It is the much
vaunted 300th episode of Supernatural. And some people are going to be
very very excited.
I am not one of them,
to be honest
So in a standard
little encounter, Sam and Dean take down someone who murdered a Hunter, to take
his shiny collection. They kill him and find a whole host of shinies and
promptly take it all back to the Winchester cave
There follows the
best part of the episode for me, where Sam and Dean, with an actually home, are
now known by the locals and have even become something of an urban legend for
the local kids.
We do get some
shenanigans with a teen stealing Dean’s car (how very dare they!) followed by a
brief appearance of John Wayne Gacy’s ghost (ok… I’ve said
before that I’m not exactly 100% comfortable with using real life serial
killers for casual, throwaway entertainment like this. I find it pretty distasteful and
disrespectful, especially when those serial killers are recent enough that the
loved ones of their victims may still be around) which is quickly vanquished
but does result in the local teens learning about ghosts and hunters. Maybe
this will be a hook for later episodes
Because now we get to
the meat of the episode. Among the treasures iks a Chinese pearl which
apparently grants wishes - or your heat’s desire
KILL IT! KILL IT WITH
FIRE!!!!!
I do not believe for
one second that the Winchesters wouldn’t avoid this item like the plague. No
magical item that grants wishes comes without the worst of all possible
catches. Never ever ever make wishes. Never!
Instead they think
this is the ideal solution to their Archangel Michael problem, after all Dean’s
greatest desire is to get Michael out of his head
Waaait… how come
no-one thinks “hey this could lead to Michael being released, also bad?)
So Dean grabs the
pearl and thinks of his heart’s desire… and Negan appears
I mean John
Winchester Appears. Yes, daddy dearest. And this is where I depart from a large
amount of Supernatural fandom, many of whom like John while I tend to be
very firmly in the “fuck John, Bobby is their real dad” camp.
Of course the
Winchester brothers react with lots of emotion and rhapsodies and, yes they are
very very very very very very good at the emotion, the shock, the pathos, the
joy, the grief, it’s all there
And it’s all there
times ten when John finds Mary alive - the very reason he took up hunting to
have vengeance against Azazel, the yellow eyed demon who killed her. SO MUCH
EMOTION
Sam belatedly
realises there could be a catch to this but, of course Dean isn’t hearing that
at all, because this is the best thing there’s ever been ever for him and he is
beyond ecstatic. There’s a lot of emotional joyful scenes with John and Sam
trying to address their fraught past with John recognising he made mistakes and
Sam agreeing but also pointing out, to Sam, those mistakes were half a lifetime
ago and when he thinks of his dead dad it’s not the arguments he remembers
(ahhh the danger of nostalgia. I think if John hung around we’d find those
arguments bubblong). And even John and Dean have a moment where John says he
wished Dean could have had a normal life and a family (liar! You dirty rotten
liar! Dean was the “good” son who eschewed all pretence of a normal life to be
the good soldier you raised him to be. All the fights with Sam were over him
wanting a normal life!)
Everything is idyllic
and shiny and happy and they go to town and shop… and no-one there recognises
them. Duly suspicious they do some research and find that Dean is now a wanted
criminal known as a serial killer beheading various things. While Sam is doing
TED talks about the glories of Kale
Sam is clearly the
worst person here
We have a time line
paradox. They have become the people they would have become if daddy Winchester
didn’t die - which means Dean went on solo hunting and Sam went to college and
became a hipster. A terrible fate worse than death
As they try to
assimilate to this idea, another ominous element arrives - the angel Zachariah
arrives with Castiel (and yes +100 points for snarking that Castiel looks like
Constantine)
I will point out this
technically means in this timn line Heaven wasn’t wiped out which kind of makes
the Winchesters rather responsible for the slaughter of Heaven
They are here to see
who is messing with the time line and lo, they meet the Winchesters. Hey,
remember when angels were scary and had awesome wing effects and Castiel was
kind of terrifying? Yup, this is that timeline
Sam does manage to
stab Zachariah with an angel blade because he isn’t expecting it. But both
together they can’t bring down Castiel who smacks them around the bar and back,
completely failing to recognise them and reminding us, again, that Castiel is a
truly dangerous being far more than comic relief. Sam manages to use an angel
banishing symbol to save them from being horrendously murdered
The catch is well and
truly realised.
Ok brief theory as to
why John coming back causes time line shenanigans and not Mary - Mary was
literally plucked into the future, while this wish seems to be altering the
time line so John never died. This may also explain why John is less of an
arsehole. (And looks older).
And, for extra
heartbreak, a timeline where John is alive and both Winchesters aren’t hunting
is also a timeline where Mary doesn’t come back from the dead.
Which effectively
makes it a choice between John and Mary, which is deeply tragic. Well, also
it’s a choice between being murdered by angels or not. Which also kind of
weighs the scales.
They have one more
meal with John insisting they focus on the good time and happiness. And Sam and
Dean have a really good moment where Sam wonders if it would be good if John
goes back in time with the lessons he learned and changes their childhood. But
Dean isn’t supportive of that - because they could always wish John learned
more and more and was a kinder father - but that would have resulted in a
different childhood. In a different Dean. A Dean doesn’t even know how he would
be different. But what Dean does know is that he liked who he is, he’s happy
with this Dean.
Which is actually a first - I mean I do really picture Dean as being kind of self-hating, duty-orientated with very little in the way of self-care. But it’s less self-hating and more self-effacing: martyrdom which perhaps doesn’t actively HATE himself, but just doesn’t rate himself highly enough in the grand scheme, or has internalised his martyrdom as a major element of his humanity
In the aftermath they
destroy the Mcguffin and John returns to the past. I think the whole episode
was touching but I think probably more powerful for those who were fans of John
