to come into her house in ten years. She demands to know what for, and he insists that as long as he’s not interrupted no one will get hurt. Or she can spend her life alone. Mary cries as she looks at John’s corpse.
Dean arrives in time to see Mary kissing Azazel. “NO!” he screams, which is a pretty accurate reaction to seeing your mother making out with your grandfather who’s also a demon. (M: It was my reaction plus some added ewww.) He aims the Colt at Azazel, and Azazel NOPEs his way out of Samuel’s corpse. He lowers the gun as he and Mary exchange a teary look. John wakes up, and he and Mary hug. There’s a feathery sound from behind Dean, and Castiel touches his shoulder. Dean looks teary.
Mary glances away from John to see that Dean’s vanished. She and John look sadly at Samuel’s corpse and she hugs him tight. Fade to black.
Dean wakes up back in Motel of the Week in the present. Castiel’s standing at the end of the bed. Dean mopes that he couldn’t stop anything, and his mother still died. Castiel says there’s no way he could have changed anything, and Dean’s all “Skkrrt, WHAT?”. Castiel says that nothing gets in the way of destiny. He sent Dean back so that he’d know the truth. He glances over at Sam’s empty bed. Dean asks where his brother is, and Castiel says they still don’t know what Azazel’s end game is. Dean repeats the question, and Castiel rattles off an address. Dean grabs his keys and heads to the door. “Your brother is headed down a dangerous road, Dean, and we’re not sure where it leads. So stop it. Or we will,” Castiel says threateningly. Dean looks at him in surprise.
TO BE CONTINUED.
This episode feels a little clunky at times. With the addition of angels comes the addition of all kinds of never-before-seen stuff in the Supernatural ‘verse, like time travel. And it just gets dumped in as “hey, here’s a thing we can do now!”. That said, I love the reveal that Mary was a hunter, that everything Dean thought he knew about his parents is wrong. So yeah. There’s more good than bad about this episode, despite the periodic clunkiness.
Mari: I don’t know if this week long sickness has messed with my snark game, but I didn’t even give the time traveling a second thought. This show exists somewhere in my head that they could be all, “and now aliens!” and I’d be like, “okay.” Maybe because I don’t really expect anything from it, so it does things, and I accept it and move forward. Plus, we’ve had some time fucker-y before here. Sam experienced a billion Tuesdays that messed him up and now Dean gets to go visit that past. And get messed up.
Because can we just talk about how messed up it is that Dean had to go through this? I mean, probably not like spending months in hell bad, but hey, he got to go be a bystander to his grandparents’ murder and the moments that ultimately sealed his mother’s fate and sent his father down a path of negligent parenting. I don’t know if sending Dean back was necessary but I like that Castiel thought it was. He was all, “Dean’s never gonna believe me…”
I really, really liked the way the show flipped everything we thought we knew about John and Mary. I mean, John is still a horrible dad, but he was the innocent, once. Mary is the hunter! And as the story keeps on from there everything makes more and more sense. This didn’t feel like retcon to me (though I only have partial history to be fair) but really like a filling in of information. As soon as John died, I saw where the rest of this was going and just OOFed my way through the rest of the episode.
Mary made a demon deal to save someone from her family?
Well, that sounds familiar.
K: Freaking Winchesters, I swear… No sense of self preservation, and an over-abundance of codependency issues.
Next time on Supernatural: We find out what Sam’s been up to in S04 E04 – Metamorphosis.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
