Author/Editor of 'There'll Be Peace When You Are Done: Actors and Fans Celebrate the Legacy of Supernatural', 'Family Don't End With Blood', 'Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls' and many others
There’s a brand new episode of Walker tonight, so here’s our recap of everything that happened last week when the show returned from a mini hiatus – and introduced a new character!
It’s an aptly named episode that picks up after the take down of Kevin Golden and the death of Julia Johnson (and Cordell being finally found innocent), a positive outcome but there’s aftermath for everyone, Cassie and Trey especially still on shaky ground.
Cordell comes home and hangs up his hat to kick it off, the family in the kitchen with coffee and bacon and things seeming more or less back to normal.
Cordell had two weeks off and some PT, and Geri is back (and Colton went to Vegas – not for an impromptu wedding but for a culinary internship – but boo, I really like Colton so I’ll miss him, never mind Stella’s feelings…)
Cordell has made some progress, able to say it was a good thing for him too that he took some time off to spend with family after his ordeal – that he needed it. Abeline thanks him for doing it, and hugs her son – and then even gruff Bonham joins in! A hug with Mom and Dad seems like just what Cordell often needs but doesn’t often get, so the fandom was just as happy as Cordi was in that moment, I think.
(So was Jared Padalecki, who live tweeted the episode along with his watching companion, daughter Odette).
Cassie knocks on Trey’s door and invites him out for a beer (and not a talk about our feelings all the time) and he says yes, which seems like a big step in the right direction for the two.
Geri returns to the Side Step – but she’s not alone, she’s got someone she wants the rest of the gang to meet.
That someone is Hoyt’s daughter Sadie (surprise!), who does not exactly endear herself to Liam and Cordell by trying to scam some tickets to the free fundraiser that’s happening that night for Walker Rescues. Saylor Bell joins the cast and does a wonderful job in this episode of portraying Sadie’s contradictions, and eventually the grief she tries to bravado over.
My Supernatural loving soul, that is. The fandom designated it #SamWinchesterWeek, which meant my timelines have been filled with all kinds of posts about all our favorite things about Sam Winchester – leading up to today, Sam’s 40th birthday!
The fandom started with favorite Sam-centric episodes, which included some of the classics and some you might not expect – Just My Imagination, After School Special, Sacrifice, When the Levee Breaks, Soul Survivor, Mystery Spot, and two of my personal favorites, Red Meat and Born Under A Bad Sign.
Just looking through the episode caps on the timeline makes clear what an incredible, nuanced character Sam Winchester is, and how brilliantly Jared Padalecki portrayed him.
Next the fandom moved on to a cascade of Sam’s funniest moments that showcased Padalecki’s incredible comedic chops. He has sometimes said he finds comedy hard and doesn’t think he’s that good at it – clearly we all beg to differ!
My personal favorite is the lock and key bad acting scene from The French Mistake, which I literally cannot watch without laughing out loud, even now when I’ve seen it so many times.
But there are so many others.
One of the things that made Supernatural the amazing show it was is that Jared, Jensen, Misha and the rest of the cast were capable of such a range in their acting. They could break your hearts, but they could also make you laugh with just a look, just an expression.
As we wait to find out whether the Supernatural universe’s ‘The Winchesters’ will return for a second season, I talked to one of the show’s guest stars for its first season – Gil McKinney, reprising his role as Henry Winchester, patriarch of the Winchester family. One of the exciting things about ‘The Winchesters’ was having some of the cast of the ‘Mothership’, aka Supernatural, make an appearance – including Gil. He has also been doing the convention circuit again recently, so it’s been wonderful to see him in person as well as onscreen.
Lynn: How did you find out that you’d be playing Henry Winchester again? I’m assuming you didn’t have to audition for the part!
Gil as Henry with Jared and Jensen as Sam and Dean
Gil: It’s kind of funny, I remember exactly where I was when I caught wind of it. I was driving around running errands and got a text from Alaina Huffman, who played Abbadon on Supernatural. She left LA years ago, but she reached out to me and said hey, are you doing The Winchesters pilot, because your name is in the script?! I said, wow that’s pretty cool. No one had reached out to me yet, but I knew the pilot was in the process of being cast. She had been sent the script, and I don’t think she would mind me telling the story that she had an audition for Josie.
[Who we didn’t end up seeing on the series – at least not yet.]
Gil: I asked her to send me the script – not the whole script, but the audition material.
Lynn: The sides.
Gil: The sides, exactly. It was the scene in the pilot where they’re reading the letter from Henry, and it says Henry Winchester played by Gil McKinney in the sides, and I was like, that’s cool! That’s never happened to me before, but also kind of strange because no one had mentioned anything yet. That casting office knows me fairly well, I would say they’ve cast me in more shows than any other office. They’re wonderful. They’re called UDK, Ulrich Dawson and Kritzer, and they’re fantastic, some of the kindest casting people you’ll ever meet.
Lynn: They cast Supernatural too, right? I’ve heard many of the actors talk about how great Robert Ulrich is, and how great that agency is. I keep saying someday I need to buy them a fruit basket. A GIANT one!
Gil: So I called my manager, just to let him know, and then weeks, if not a couple of months, went by and I remember exactly where I was – in my garage putting together a motorized tractor trailer situation for my son – and I get a text out of nowhere from Jensen. We’re very friendly but we don’t communicate regularly or anything, but I got a text from him out of the blue saying hey, do you have a minute to chat? I was like, yes Jensen, I’ve got a minute for you! So we chat and he tells me they want me to come play Henry on the show again, and I was just floored, I was so happy.
Lynn: I can imagine!
Gil: You know, I can only speak for myself, but as actors, the disappointments pile up so the victories become extra special, and that was just really cool. We had a really nice conversation – he was on a boat somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana. I want to say he was with Robbie Thompson and they were looking at alligators or something cool like that. I was like, that sounds nice man, I’m putting together a motorized tractor for my one year old. I said, this is the best call I’ve gotten in a long time and of course, anything you need.
Lynn: That’s awesome.
Gil: I’m over the moon because, you know, conventions and Supernatural are one of the best things that have ever happened to me, but I did one episode in Season 8 and one in Season 9 and they never got back to Henry. I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the world doing conventions and the one question I got more than any other is when is Henry coming back, are we going to see Henry again?
Gil answers questions at a Creation Supernatural convention
Lynn: I think we all thought we would. He’s part of the core family, the Winchesters, so I really thought we would.
Gil: Well, you know, I’m not in the writers room, I don’t know why decisions are made one way or the other. All I do know is I spoke with Adam Glass somewhere during the course of those years – Adam basically created and wrote the Henry Winchester character and introduced it and cast me, which I’m forever grateful to him for. He also flew me back to LA to do an episode of Criminal Minds Beyond Borders that he was writing on, he offered me a guest star on that. One day we were sitting in my trailer at CBS studios and talking about everything and he expressed to me that he fought and fought to have Henry come back in a much bigger way, but for some reason, in the writers room not everybody was on the same page. They wanted to go in a different direction. One producer just felt like Henry should stay dead, which is hard to hear. So I didn’t lose hope but as season 14 and 15 came, I just had to kind of accept that Henry likely was not going to be back on Supernatural. And that was a tough pill to swallow.
Lynn: I’m sure it was. It was a great character, and I think a lot of people wanted to see more of Henry.
Gil: I’ve done a lot of guest stars on shows, and hands down that role is my favorite, because it’s such a cool show and such a great character. Especially in that first episode I did, As Time Goes By, when Henry is in almost every scene. So as an actor, I spent a couple of weeks in Vancouver, on set pretty much every day. It was so much fun to shoot!
Gil with Serge Ladouceur on the set of Supernatural
Lynn: And it was such a great episode.
Gil: So fast forward to this call from Jensen and I was like, wow, it’s finally happening – Henry is gonna get to come back finally, after all these years!
We have finally made it through the second season of the best show of all time (imho) in our Supernatural rewatch! Settle in as we revisit one of the most emotional episodes of the entire series – and one that stands up remarkably well to the test of time. As in, it still made me cry and I still think it’s one of the best hours of television ever as I write this almost exactly sixteen years later. Buckle up!
The season finale of the second season of Supernatural was a two parter that almost destroyed me.
Being uncertain whether Sam Winchester would survive – and whether the brothers and the show I’d fallen in love with would survive too – was excruciating. The level of emotionality I felt watching this episode broadcast live back in May of 2007 was off the charts. Remembering it today, and rewatching it all these years later, I still found myself tearing up. I bet you will too.
The Road So Far recap is a surprise to anyone watching now, who would expect Kansas’ ‘Carry On Wayward Son’ to be played for the penultimate episode instead of the finale, but in Season 2 it first graced our screens in this season finale. The voiceover reminds us that back in 1835, Samuel Colt made a special gun… and then there is such a badass recap OHMYGOD. The Impala screeching, a reminder of the crossroads and what desperate people do there, the Yellow Eyed Demon trying to recruit Sam. Andy’s bloody horrifying death, Jake and Sam’s fight, and then Dean screaming “Sam, look out!”
We see once again Sam fall, Dean holding him as the lyrics reach “Don’t you cry no more” and Dean yells out desperately, “SAM!”
And then, it’s NOW.
Sam lying dead on an old mattress, the camera slowly spinning to show us Dean staring at his brother, his face flat, almost frozen. As lifeless as Sam’s body.
Bobby comes in with food, encouraging Dean to eat something, but it’s clear Dean could care less about nourishment – or living.
Dean: I said I’m fine.
It’s striking how he can barely tear himself way from staring at Sam’s body, perhaps a little Ackles added touch that makes it crystal clear how far away Dean is from acceptance or letting go.
It’s also striking how otherwordly beautiful both Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are in this episode. It quite literally takes my breath away.
Bobby: Dean, I hate to bring this up, I really do. But don’t you think maybe it’s time we bury Sam?
Dean is so full of rage at that suggestion that he looks like he could kill Bobby on the spot.
Part 2 of the dramatic two part ‘False Flag’ resolved a lot of the mysteries we’ve been pondering all season on ‘Walker’ and left Cordell absolutely reeling – and many of us too! (Suspecting that a character you kinda sorta liked is about to turn bad guy with a tragic backstory isn’t the same as watching it happen onscreen!)
In the aftermath of the explosion (and Julia’s death, which I am NOT over even if others are), Cordell is the prime suspect thanks to Kevin’s careful set up.
The not-very-empathic Agent Tessa Graves is determined to prove Cordell is guilty, with a single-minded focus on him that doesn’t allow her to see the holes in that narrative. She shows up at the Walker ranch to search everything, much to the family’s understandable protest. Kevin, it turns out, even (very obviously) planted some C4 in the room where Walker already had those photos of the men he served with, all with the X’s through them – which, if you recall, I always thought was a totally weird thing for him and Julia to do.
But made for a great set up!
Cordell, much the worse for wear both physically and psychologically, flees from the scene of the explosion and siphons some gas from a (very nice) woman’s trunk. I can’t imagine that was a fun scene to do, even if that, of course, wasn’t really gasoline that Padalecki had to suck up and spit out.
Ewww.
gifs abordelimpala
(Disheveled Cordell somehow manages to look kinda hot even doing this though…)
At that moment, Cassie pulls up to the gas station with a deadpan ‘I need a coffee’ and seriously, she is an awesome partner and always has Walker’s back.
Trey is back in Ranger uniform (and looking amazing in that hat, truly) but just as angry as Captain James and the Walker family are that Cordell is being blamed. Graves insists innocent people don’t run, but James points out that if they’re being framed, they would. And he’s right! I’m not sure Tessa is the best at her job thinking that the way Grey Flag tortured Cordell “turned” him, because that makes no sense to me, but she’s sticking to that.
Walker realizes he asked Julia to meet him at the safe house, so of course it looks like he set her up to be murdered – Kevin did a brilliantly (evil) job with the set up. I would imagine that also adds to Cordell’s guilt that he accidentally got Julia killed, even if he was totally being manipulated and so was she. (Julia….sob….)
He also has a concussion, staggering around and bumping into walls in the little gas station where he and Cassie go to buy some burner phones. Nobody does hurt better than Jared Padalecki, so you feel every bit of that pain and disorientation.
Last week’s episode of Walker picks up right where the previous one left off, and doesn’t let up on the tension for pretty much the entire episode, thanks to writer David James and director Richard Speight, Jr.
Cordell wakes up to Emily’s voice, telling him to wake up and not stay cuffed to a sink.
Cordell: Honestly, cuffed to an old sink in the middle of nowhere is about how I’m feeling right now, emotionally.
So many of us can relate, Cordi.
Also, oddly, it’s a familiar situation for Jared Padalecki’s characters.
He’s traumatized by learning that Coop was actually a deserter and a coward instead of someone he admired and thus modeled his whole life after, questioning what would have been different if he’d seen through him. Would Liam not have been tortured? Would Hoyt still be alive? Would he even be a Ranger at all?
Emily reminds him he’s not a deserter or a coward, even if his self doubt is winning out right now. She’s the voice of reason in his head when he considers just trying to shoot his way out of the cuffs, and finds a smarter – dare I say a totally McGyver way – to do it instead. We get to see a very badass and resourceful Cordell indeed, chewing his way through a bullet to accomplish that.
Meanwhile, Trey thinks he’s fooled Kevin into believing he’s a loyal Grey Flag operative now. We learn that Kevin actually poisoned himself, which is…. Disturbing…
Many of the separate threads that have been woven this season came together in this pivotal episode – some in the way I feared, and some with a twist that I didn’t see coming. In the feel good portion of this episode, the Walker family works on building new stables for the horse rescue, taking time out for Augie to try some comedy and everyone to find out that Mawline used to be in a comedy troupe!
Is there nothing Abeline cannot do?
Bonham grouses that Cordell is too busy to come help with the stable building, but Kevin shows up to pitch in. Abeline sees through his earnest just wanna help speech to being all about retaining the mayor’s biggest donor, but Kevin is nothing if not a complex character. He really does seem to want to help, at least part of him does.
Kevin thanks Liam for saving his life when he was hit with the nerve agent, calling him a real hero – which is nice to hear because Liam doesn’t hear that often enough. Of course Kevin wants to use that in his speech because Kevin always has an angle. We find out he’s an amateur pilot when he hammers his hand by accident, which maybe will be important at some point.
Kevin runs into Cassie at Cordell’s house, and they’re sort of adorably awkward together. I can’t help but kinda like the two of them, though I’m guessing when he says that he can promise that next time he sees her, it will be different, that means something much more ominous than mere awkwardness. (Spoiler alert now that I’ve seen the whole episode: It does.)
August sees Kevin as a mentor, and asks Mawline to be nice to him. I hope Augie isn’t gonna get hurt in all this… (More spoiler alert: uh oh…)
That’s the feel good portion, such as it is. The rest of the episode is emotional, taut with suspense, and not exactly the feel good part.
Most of the episode is devoted to the mystery of Cordell’s old mentor, Coop, and where the hell he’s been for two decades. Cassie and Captain James speculate – has he been hiding all these years? Was he captured and turned? Cordell and Julia have been busy too, using Walker’s knowledge of Coop’s use of aliases in the past to track his movements and money.
(We’re treated to some flashbacks with Colin Ford as young Cordell – I love that he’s become a recurring part of the show).
Neither James nor Cassie are sure that Cordell is actually going to be able to take Coop down if it comes to that.
James: Cordi, this guy was your mentor. If you do find him, are you sure you’re gonna be able to slap the cuffs on him, or worse?
I still remember how shaken I was by this episode. It was Season 2, the show was on the verge of being cancelled constantly. We didn’t know for sure what its future was, and that made the ending of this episode unbearable as Sam died in his brother’s arms. I remember just sitting on the floor and sobbing, and then being unable to stop thinking about it all week as we waited for Part 2, the season finale. It wasn’t the first time the Show ripped my heart out, but it was the first time I couldn’t shake it off with a reminder that this was a television show and not real life, that Jared Padalecki was out there living his best life in spite of just having watched Sam Winchester die, and everything would be fine. It didn’t feel that way.
And that is damn good story telling.
This is a Sera Gamble penned and Kim Manners directed episode, which should tell you alot about how incredible it is. The THEN reminds us of the Winchesters’ tragic history, Mary burning on the ceiling setting her boys off on this dangerous road they’re still traveling. The Yellow Eyed demon and the special children that were chosen for something still unknown – Andy, Ava. The warning that there’s something big brewing, enough to frighten a scary man like Gordon. Bobby’s warning that a storm is comin’ and Sam and Dean are smack in the middle of it.
Sam’s scared, wondering if maybe this is the YED’s plan, that they’re all…
Dean: What? Killers? Give me a break!
Refusing to believe that about his little brother. They find sulfur at Ava’s house, know that the demon has been there.
Sam: You can’t run from this — and you can’t protect me.
That, right there, is Dean’s worst nightmare.
Dean: Damn it Sam, this whole thing is spinning out of control!
NOW
The impala pulls up to a café in the middle of nowhere, an example of the brilliant location scouting of Russ Hamilton and set dec of Jerry Wanek and the amazing collaboration that Supernatural was. Most of this episode’s outdoor scenes (which is most of it) are filmed on dark rainy nights, puddles and mud on the ground and raindrops glistening on Baby’s sleek black metal. It sticks in the boys’ hair, on Bobby’s battered cap. It’s beautiful, but it adds to the sense of tragedy that’s coming, and Kim Manners takes advantage of every moment of it.
Sam goes inside the diner and Dean reminds him not to forget the extra onions. It’s a few glorious moments of the brothers being brothers, Sam arguing that he’s the one who will have to ride in the car with Dean’s extra onions and Dean grinning smugly.
Dean: Hey, see if they’ve got any pie – bring me some pie!
He settles back in the seat, murmuring what will become a Supernatural-ism – “I love me some pie”
gif queenofdeansbooty
Sam scoffs as he goes inside. A few of the simple pleasures that the brothers enjoy on those long drives, a random cafe in the middle of nowhere that might have some home-baked pie. An opportunity to annoy your brother by eating lots of onions on your burger, or an opportunity to bitch at him if he does.
Supernatural excels at setting you up with a feel-good scene, all warm and cozy, and then suddenly turning everything ominous and dark in a heartbeat. There’s static on the radio suddenly, the rainy night now seeming dangerous – and when Dean looks up at the diner, he can’t see anyone inside now.
The season finale of The Winchesters was called “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye,” a nod to the fact that it’s some kind of ending even if we don’t know what kind yet or how final that ending might be. If it doesn’t get picked up by the CW, which seems unlikely as it’s not picking up many scripted shows, Chaos Machine has said they will shop it to other networks and streamers, so who knows what will happen. Showrunner Robbie Thompson, in his finale week interviews, made it clear that it was their goal and priority to deliver a solid season ending that could work if the show went forward and also work if it did not – which is no easy task, I’m guessing!
The Supernatural fandom has a lot of big feelings about endings.
I know I do, and most of my fellow fans and fandom friends do too. I loved the series finale of Supernatural and feel protective of it when misinformation about it gets passed around. So I’m sure that plenty of people will feel protective of the ending of this show as well. I’m sure too that, like OG Supernatural, emotions around this finale will be mixed.
Some of my closest friends didn’t love the Supernatural series finale because they had a very hard time with Dean dying, and for some of those people somehow this episode of The Winchesters felt healing. I confess I don’t entirely understand why, since Dean was just as “alive” at the end of Supernatural as he was at the end of this episode, which is to say not alive at all but very much existing, as Jensen said to me long ago, on another plane of existence. This episode didn’t change that; Dean was happy and at peace at the end of Supernatural, and he was more or less the same at the end of The Winchesters. In fact, one could argue he had more peace at the end of Supernatural than at the end of The Winchesters, after finding out about Chuck’s fail-safe plan instead of believing that he and Sam had defeated Chuck, peace when you are done, end of story. But if some people felt they needed healing and they got it from this show, I am all for it! Most of us are very motivated to get back to some kind of equilibrium when it involves something we care deeply about, and if you can figure out a way to do it, go for it.
For fans who ultimately found Supernatural as Kripke created it too dark, The Winchesters may have felt healing in that sense too. It was a 2023 show, with a more diverse cast of characters and hunters who aren’t averse to therapy or meditation to try to cope with their anger issues and trauma instead of enacting them and periodically taking them out on other people unintentionally. In a sense, Robbie Thompson wrote a sort of fix-it fic for those aspects of Supernatural, with an ending that parallels 15.19 instead of 15.20, with John and Mary driving off into a hopeful new life, as Sam and Dean did at the end of 15.19. I didn’t need a fix-it fic; for me, ‘Carry On’ was the ending that made sense and felt right for a show that was a 42 minute horror show, dark and disturbing and sometimes hard to watch but ultimately incredibly inspiring. Its heroes were flawed and nuanced and not black and white, ever, and they lived through tragedy and always kept fighting. I felt – feel – incredibly grateful that we got the bridge scene after the barn, a far more happy ending than I ever thought we’d get on Supernatural. But I can see why people who didn’t feel that way about the finale could have found The Winchesters healing, like the best fix-it fics are undeniably healing. Again, if it feels that way to you, please revel in it and feel better. Fandom itself will certainly be the better for any healing that brings.
For me, I felt a mix of things as I was watching, and still do now after taking a week to let it all digest. I was entertained for sure – I’ve said in my last few reviews that the show seemed to be finding its feet in terms of its look and timing – and I felt relieved that my tentative theories about what was going on were mostly correct. (I’m protective of Supernatural canon, so while I trusted Robbie and the EPs to be protective also as promised, I still felt a sense of relief that this was indeed an Alternate Universe John and Mary who we were getting to know this whole time, which made the inconsistencies nothing to do with canon and everything to do with this not being OUR John and Mary.) The cast were all able to bring their characters to life in a way that made them unique and provided enough backstory so that we felt like we were getting to know them – and they are all delightful in real life.
I’m still a bit confused about the progression from the pilot to the finale, since it started out sounding like Dean was trying to figure out his own parents’ past (not another world’s John and Mary) and that their epic love would save the world – it turns out that Baby sort of saved the world (again) with some help from all the characters plus one Dean Winchester. Most of us pretty much knew that Dean Winchester would make an actual appearance in this episode. Anyone who has ever met me knows that I love Dean Winchester like I love breathing. I can’t wait to have him and more Supernatural back on my some-kind-of screen again and more of the adventures of Sam and Dean. We didn’t get alot of Dean in The Winchesters, though intended or not, Dean’s appearance was a big part of why many people tuned in – but we got more in the season finale than in any other episode. I think because I was satisfied with how Supernatural turned out, I didn’t have a burning need to see Dean in this show, and thus his appearance in the pilot didn’t feel like relief, it just felt like having an old friend back for a bit. Without Sam, it also didn’t feel like Supernatural, so the pilot gave me a confusing Dean, the story left intentionally murky about what he was up to and why.
The rest of the season gave us Dean Winchester bits of narration as he (we now know) added to the hunting journal that I don’t think we ever saw him keep on Supernatural but he apparently did – it seems a bit more like a Sam thing to do, but hopefully this AU John and Mary benefited from it. (ETA: Apparently we did see Dean have a journal back in Season 1 episode 18, which I totally did not remember!) I still have questions, but by the end of this episode it did feel like Dean Winchester himself was on my TV screen, albeit not in an episode of Supernatural. That was the intention for this show, to stand on its own two feet and introduce a new cast of characters that would hopefully intrigue fans enough to keep going – and Robbie has said that if that happens, it won’t be the Dean show, but the newly minted hunters in this AU world who will ‘carry on’. The show’s future is still up in the air, but I think the show succeeded in creating some memorable characters in this world’s Mary and John and Carlos and Lata (and Millie and Ada too). It doesn’t hurt that the cast is absolutely lovely – it was a pleasure meeting many of them at New York Comic Con for interviews and at a recent convention.
So what actually happened in this episode? A LOT. Phew. We start off earlier in 1972, as John buries his friends after serving in the war, traumatized and unsure where he belongs or what he wants to do.
He sits down in a bus station, looking lost, and a mysterious man approaches and gives him an envelope – who John calls “Sir” because he’s clearly older than John himself.
Me: Jensen Ackles?!
I still can’t rewatch the episode and see that as Dean Winchester, it looks too much like Jensen. (I’m not quibbling, because the reason he needed the long hair and beard is, I’m guessing, to return to playing a character that I’m really freaking excited about! And yes it’s Heaven, he’s dead, he probably can look however he wants, so there’s no canon issue, but I still can’t see that person as Dean Winchester of Supernatural no matter how hard I try). But I’m okay with it, and the merchant marine lighthouse keeper Ernest Hemingway Robert Redford look, unsurprisingly, totally works for him.
(It worked for Redford too…)
Anyway.
He gives John the letter from his father and disappears; we see him looking down on a confused John from the balcony.
gifs justjensenanddean
The plan worked, as John buys a ticket back to Lawrence, Kansas. And then the show pulls off a well-kept secret as we pan out and see none other than Bobby Singer standing next to Dean-who-does-not-look-like-Dean.
Bobby: We’re not supposed to meddle with things, ya idjit!
The penultimate episode of The Winchesters’ first season was what Supernatural used to call a ‘Monster of the Week’. The open is frankly terrifying, two guys out to have a good time – at a closed carnival at night? Uh oh.
Not-very-happy guy finds a ticket, hears music that his friend doesn’t, and heads right toward the creepiest looking carnival tent you can imagine because of course he does. Limbo’s Hall of Happy – and here he is, Limbo himself, waving and beckoning the guy to come right on inside. WHY, DUDE? Who would follow a clown that looks like this???
First he’s trapped in a hall of mirrors (look, those things were terrifying when I was a kid – not fun!) and then confronted with Limbo and his own face in clown makeup staring back at him. Somehow he manages to smile anyway and AAAHHHHH I am totally with Sam Winchester and his fear of clowns!
Kudos on a truly creepy scary opening, The Winchesters!
‘Tears of a Clown’ is a classic song that makes a good episode title. Dean Winchester narration kicks off after that.
Dean: Hunting’s a dishonest business. You gotta lie all the time, about who you are and what you do. But the hardest lies aren’t the ones you tell other people, they’re the ones you tell yourself.
Yes, that was a predictable ending to that sentence that I spoke right along with Dean, but it is something that Sam and Dean learned the hard way. It’s also, as I’ve written before, a big theme of this show. Who are you? Is reality what you think it is?
John and Mary are pretty good with the musical aliases, just as their sons will be. (It is so confusing that this is a prequel, and that John didn’t know any of this in the OG show, constantly making my head hurt!) Even Karen Carpenter got a shout out here, very 70s.
John is channeling his inner Dean Winchester (I know, I know, it’s gotta be the other way around), snapping at Mary when she questions if he’s okay after he was ‘overly aggressive’ with apparently more than one person. He just wants to put what happened with Kyle in the rear view, but Mary’s not so sure that’s possible. I am still not totally sold on the John-has-anger-issues thing – we don’t see a lot of it, and just hearing about it isn’t as convincing. I can understand the John has PTSD thing more, and perhaps anger is one of the things that he’s dealing with as a result, but I wish we saw more than we have. I imagine having only 13 episodes to get to some revelations in the next episode has made things more compressed than they wished they could have been.
