This is such a fascinating episode, one of the best ones of the entire series. From the moment Cordell wakes up (thinks he wakes up) in an alternate reality where Emily is alive and it’s Augie’s graduation day, everything is weird. Even the way those scenes are filmed is weird, blurry around the edges as reality bleeds in and out. I love the look of it, the visual reminders that this is not real. Jared Padalecki does an amazing job portraying Cordi’s complex mix of emotions – confusion, a lingering sense of ‘wrongness’, but also so much joy and relief at having the people he loved and lost back in his life.
Even the title card is ghostly perfect!
The dialogue is brilliantly vague – Emily could be talking about all kinds of things. We’re here. Roads. Life. Never thought we’d get this far. She’s laying out his outfit, jacket, boots. Tie.
“Your mom would want that.”
I get a bad feeling right from the start – which, of course it’s bad, we know where he really is and what’s really happening – but I’m fascinated by how his drugged mind and dying body are making sense of this. It is surreal but somehow rings so true.
It’s emotional too, Cordi touching Emily with such reverence, astounded that she’s “real”, that “we’re here… it’s here.”
The use of “it” and vague words like that are perfect, especially when you think back over the episode once its conclusion is known. IT is here. But what is “it”? An important day for sure, a pivotal day, a day that portends lots of changes. That could describe a graduation day, but it could also describe many other huge life changes.
Jared Padaelcki shows off his acting chops by registering Cordi’s alternate confusion and gratitude, trying to just take it in and drink it up as they make the “long trip” to his parents’ house through “bad traffic” but the feeling of something being off nagging at him.