Previously: A bunch of magicians died, and literally no one cared.
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After School Special
Kirsti: We open with a preppy blonde cheerleader uttering the words “She’s such a slut,” so that we can get our misogyny shots out of the way early. The jock next to her at the lunch table says he’s “pro-slut” (SHOTS!) and asks for further details. She provides them, then stops as the girl in question approaches the table and goes to sit in her usual spot. But LOL NOPE, society is the worst and all her friends fake-cough “SLUT!” at her until she storms off to sit at another table.
Marines: She can’t see it now, but it’s a better table, far from slut-shamers and almost equally as bad, people who would ever fake cough a word.
K: Truth.
That table has only one person sitting at it – a slightly overweight girl, who offers her apologies and tells the girl (Taylor) to ignore her slut-shaming friends. But apparently pity from a social outcast is the worst! thing! ever! and Taylor calls Slightly Overweight Girl “a fat ugly pig“. SOG tears up and rushes off as everyone stares.
The next day, Taylor’s in the bathroom crying. SOG comes up behind her and coldly asks if she’s ugly. Taylor apologises for what she said the previous day. SOG gives zero fucks, and slams Taylor’s face into the mirror. Taylor screams as SOG drags her into a cubicle and holds her head in the toilet until she drowns. SOG drops Taylor’s body on the floor, and black goo oozes from her eye. Yes, because eyeball trauma on top of slut shaming was JUST what I needed! (M: Supernatural loves you!) (K: -_-)
CREEPY BIRDS.
After the Not Credits, we’re at a psychiatric facility. Sam’s dressed as an orderly and is asking SOG why she told the police she was possessed. She reluctantly – because no one believes her – says that when she attacked Taylor, it was like she couldn’t control her body. She wanted to stop, but her body was all “Hahaha, NO”. After confirming that SOG and Taylor didn’t get along, Sam asks if she smelled sulphur or saw black smoke before she attacked Taylor, and SOG’s all “The fuck? No.” Sam looks a little startled.
Outside in the Bromobile, he fills Dean in and says it sounds like demonic possession but without any of the normal signs. Dean suggests that maybe teenagers are just horrible, but Sam wants to check out the school anyway. Dean’s less keen on account of they went there for like a month and he has no desire to relive his high school experiences. Legit, dude. I mean, I didn’t hate high school. But I have literally no interest in going back to see my school now.
Mari: Same. And I still live in the same city, so that’s fun. Any time I pass the school, I just give a big NOPE.
K: I pass mine all the time too, and it’s not exactly NOPE. More “huh, they changed that building.” But not “OMG WANT TO GO BACK”-sville.
Anyway, Dean asks what their cover story is going to be, and Sam smirks before saying that he has an idea. Dean looks sceptical but drives off in the direction of the school regardless. That throws us into a flashback. It’s 1997, and the Bromobile (driven by an unseen Papa Winchester) drops Teen!Dean and Teen!Sam off at school. Look, I know I give this show a lot of shit, but their casting for the young Winchesters is on point.
Mari: Floppy headed kid and too-cool teen? Nailed it.
K: Exactly.
That said, Sam Winchester is meant to be a week younger than me, and by November 1997, I’m pretty sure my then-12-year-old brother was taller than the kid playing Teen!Sam… Whatever. Teen!Dean makes sure Teen!Sam has everything he needs, and Teen!Sam gripes about how this is their third school this year and it’s only November. He’s sick of being the new kid. Teen!Dean smirks and says that the job will only take Papa Winchester two weeks and then they can leave town. Teen!Sam gripes some more because that means another new school. Papa Winchester may well be the most irresponsible parent ever, solely for fucking with his kids’ education like this. And I’m an expat brat.
The bell rings, and that throws us to an eighth grade and twelfth grade teacher introducing the boys to their classes. I recognise Sam’s teacher, Mr Wyatt, from the short-lived series The Chronicle, which I was bizarrely obsessed with during undergrad. Both boys have nothing to tell the class about themselves, and take their seats.
Teen!Dean gives Eyebrows of Innuendo to all the girls as he passes. Teen!Sam’s butterfly knife falls out of his backpack, and a dorky looking kid with Coke bottle glasses looks startled. Teen!Sam snatches the knife up, but Dorky Kid is impressed. Teen!Dean’s teacher asks where his books are. Teen!Dean smirks that he won’t be around long enough to need them, and a snooty looking blonde girl studies him thoughtfully. (M: Caroline from The Vampire Diaries!)
Back in Teen!Sam’s classroom, Mr Wyatt gives them an essay that’s worth half their final grade. They have to write about their most memorable family experience. Dorky Kid introduces himself as Barry as a heavy set kid behind him repeatedly flicks his ear. Teen!Sam tells him to quit it, but only earns the bully’s attention instead. When he unflinchingly agrees to take Dorky Kid’s place, the bully – Dirk – looks surprised.
The flashback ends, and we cut to Sam as a school bell rings. He’s a janitor, and pushes the cart past Mr Wyatt’s classroom just as he opens the door to let the students out. Cut to a gym as a whistle blows. In a true Brought To You By Tumblr moment, I present you with Dean Winchester’s most hilarious costume of ever:
Mari: And we’ve already seen him in lederhosen.
K: You’d think it couldn’t get better than lederhosen. BUT IT DID.
He announces that they’re playing dodgeball, and I can’t take anything seriously because Jensen Ackles’ bow legs in shorts is far too funny a sight to pay attention to the dialogue. He issues a few laps, pooh-poohs some comments that dodgeball is dangerous, and tells the kids to go nuts when he sees Sam walk in. He rushes over to join him, and says “The whistle makes me their god“. Do you not have to pass a Working With Children Check to work at a school in America? Because this storyline would be impossible in Australia.
Mari: As far as I know, yes. I mean, I had to get cleared to volunteer at a day camp when I was 16, so yes. This is just a TV thing.
K: Of course it is.
Anyway, Sam mocks Dean’s shorts – legit – then says he’s been over the entire school twice and there’s no sulphur anywhere. Dean says they should bail because there’s clearly no case there. Sam cringes as a kid runs past with a bloody nose from dodgeball, and Dean, in the spirit of PE teachers everywhere, yells after him to walk it off. Sam gives him bitchface.
Cut to a home ec room. I feel like I should know what home ec is called in the US, but I don’t, so….Mari??
Mari: When I took it in middle school it had a fancy stupid name like human development and family studies but everyone just called it home ec. Always.
K: Excellent.
Anyway, a food processor pulverises some celery. We pan across to a jock demanding that a geek let him copy his algebra homework again. The geek’s in kind of a trance, and the jock shoves him. Geek calls him “a stupid, braindead dick“, and Jock gets all “IMMA SMASH YOUR FACE”. Geek gives an evil grin, and shoves Jock’s hand into the spinning food processor. Okay, but FOOD PROCESSORS WILL NOT OPERATE WITHOUT THE LID ON THEM SO THIS IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
Mari: Kirsti, I think the actual point of this scene is: EW EW EW EW OH MY CATS EW EW EW NYARGH.
K: That, plus FOOD PROCESSORS DON’T WORK LIKE THAT.
Blood goes everywhere, and Jock screams. A teacher rushes over and shuts off the food processor before rushing Jock from the room. Sam rushes in just in time to see Geek collapse on the floor. He goes over to help, and Geek mutters “What happened?” as he comes to. Sam stares in shock as black goo trickles from Geek’s ear. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Sam’s scanning the lockers for EMF. Dean scurries in from the “non-violence assembly“, and they agree that the black goo is ectoplasm, so it’s clearly a ghost despite the lack of EMF in the building. Dean says he broke into the principal’s office to check for violent deaths at the school – because that’s something the principal keeps there?? – and there’s only one: Dorky Kid, who killed himself in 1998. Sam sad pandas, but also gives Dean bitchface for having checked if any of the cheerleaders are legal. Gross, Dean. (M: Stop it immediately.)
Sam asks what happened to Dorky Kid, and Dean says he slit his wrists in the girls’ bathroom. The same one where Taylor died. So… Moaning Myrtle, right? (M: A+)
Dean asks if possessing nerds and making them kill/maim bullies sounds like something Dorky Kid would do, and Sam says sadly that Dorky Kid had a rough time. The camera spins and throws us into another flashback.
A jock intentionally knocks all of Dorky Kid’s books to the floor. Everyone laughs. Teen!Sam helps him pick them up, and Dorky Kid says he doesn’t care about bullies because in three years he’ll be going to Michigan State to be a vet and getting the hell away from all these asshats. Meanwhile, Teen!Dean’s in a supply closet making out with snooty blonde girl. He suggest going to a midnight screening of I Spit On Your Grave, which sounds like the classiest film of ever, but she has responsible parents a curfew.
Teen!Dean pooh-poohs the idea of curfews and responsible parents, and she’s all “Where the fuck is your dad?”. Out of town on a job for a couple of weeks, apparently. Teen!Dean’s fine with it because he and Teen!Sam have a motel room with HBO and magic fingers beds, and he can do whatever he wants. Snooty Blonde’s all “This is the fucking saddest story I’ve ever heard”, and Teen!Dean looks a little feelsy.
Mari: Snooty Blonde knows what’s up.
K: Because she’s sane.
They emerge from the closet in time to see Teen!Sam and Dorky Kid walk past. Teen!Dean calls out to Teen!Sam on his way past, and it gives me sibling feels. Dorky Kid gushes about how cool Teen!Dean is. Teen!Sam eyerolls a little. Dirk the Bully comes up to call Teen!Sam out on taking Dorky Kid’s place as a punching bag. Dorky Kid runs off to get a teacher. Teen!Sam eyerolls that he’s not going to fight, and Dirk the Bully calls him chicken and punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Teen!Sam’s expression turns to rage, but Mr Wyatt arrives and breaks things up.
Back in the present, the tinkly piano tinkles as the boys salt and burn Dorky Kid’s bones before heading back into town looking feelsy. Dean asks if Sam’s okay, but no. Because having to salt and burn a friend is never okay. He wishes Papa Winchester had let them stay in town a little longer, because maybe he could have helped Dorky Kid. Dean gives us an infodump, courtesy of the coroner’s report: Dorky Kid’s parents had split up and he was on all kinds of anti-anxiety and antidepressant medication. Everything sucked, so he killed himself. Sam couldn’t have fixed that.
Sam looks feelsy, and Dean says he’s glad they left town when they did because that school was the worst. Sam sadly mutters “It wasn’t all bad,” and Dean’s all “SERIOUSLY???”. Flashback time. Teen!Dean is all “HOW VERY DARE SOMEONE PUNCH MY LITTLE BROTHER???” and insists that he’s going to beat the shit out of Dirk the Bully. Teen!Sam insists that he doesn’t need his brother’s help and that he just wants to be normal. Teen!Dean’s antsy because Papa Winchester phoned to say he’d be gone another week, and Snooty Blonde wants him to meet her parents.
Later, Mr Wyatt asks to see Teen!Sam after class. Teen!Sam insists that he didn’t start the fight, but Mr Wyatt wants to talk to him about his family memory paper. Apparently writing about killing a werewolf the previous summer is a little more fictional than Mr Wyatt had in mind. Meanwhile, I have feels about 13 year old Sam being involved in killing a werewolf. (M: And THAT being his most memorable family moment.) (K: Ohgod. True.) Teen!Sam says they’ll be leaving soon anyway, so being flunked won’t mean much, but Mr Wyatt smiles and says he’s giving him an A.
Teen!Sam looks shocked. Mr Wyatt asks if that’s what his family is really like, werewolves aside, and Teen!Sam nods. “Well, your brother is QUITE a character,” Mr Wyatt chuckles. He asks if Sam’s ever thought about a writing career, and Teen!Sam sad pandas that he has to go into the family business and become a “mechanic”. Mr Wyatt asks if he wants to be a mechanic, and Teen!Sam’s shocked because “No one’s ever asked me that before“. And also, NO DEAR GOD NO, he doesn’t want to be a mechanic. FEELS.
Mari: He’s flashing back to more innocent and happier times, aka when his father used to abandon him in random cities, at random schools for weeks at a time. COOL.
K: It says a lot about this show that parental abandonment is a happy time in Sam’s life.
After the Not Commercial Break, the Bromobile pulls up outside the school. Dean’s incredulous that Sam made them come all the way back there so he could talk to Mr Wyatt, then tells Sam to make his “O captain, my captain” moment quick. Excuse me while I cry all the cries because Dead Poets Society is my favourite Robin Williams movie and I haven’t been able to watch it since he died. Also, if you ever want to make an entire classroom of 16 year old girls cry, make them study DPS as their film text in year 10 English.
Sam heads inside to Mr Wyatt’s classroom, and we cut between Teen!Sam and present Sam, brushing their hair back in the same way. Just as Sam’s about to go in, a girl appears behind him and asks how to find room 305. He gives her directions, and she smiles and says “Thanks, Sam“. The zoomy cameraman zooms in on his “wait, WHAT” expression just before she pulls out a knife and stabs him in the chest.
“You got tall, Winchester…” she says before kicking him in the nuts. (M: SO TALL.) Sam collapses with a groan. Ectoplasm drips from her mouth. He manages to pull a jar from his pocket and, when she closes in on him again, shoves a handful of salt in her mouth. The ghost is forced out of her body, and flies through the ceiling. Sam stares around him in shock, holding the unconscious girl.
Mari: Nothing to see here, suspiciously absent adults! Just a passed out minor…
K: Being held by a sketchy janitor, nonetheless.
Later, Dean gives Sam some whisky to dull the pain, and yells that he’s going to rip the ghost’s lungs out. It’s a nice touch, because Teen!Dean yelled the same thing about Dirk the Bully punching Teen!Sam earlier.
Sam points out that there’s all kinds of lore about ghosts possessing people and using them to get miles away from their usual location, so maybe that’s what’s happening here. Personally, I’d travel the world, not attack bullies at my old high school, but whatever.
Mari: This is like the witch on Buffy who used her powers to become… a cheerleader. EVERYONE WITH POWERS: LET HIGH SCHOOL GO.
K: SERIOUSLY.
Dean’s unimpressed with the idea of creative ghosts, and that throws us to them investigating the bus. The EMF is all over the place, but it doesn’t explain how a ghost can be haunting a bus seeing as no one ever died on board.
Dean says they just have to find whatever’s tying the ghost to the bus. He sits in the driver’s seat and rummages through the glove compartment. It includes a bus driving permit dated two weeks ago, and it’s made out to Dirk the Bully’s father. Sam’s all “…huh”, and Dean wants to know how the fuck Sam knows everyone who went to that freaking school when they were only there for a month.
Mari: Dean, you know all the legal cheerleaders and you’ve only been at this high school that you don’t even go to for a day.
K: True. And disgusting.
Flashback time. School lets out for the day, and Dirk the Bully pushes Dorky Kid over. Teen!Sam intervenes again, and tells Dorky Kid to get to the bus. He goes to follow, but Dirk the Bully knocks him down and calls him a freak. Teen!Sam snaps, and they fight. Except that Teen!Sam actually knows how to fight, and beats the crap out of Dirk the Bully. “You’re not tough. You’re just a jerk. Dirk the Jerk,” he says, as he stands over a clearly-in-pain Dirk.
Back in the present, the boys are at Dirk’s father’s house. Sam introduces himself as a friend from high school, and asks what happened. Drug overdose at the age of 18, apparently. Mr McGregor blames himself, and says that high school was really tough for Dirk because he was poor and we all know that poor people smell bad, so all the kids picked on him. He should have been around more, but he was working three jobs, and so when Dirk’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, Dirk was the one who nursed her until she died.
Sam looks hella guilty, and says he didn’t know. Mr McGregor says Dirk wouldn’t talk about his mother to anyone, including him. Dean says they’d like to pay their respects and asks where Dirk’s buried. But LOL NOPE, he was cremated. “All of him?” Dean asks. Sam gives him “DUDE WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” face. Mr McGregor looks confused but admits that he kept a lock of Dirk’s hair, and it’s in the Bible that he keeps on his bus. Dean nods thoughtfully.
Cut to the bus driving through the night, with a sports team on board. The coach thanks the driver for subbing, and he smiles creepily as he says it’s totally fine. Ectoplasm trickles from his nose as we fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Dirk-y Driver floors it. The coach is all “Uhhhhh, maybe don’t speed with a bus load of students??” but Dirk-y Driver insists he’s got things under control. Until, you know, he drives over a spike strip and all the tyres blow. The bus skids to a stop, and Dirk-y Driver gets off and stares around the road creepily. Sam appears with a shotgun, and Dirk-y Driver sasses at him.
Dean pops up behind Dirk-y Driver and ties him up with rope soaked in salt water, which will apparently stop Dirk from escaping. Sam covers Dirk-y Driver while Dean gets on the bus to find the lock of hair. The coach is all “Uhhhh, hi, substitute PE teacher??”, and Dean awkwards before saying “I’m like 21 Jump Street“. Okay, dude. Whatever you say. Everyone looks confused, and Dean claims the bus driver sells pot before rummaging through the Bible. The lock of hair isn’t there.
He calls out to Sam, and Dirk-y Driver smirks that the hair is where Sam will never find it. He sneers that Sam’s still a bully, still one of the popular kids who made his life hell. He says that those damned evil popular kids are going to get what’s coming to them. Sam eyerolls a little and says that he’s seen real evil, and what Dirk went through was just high school. He’s sad that Dirk and Dorky Kid didn’t get a chance to experience life outside it. The Strings of Sob Stories do their thing.
Dirk-y Driver snaps that nothing will ever get better for him. He strains and the ropes snap. Sam shoots him with salt, and Ghost!Dirk flies back onto the bus and possesses a jock. As Sam closes in on the driver, the possessed jock tackles him from behind and starts whaling on him. Dean shoots, but Sam yells at him to find the hair. Dean scurries onto the bus and starts searching. No dice.
He heads back outside to search the driver’s pockets. Sam’s still getting the shit beaten out of him. Eventually, Dean finds the hair hidden in the driver’s boot. He grabs his trusty lighter and sets it on fire. Possessed Jock screams and Ghost!Dirk bursts out of him and explodes into sparks. No-Longer-Possessed Jock collapses on top of Sam, who groans. Dean makes a smutty statement, because obviously. Fade to black.
Mari: This whole time I was just thinking about how many punches to the face Sam took. Ow.
K: And yet, his nose is still in one piece. Huh.
After the Not Commercial Break, Teen!Dean is making out with a brunette in the supply closet. Snooty Blonde busts them, and Teen!Dean tells her not to be mad. But she’s not mad. She’s disappointed because he’s just a scared little kid too busy trying to be cool to admit that he’s a scared little kid. She feels sorry for him. He starts ranting about how he’s a hero who saves lives, but she gives zero fucks and walks away.
Meanwhile, Teen!Sam is getting high fives and fistbumps from fellow students for beating down Dirk the Jerk, and for the first time he feels normal. Teen!Dean’s phone rings and he’s hella relieved to hear that they’re leaving town. Teen!Sam looks feelsy, and waves goodbye to Dorky Kid.
Back in the present, Sam goes to talk to Mr Wyatt. He thanks him for the advice he gave him back in the day, and Mr Wyatt inexplicably remembers a kid that he taught for a month ten years ago. (M: Must’ve been one hell of a werewolf story.) Sam reminds him of what the advice was, and says that Mr Wyatt is basically the whole reason he went to college. But then he grew up and stepped up to his responsibilities. The tinkly piano tinkles, as Sam thanks Mr Wyatt for taking an interest when no one else did.
Mr Wyatt smiles and says that the only thing that really matters is that Sam’s happy. “Are you happy, Sam?” he says. The zoomy cameraman zooms in on Sam’s “Dear God, no, my life is a toilet, please kill me” face of feels and we fade to black.
I really like this episode. Sure, the monster of the week is kind of dumb and the whole nerd revenge thing makes literally no sense when Dirk was bullying nerds. But as you guys may remember from A Very Supernatural Christmas, I loves me a flashback episode because they come laden with mini!Winchester feels. And this one is no exception. Plus, you know, Dean in shorts. LOL forever.
Mari: I enjoyed it too! I thought it was a wee bit heavy handed in places, but it called itself After School Special, so I appreciated that it was at least like, “yeah guys. We’re about to lay it on thick.” Plus, we got to see things in flashbacks and there were a lot of pained expressions, but the episode was light on actual discussion of manpain. That’s always a pro in my book!
I think the main point was to show us how close to the end of his rope Sam is getting. It’s been a long time coming, I guess, and he is so over being a mechanic.
Next time on Supernatural: Excessive amounts of domestic violence on S04 E14 – Sex and Violence.
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.
