Reaction: Supernatural 4.13 - Mild pondering included.
*kicks work schedule*
Spoiler and Theorizing Timeline
-Sep 20 Click on a link to an article on the Comic Con panel which implies it's only spoilery for 4.01. Which it's not, of course. Dean and Sam will have a case at a school they once went to. God that's gonna be fun. Will we get more canon wee!chesters? Lil' Dean's actor is what, 13, 14 now? Lil' Sammy is about 10? Hee.
-Nov 11th Widely disseminated comments from Jim Beaver's Myspace. Bobby will not be appearing in this episode. And given that it's canon teen!chesters and unless they've pulled off a major casting coup, JDM won't be there, that's a crying shame. Ooo. They could get Pastor Jim or Caleb, though... Ooo. That'd be awesome.
-Nov 19 Click on something marked as speculation, even though I've been avoiding other people's spec. The speculation is based on a spoiler. Sigh. Yep, we're getting canon teen!chesters. No time to think about it, but mass Kripke-ing inbound.
-Dec 10th Picture from article in TV guide. Brief glimpse, some guy in Dean's leather jacket and pendant that isn't Dean and some little kid in a yellow jacket. So, the High school ep? Or what, because the guy in Dean's jacket looks about thirty and the kid looks about twelve, maybe fourteen, so that's okay but... *raises an eyebrow at the guy in Dean's jacket and pendant* Well. We'll see.
-Jan 23 Ep reviews for 4.11, find the title for 4.12 "After School Special" hunh? If we get a thinly-veiled lecture on drug use or teen pregnancy, I may laugh myself sick. Possibility of 'teenagers messing with the occult' though? It would suit the PSA-ish implications of the traditional after school special... :-D Still hoping for a John or Bobby cameo, or Pastor Jim, or Caleb. JDM's busy being dead again, and Jim Beaver's got another series, but what are Richard Sali and Josh Blacker up to at the moment, hm?
-Jan 25 While doing ill-advised research for a crack fic I may never ever post, See cap from 4.13. Dean in sports gear. So. Much. Bwah. Maybe he's pretending to be a coach as a cover to investigate inside the school. Hee. Expect a Smallville shoutout there. So, they'll be investigating their old high school and having flashbacks to attending there. Ooo! Ooo! For Sam's cover story, will we get teacher!Sam??? *hopes*
-Jan 29 On an ill-timed scroll through the f-list because I'm an idiot that forgot about time zones for some frigging reason, see a note from big_pink that it apparently bears great similarity to her story "Dazzleland" So, ghosts, not demons, bullying, and I really need to re-read Dazzleland now. Sam making the decision that he doesn't want to hunt, Dean making the decision that he does. I think. Probably no Niagara Falls though as those are in short supply in Vancouver. *nods*
All right, is everyone except big_pink prepared to get massively Kripked by canon teen!chesters? I know I'm not.
Reaction to Supernatural 4.13 - "After School Special"
-Pilot! Wee!Jared! Oh the painful "raised like warriors" line delivery!
-Wee!chester montage!! All of them! *GLEE*
-OMG Hi John!!!
-Truman High, Fairfax, Indiana.
-Yeah, typical highschool cafeteria. Everybody eating each other. Yay for pack mentality. :-P
-Revenge of the outcasts? Cool. Get her. Oh wait, she apologized, and she seems pretty genuine about it. Never mind. Really cool how we don't see the bigger girl behind the cheerleader in the mirror, adds a bit of 'is she really there?' feeling.
-And since this is the pre-credits sequence and someone has to die (usually) the bigger girl is of course possessed.
-Toilet cam!!! Yay for re-using special shot equipment! (Which means of course we're likely to get a re-use of the Mouth-Cam at some point in the future, blah!)
-Hee! And a death by swirly. YEEEECH!!!
-Okay, it's probably all the reliving of X-Files stuff I've been doing lately, but did anyone else see the black stuff coming out of the girl's eye and think 'Black Oil'?
-April, the formerly possessed murderer, for some bizarre reason, is reminding me of Ava. I don't know whether it's the speech pattern or the shape of her eyes and mouth or what, but she's really strongly reminding me of Ava.
-Aw, they were playing crib! See, crib board, on the table! Sam doing the 'soft understanding look' thing and playing crib with the girl in the nuthouse. Admittedly to gain her trust and get her to talk and stuff, but gaaaaah. *smishes Sam and flails a little*
-"Did you happen to smell anything?" *pats Sam* Nice one. Let's try for specifics, hm?
-HI, IMPALA!!! HI!!! *waves at the TV like a dork*
-Written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin who brought us "Yellow Fever" and directed by Adam Kane who has apparently worked on a whole lot of cool stuff. Hm.
-Yay, location! I love how much they use the Riverview location, especially when we see this side. It's just such an awesome-looking building.
-'Kids can be vicious' *nodding*
-[And no matter how many parallels I find in this I'm not delving into my own time in high school and junior high because I've got a really nice solid trauma-induced memory block built up and I'd rather not disturb it. Suffice it to say, there are many many people I met in my pre-college educational career who can be exceedingly glad I didn't become a ghost. :-P]
-Sam has an idea. Heeeee. *rubs hands*
-BQN 9R3??? WTF NEW IMPALA PLATE??? No wait, it's the old old Impala plates! Not the ones John had when he got it (C-45P4) but still Kansas. Cool. ETA: STILL NO SPOTLIGHTS THOUGH. Grr.
-MUSIC!!! OMG, THERE'S MUSIC! "Long, Long Way From Home" by Foreigner! MUSIC!!! From 1977! Yay! *buys it off iTunes*
-"Lunch? Books? Butterfly knife?" Hey! Was that a the_dean_show shout-out? Specifically to this? Massively cool if so!
-November 1997, (making Dean a well-aged 18.75 ish and Sammy 14.5,) when they spent a month in Indiana. And either Dean had not been given the Impala yet, or John's truck was in the shop and he needed it back for the case. One canon fits all. *nods*
-I don't know whether the guy playing teen!Dean has a bit of the wrong accent, or if his face is the wrong shape but there's something a little off somehow for me. However, he's doing pretty good at being "Dean" so he gets a pass so far. Seems a little 'surfacey' though... but who the hell wasn't in High school.
-"Not really, sweetheart." Ah yes. This is Dean post-decision to be a hunter. New enough to be cockier than he's ever been and no longer remotely concerned about what society says or thinks because he's a superhero like John. Can't get cockier. He's there because he needs to keep an eye on Sam and it's go to school or sit in the hotel alone all day going nuts, and beyond that, he doesn't give a crap. School and society is not a priority for him anymore. I've seen the same thing from people who decided to go straight into the military after high school. *nods*
-The kid playing Dean seems to be playing the smarm overmuch without the heart filling... but again, high school. Hearts are usually stomped on if detected.
-Butterfly knife. Hee. Yep, high school. Check the science labs at lunch, Sammy. You'll probably find some knife-throwing practice going on, along with a game of AD&D and a comparison of skull collections. Actually, maybe not in the nineties. Eighties, hell yeah.
-Hee! They're doing "The Outsiders" How appropriate. Also a super-cool shout-out because S. E. Hinton the author of The Outsiders is also a huge Supernatural fangirl. She visited the set when they were filming "Yellow Fever"
-Hey! It's him again! It's the kid who plays Barry's third time out on Supernatural I think? He was also a bully in Wishful Thinking and one of the kids in the closet hiding before Dean got zapped in Faith. Cainan Wiebe. *nods*
-Aw, wee!Sam standing up to the bully. I am really liking the kid they've got for wee!Sam. Colin Ford is doing a fantastic job.
-Janitor!Sam? No Teacher!Sam? Aw. *pouts* Guess it would require way too many background checks and so forth to get in teaching. And janitorial, too, really, but, uh...
-...aaand Dean apparently had no trouble getting in as a substitute gym teacher with no security vetting. Scary. I'm thinking Sammy did some hacking, maybe. Either that or they've got an emergency identity registered in the substitute teacher system for Illinois from some prior unseen case. Yeah. Maybe. Gah. Whatever. *handwaves* Moving on because...
-That said? BWAAAAAAAH! Coach!Dean!!!!! Bright white runners with big loopy bows!! Knee socks! Bright red shorts! Head band! DODGEBALL!! I saw the picture, I knew it was coming but that really does not prepare one for this... this. *snickers with glee*
-Ow! Dodgeball to the gut! There's a kid with a future in stunt-work. *winces*
-Hey! The two guys next to the kid talking, are they twins? That's random.
-"The whistle makes me their god." Heeeee! See, like I said, Dean adapts. Every gym teacher I ever had had the same attitude. Including the attitude that all injuries, stitches, strains, sprains, asthma attacks and broken bones can be "walked off".
-Oh, home ec class! Gore imminent. And there's a ghost around too, so it will be even gorier than the typical home ec class. Hm. Powered kitchen implements. We haven't had those since the garbage disposal, have we?
-Hey! This kid! He's doing evil/possessed quite well, where have I seen him before? Arg! Need to check the credits when it's not the middle of the night. [Not that daylight helped much. I found out at least three of the guest cast has also been on every other Vancouver production ever, including 21 Jump Street, Casey Dubois played Dirk Jr. and there was a Hayley Saulnier that I'm thinking might be a sibling to Tania Saulnier (Emily from Scarecrow)]
-Yep. Cuisinarted. Yet another reason I never took the cooking part of home ec. Angsty, frustrated teenagers and hot/sharp/powered implements of pain.
-Ear goo. Bullied ghost possession, I bet. *nods*
-Track suit! Hee! Dear lord. *snerk*
-Ectoplasm, ah, yes. Right. I was distracted by the X-Files this week. So, powerful and extra-freaky ghost stuff. *nods*
-Supernatural Universe Factoid: People getting possessed by ghosts is notably rare. Good to know.
-Cheerleaders. Wow is that ever inappropriate, Dean. And I bet that's exactly why you said it too, to squick Sam. Because being wildly inappropriate and distracting Sam with overt pervery... pervertry? Perviness? *shrugs* Anyway. That's part of how Dean walls himself away. There was a big Dean revelation, two in a row, actually, then the magician thing, and now this. Dean's going back to rebuilding his defenses. By squicking out Sam with cheerleaders. Or trying to. *nods*
-Barry. Oh. Aw. :-/
-I watched the two kids macking in the closet and wondering which one of them was about to be the ghost's next victim for far, far too long. I didn't realize it was Dean at all until the "I don't have a curfew," bit, and even then I did a double-take. Gah. *facepalm* I don't know why I'm having trouble connecting to teen!Dean as Dean, but I am. :-/
-"Don't you miss your Dad?" aaaand the talking part of the make-out session is over.
-Wow. Sam was short! That's Sam at 14? Holy crap he must've had some wicked growing pains when that growth spurt hit. O.o
-Admirable restraint shown by Sam in not feeding the bully his kidneys. Because you totally know he could.
-Background voice: "You suck, Winchester." Ooo, using their real names for school, hunh? Well, that does fit with that bit in "Usual Suspects" and indicates that John was trying in some small way to give them the option of a normal life once his vengeance quest against the YED was done... That must've been soul-grinding, registering Sam and Dean under their real names each time and hoping he'd find the thing that killed Mary and be able to settle the kids back into 'normal' somewhere, and then it never happening. Yeah. Ow.
-Aw, Sam having to burn Barry's corpse. Just aw. Especially considering it's totally not Barry's ghost, because there's over half the episode left to go.
-Defending Dean! Teen!Dean being all set to go pound someone for Sammy! OMG YAY!! \o/
-"I don't wanna be the freak for once." Aw. Sam. In high school, everyone's the freak. They just don't want to admit it which is why they tear each other apart.
-Hee. She wants Dean to meet her parents. Oh my. Being stuck here the extra time is messing up Dean's relationship timelines. I figure he's got it all timed out. Hang out with a girl for the couple weeks they're there, nothing serious, then have to leave town, no break-up, no hurt feelings, nothing that can be helped, just some fun for a few weeks and moving on. But meeting parents is getting into 'serious' territory in high school, and that means that when they have to leave, she'll be hurt by it, or want to keep in contact, rather than just having a hopefully fond memory of that guy who was around for a couple weeks. So this being there an extra week or so is a problem, because Dean's got no choice but to hurt a girl's feelings, one way or another.
-OMG!! Werewolf summer vacation paper!!! O.O So it took Sam a few years to get around to handing it in, and he left out the bit about the swamp monster stealing Dean's pants, but still, heeeee! \o/
-Really though, I think it has to have been the incident Dean was referring to in "Fresh Blood" where he decided to be a hunter. *nods*
-Mr. Wyatt the english teacher. Ah. College pamphlet time is it? A little young maybe. It's always the English teacher that gets these little inspirational speechifying moments. Hm.
-"Big choices that shape someone's whole life", "You're the one that needs to make them", "Live the life you want to live".... Why am I suddenly going 'Eeeek!' for future!Sam? Also, Wee!Sam is really growing on me. Have I already said that? It bears repeating.
-Impaaaalaaaaaaaaa! *glee*
-Dead Poet's Society!! Woo! \o/ See? English teachers!
-Hey! It's the bully kid that's the ghost!! *facepalm* Damn, I'm slow tonight.
-Sam got stabbed with a math compass. Ow! That hurts.
-So, that flask of salt is a new thing, isn't it? We've seen the long skinny flask before, I think in Devil's Trap, but it had holy water. Must've taken a really long time to dry the water out of the embossing.
-Handful of salt over the mouth is also new. You better hope that girl doesn't have hypertension, Sam. Also better hope no one comes out into the hall and finds the temp janitor manhandling a semi-conscious female student. Might get the wrong idea.
-Defending Dean! Yay! With a bit more woof to him. *nods*
-From the file: Aaron Branson was the Cuisinart kid, April Dawkins was death by swirly, and Jennifer Tanaka was the math compass stabber, and judging from the file numbers, her birth first name starts with an M. And her school photo looks a wee bit pasted on yay photoshopped, because there's a digital artifact line down the side of her neck. But whatever. *handwaves*
-Yay info-correlating Dean! With extra added pop culture referencing action. Are we torching a bus? Are we? Are we? *bounces*
-*glee* Sam said 'lore'.
-Trivia: The Louis L'Amour book in the glove compartment of the bus is "The Riders of High Rock"
-Dirk McGregor Senior (even though the Permit totally doesn't say Senior, and the permit was issued January 1 2005 but maybe my pause function is distorting things and really that says 2009, making the in-show date January 15th-ish... yeah sure let's go with that and there's no address, but whatever. Dean's just psychic all of a sudden, or whipping out information he already knew and pretending he just found it there since he tucked that permit away pretty quick and Sam didn't see it.... *nods*) So the bully's name was Dirk McGregor. Junior. Yeesh. It was either be a bully or be a Space Ranger.
-I really, really like little Sam. Seriously, while watching so far, I have not once doubted that he was a young Sam. Well done Colin Ford! You can come back anytime! \o/
-And now I reallyreallyreally want a de-aging curse episode where Sam gets turned into a kid again. *bounces*
-Yeah! Ninja!Sammy!! Or close enough! He wasn't always lousy at hand to hand, he's just never recovered from that hellacious growth spurt. Three feet in four years'll do that to a person. Wake up in the morning and your hands and feet are in an different time zone. *nods*
-Sad history, yes. Doesn't excuse bullying kids, one of them 'til he commits suicide, but a sad history.
-Oh Sam. Ow.
-"All of him?" Dean, you're being creepy and freaking the mundane. Try subtle. Gets you more info.
-Lock of hair haunting, hunh? So... wait, does that mean just about every baby book, with the hair from the first haircut is a potential place for the kid's future ghost to haunt? What about donated-hair wigs, organ donor recipients? For that matter, humans shed so much genetic material a ghost could be bound damn near anywhere if they were determined enough. Behind hair salon and manicurist trash bins, manky old hairbrushes and the less said about hot tub drains the better. :-P I mean, I forget the percentage of dust that's made of shed human skin cells, but haunted dust bunnies are a definite threat there. Lurking under furniture, conspiring... Wow. Insidious. O.O
-Ooo, possessed bully/bullied ghost with a busload of jocks. Not looking good there.
-Where did the boys get a spike belt on such short notice? That didn't look improvised... maybe they busted into the trunk of a police cruiser before they went to head off the bus. *nods*
-Okay, this show seriously needs a bondage consultant. Also rope soaked in salt water??? Really? Guys, ghosts have been known to occur on the ocean, you know this (although if you have a trauma-induced memory blockage regarding "Red Sky" far be it from me to disturb it). But maybe sea salt in it's natural state is different. Or, er. Hm. Well... *shrugs* Just tie him up with it instead of wrapping it artfully like an accessory and it might actually work.
-"21 Jump Street". Hee because, well, 21 Jump Street, and aw, because that was a Kim Manners shout-out.
-Oooo. Did the bus driver swallow ghost boy's hair? Hm. Would that work, or would that destroy the hair? Or as the hair digested, would the individual hair molecules that remained in the body after digesting mean the ghost was permanently bound to the guy? Hmmm. Not going to ponder it too much longer because the thought of digesting a chunk of hair is making me feel like throwing up.
-"I'm not evil, Dirk." *koff* Not to be indelicate, but there's not exactly a consensus on that right now, Sam. Personally, I think you're a good person possibly doing evil things in the name of good, as far as you know. So... I don't know. I'll go with 'not evil' for now.
-Oh Sam. Oh Dean. High school = Hell. Yeah. Totally. *nods a lot and watches Dean's face as he gets it*
-"Nothing is gonna get better for me." Or Barry, as Sam just said.
-Hm. I'd say salt-soaked ropes don't seem to work. Not sure whether that's because Dirk could make the person he's possessing break the ropes without crossing them, or just because the idea was crap. *ponders* [And Dirk could go into the football kid because the possessed guy's boot with the hair in it was sort of under the kid's seat. Or something. *nods*]
-Ooof. Linebacker tackle. Sam really used to be lots better at hand to hand when he was a kid.
-They need a new flint for that lighter. Sam was having trouble with it in Metamorphosis, and when it's a "life or death" thing to be able to spark up at the drop of a hat, a flint is a damn fine investment.
-Help? Really Sam? You do totally suck. Your opponent is unconscious and he's still beating you in hand-to-hand combat. *facepalm*
-Full cowgirl? I don't want to know. I think I do know, but I don't want to. Dean is really pushing the 'skeeve Sam out' defense, isn't he. I guess with all the yacking abut high school equating almost directly to Hell, Dean's trying to head off a 'meaningful conversation' with Sam so he can get back to suppressing everything.
-Teen!Dean cheating on the girlfriend with another girl. That's one quick sure-fire way to make sure she won't make you go meet her parents or want to stay in touch with you; make her think you're an utter asshole. Kind of a 'rip off the band-aid' way to break up, and a little low of Dean, but it's effective and expedient, and gets the job done before John comes back.
-"Sad, lonely little kid." Ow and yeah, on a few levels.
-"I'm a hero." See? What I said above about Dean having made his choice and having no use for school and society anymore? There it is. And it's true, and no one's going to believe him.
-Oh. Oh. This juxtaposition of scenes here. Dean rejected by normal society, falling out; Sam accepted and falling in. And subsequently less than a decade down the road, Sam's attempt at normal being taken from him by YED. Oh. Ow show.
-Heee! Old Cellphone! I'm surprised he gets a signal at all inside the school, the place must be solid rebar.
-Caaaaar!!! *makes grabby hands* Was that a very altered 'Dean family theme' playing there?
-Aw. Barry.
-Went to college because of Mr. Wyatt eh? And that really went so very well. Sigh.
-"You're happy, Sam?" Heheh. Eeek. Um. I'd say no. And the idea of someone encouraging Sam at this point to seek his own happiness is... scary. Very very scary.
-Credits: Two crew people down recently too? Damn, guys. *hugs the crew*
I'm guessing this didn't have Kim Manners memory noted in the credits because this was filmed back in December and post-production had already been done and sent to stations and all the ads and bureaucracy had it locked in already.
I think it was a signal feed dropping at the end, and not a deliberate moment of silence put in after the credits, but I observed it anyway.
NO SPOILERS IN COMMENTS, OR REFERENCES TO ANY PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL OR PREVIEWS FOR UNAIRED EPISODES, PLEASE.
Spoiler and Theorizing Timeline
-Sep 20 Click on a link to an article on the Comic Con panel which implies it's only spoilery for 4.01. Which it's not, of course. Dean and Sam will have a case at a school they once went to. God that's gonna be fun. Will we get more canon wee!chesters? Lil' Dean's actor is what, 13, 14 now? Lil' Sammy is about 10? Hee.
-Nov 11th Widely disseminated comments from Jim Beaver's Myspace. Bobby will not be appearing in this episode. And given that it's canon teen!chesters and unless they've pulled off a major casting coup, JDM won't be there, that's a crying shame. Ooo. They could get Pastor Jim or Caleb, though... Ooo. That'd be awesome.
-Nov 19 Click on something marked as speculation, even though I've been avoiding other people's spec. The speculation is based on a spoiler. Sigh. Yep, we're getting canon teen!chesters. No time to think about it, but mass Kripke-ing inbound.
-Dec 10th Picture from article in TV guide. Brief glimpse, some guy in Dean's leather jacket and pendant that isn't Dean and some little kid in a yellow jacket. So, the High school ep? Or what, because the guy in Dean's jacket looks about thirty and the kid looks about twelve, maybe fourteen, so that's okay but... *raises an eyebrow at the guy in Dean's jacket and pendant* Well. We'll see.
-Jan 23 Ep reviews for 4.11, find the title for 4.12 "After School Special" hunh? If we get a thinly-veiled lecture on drug use or teen pregnancy, I may laugh myself sick. Possibility of 'teenagers messing with the occult' though? It would suit the PSA-ish implications of the traditional after school special... :-D Still hoping for a John or Bobby cameo, or Pastor Jim, or Caleb. JDM's busy being dead again, and Jim Beaver's got another series, but what are Richard Sali and Josh Blacker up to at the moment, hm?
-Jan 25 While doing ill-advised research for a crack fic I may never ever post, See cap from 4.13. Dean in sports gear. So. Much. Bwah. Maybe he's pretending to be a coach as a cover to investigate inside the school. Hee. Expect a Smallville shoutout there. So, they'll be investigating their old high school and having flashbacks to attending there. Ooo! Ooo! For Sam's cover story, will we get teacher!Sam??? *hopes*
-Jan 29 On an ill-timed scroll through the f-list because I'm an idiot that forgot about time zones for some frigging reason, see a note from big_pink that it apparently bears great similarity to her story "Dazzleland" So, ghosts, not demons, bullying, and I really need to re-read Dazzleland now. Sam making the decision that he doesn't want to hunt, Dean making the decision that he does. I think. Probably no Niagara Falls though as those are in short supply in Vancouver. *nods*
All right, is everyone except big_pink prepared to get massively Kripked by canon teen!chesters? I know I'm not.
Reaction to Supernatural 4.13 - "After School Special"
-Pilot! Wee!Jared! Oh the painful "raised like warriors" line delivery!
-Wee!chester montage!! All of them! *GLEE*
-OMG Hi John!!!
-Truman High, Fairfax, Indiana.
-Yeah, typical highschool cafeteria. Everybody eating each other. Yay for pack mentality. :-P
-Revenge of the outcasts? Cool. Get her. Oh wait, she apologized, and she seems pretty genuine about it. Never mind. Really cool how we don't see the bigger girl behind the cheerleader in the mirror, adds a bit of 'is she really there?' feeling.
-And since this is the pre-credits sequence and someone has to die (usually) the bigger girl is of course possessed.
-Toilet cam!!! Yay for re-using special shot equipment! (Which means of course we're likely to get a re-use of the Mouth-Cam at some point in the future, blah!)
-Hee! And a death by swirly. YEEEECH!!!
-Okay, it's probably all the reliving of X-Files stuff I've been doing lately, but did anyone else see the black stuff coming out of the girl's eye and think 'Black Oil'?
-April, the formerly possessed murderer, for some bizarre reason, is reminding me of Ava. I don't know whether it's the speech pattern or the shape of her eyes and mouth or what, but she's really strongly reminding me of Ava.
-Aw, they were playing crib! See, crib board, on the table! Sam doing the 'soft understanding look' thing and playing crib with the girl in the nuthouse. Admittedly to gain her trust and get her to talk and stuff, but gaaaaah. *smishes Sam and flails a little*
-"Did you happen to smell anything?" *pats Sam* Nice one. Let's try for specifics, hm?
-HI, IMPALA!!! HI!!! *waves at the TV like a dork*
-Written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin who brought us "Yellow Fever" and directed by Adam Kane who has apparently worked on a whole lot of cool stuff. Hm.
-Yay, location! I love how much they use the Riverview location, especially when we see this side. It's just such an awesome-looking building.
-'Kids can be vicious' *nodding*
-[And no matter how many parallels I find in this I'm not delving into my own time in high school and junior high because I've got a really nice solid trauma-induced memory block built up and I'd rather not disturb it. Suffice it to say, there are many many people I met in my pre-college educational career who can be exceedingly glad I didn't become a ghost. :-P]
-Sam has an idea. Heeeee. *rubs hands*
-BQN 9R3??? WTF NEW IMPALA PLATE??? No wait, it's the old old Impala plates! Not the ones John had when he got it (C-45P4) but still Kansas. Cool. ETA: STILL NO SPOTLIGHTS THOUGH. Grr.
-MUSIC!!! OMG, THERE'S MUSIC! "Long, Long Way From Home" by Foreigner! MUSIC!!! From 1977! Yay! *buys it off iTunes*
-"Lunch? Books? Butterfly knife?" Hey! Was that a the_dean_show shout-out? Specifically to this? Massively cool if so!
-November 1997, (making Dean a well-aged 18.75 ish and Sammy 14.5,) when they spent a month in Indiana. And either Dean had not been given the Impala yet, or John's truck was in the shop and he needed it back for the case. One canon fits all. *nods*
-I don't know whether the guy playing teen!Dean has a bit of the wrong accent, or if his face is the wrong shape but there's something a little off somehow for me. However, he's doing pretty good at being "Dean" so he gets a pass so far. Seems a little 'surfacey' though... but who the hell wasn't in High school.
-"Not really, sweetheart." Ah yes. This is Dean post-decision to be a hunter. New enough to be cockier than he's ever been and no longer remotely concerned about what society says or thinks because he's a superhero like John. Can't get cockier. He's there because he needs to keep an eye on Sam and it's go to school or sit in the hotel alone all day going nuts, and beyond that, he doesn't give a crap. School and society is not a priority for him anymore. I've seen the same thing from people who decided to go straight into the military after high school. *nods*
-The kid playing Dean seems to be playing the smarm overmuch without the heart filling... but again, high school. Hearts are usually stomped on if detected.
-Butterfly knife. Hee. Yep, high school. Check the science labs at lunch, Sammy. You'll probably find some knife-throwing practice going on, along with a game of AD&D and a comparison of skull collections. Actually, maybe not in the nineties. Eighties, hell yeah.
-Hee! They're doing "The Outsiders" How appropriate. Also a super-cool shout-out because S. E. Hinton the author of The Outsiders is also a huge Supernatural fangirl. She visited the set when they were filming "Yellow Fever"
-Hey! It's him again! It's the kid who plays Barry's third time out on Supernatural I think? He was also a bully in Wishful Thinking and one of the kids in the closet hiding before Dean got zapped in Faith. Cainan Wiebe. *nods*
-Aw, wee!Sam standing up to the bully. I am really liking the kid they've got for wee!Sam. Colin Ford is doing a fantastic job.
-Janitor!Sam? No Teacher!Sam? Aw. *pouts* Guess it would require way too many background checks and so forth to get in teaching. And janitorial, too, really, but, uh...
-...aaand Dean apparently had no trouble getting in as a substitute gym teacher with no security vetting. Scary. I'm thinking Sammy did some hacking, maybe. Either that or they've got an emergency identity registered in the substitute teacher system for Illinois from some prior unseen case. Yeah. Maybe. Gah. Whatever. *handwaves* Moving on because...
-That said? BWAAAAAAAH! Coach!Dean!!!!! Bright white runners with big loopy bows!! Knee socks! Bright red shorts! Head band! DODGEBALL!! I saw the picture, I knew it was coming but that really does not prepare one for this... this. *snickers with glee*
-Ow! Dodgeball to the gut! There's a kid with a future in stunt-work. *winces*
-Hey! The two guys next to the kid talking, are they twins? That's random.
-"The whistle makes me their god." Heeeee! See, like I said, Dean adapts. Every gym teacher I ever had had the same attitude. Including the attitude that all injuries, stitches, strains, sprains, asthma attacks and broken bones can be "walked off".
-Oh, home ec class! Gore imminent. And there's a ghost around too, so it will be even gorier than the typical home ec class. Hm. Powered kitchen implements. We haven't had those since the garbage disposal, have we?
-Hey! This kid! He's doing evil/possessed quite well, where have I seen him before? Arg! Need to check the credits when it's not the middle of the night. [Not that daylight helped much. I found out at least three of the guest cast has also been on every other Vancouver production ever, including 21 Jump Street, Casey Dubois played Dirk Jr. and there was a Hayley Saulnier that I'm thinking might be a sibling to Tania Saulnier (Emily from Scarecrow)]
-Yep. Cuisinarted. Yet another reason I never took the cooking part of home ec. Angsty, frustrated teenagers and hot/sharp/powered implements of pain.
-Ear goo. Bullied ghost possession, I bet. *nods*
-Track suit! Hee! Dear lord. *snerk*
-Ectoplasm, ah, yes. Right. I was distracted by the X-Files this week. So, powerful and extra-freaky ghost stuff. *nods*
-Supernatural Universe Factoid: People getting possessed by ghosts is notably rare. Good to know.
-Cheerleaders. Wow is that ever inappropriate, Dean. And I bet that's exactly why you said it too, to squick Sam. Because being wildly inappropriate and distracting Sam with overt pervery... pervertry? Perviness? *shrugs* Anyway. That's part of how Dean walls himself away. There was a big Dean revelation, two in a row, actually, then the magician thing, and now this. Dean's going back to rebuilding his defenses. By squicking out Sam with cheerleaders. Or trying to. *nods*
-Barry. Oh. Aw. :-/
-I watched the two kids macking in the closet and wondering which one of them was about to be the ghost's next victim for far, far too long. I didn't realize it was Dean at all until the "I don't have a curfew," bit, and even then I did a double-take. Gah. *facepalm* I don't know why I'm having trouble connecting to teen!Dean as Dean, but I am. :-/
-"Don't you miss your Dad?" aaaand the talking part of the make-out session is over.
-Wow. Sam was short! That's Sam at 14? Holy crap he must've had some wicked growing pains when that growth spurt hit. O.o
-Admirable restraint shown by Sam in not feeding the bully his kidneys. Because you totally know he could.
-Background voice: "You suck, Winchester." Ooo, using their real names for school, hunh? Well, that does fit with that bit in "Usual Suspects" and indicates that John was trying in some small way to give them the option of a normal life once his vengeance quest against the YED was done... That must've been soul-grinding, registering Sam and Dean under their real names each time and hoping he'd find the thing that killed Mary and be able to settle the kids back into 'normal' somewhere, and then it never happening. Yeah. Ow.
-Aw, Sam having to burn Barry's corpse. Just aw. Especially considering it's totally not Barry's ghost, because there's over half the episode left to go.
-Defending Dean! Teen!Dean being all set to go pound someone for Sammy! OMG YAY!! \o/
-"I don't wanna be the freak for once." Aw. Sam. In high school, everyone's the freak. They just don't want to admit it which is why they tear each other apart.
-Hee. She wants Dean to meet her parents. Oh my. Being stuck here the extra time is messing up Dean's relationship timelines. I figure he's got it all timed out. Hang out with a girl for the couple weeks they're there, nothing serious, then have to leave town, no break-up, no hurt feelings, nothing that can be helped, just some fun for a few weeks and moving on. But meeting parents is getting into 'serious' territory in high school, and that means that when they have to leave, she'll be hurt by it, or want to keep in contact, rather than just having a hopefully fond memory of that guy who was around for a couple weeks. So this being there an extra week or so is a problem, because Dean's got no choice but to hurt a girl's feelings, one way or another.
-OMG!! Werewolf summer vacation paper!!! O.O So it took Sam a few years to get around to handing it in, and he left out the bit about the swamp monster stealing Dean's pants, but still, heeeee! \o/
-Really though, I think it has to have been the incident Dean was referring to in "Fresh Blood" where he decided to be a hunter. *nods*
-Mr. Wyatt the english teacher. Ah. College pamphlet time is it? A little young maybe. It's always the English teacher that gets these little inspirational speechifying moments. Hm.
-"Big choices that shape someone's whole life", "You're the one that needs to make them", "Live the life you want to live".... Why am I suddenly going 'Eeeek!' for future!Sam? Also, Wee!Sam is really growing on me. Have I already said that? It bears repeating.
-Impaaaalaaaaaaaaa! *glee*
-Dead Poet's Society!! Woo! \o/ See? English teachers!
-Hey! It's the bully kid that's the ghost!! *facepalm* Damn, I'm slow tonight.
-Sam got stabbed with a math compass. Ow! That hurts.
-So, that flask of salt is a new thing, isn't it? We've seen the long skinny flask before, I think in Devil's Trap, but it had holy water. Must've taken a really long time to dry the water out of the embossing.
-Handful of salt over the mouth is also new. You better hope that girl doesn't have hypertension, Sam. Also better hope no one comes out into the hall and finds the temp janitor manhandling a semi-conscious female student. Might get the wrong idea.
-Defending Dean! Yay! With a bit more woof to him. *nods*
-From the file: Aaron Branson was the Cuisinart kid, April Dawkins was death by swirly, and Jennifer Tanaka was the math compass stabber, and judging from the file numbers, her birth first name starts with an M. And her school photo looks a wee bit pasted on yay photoshopped, because there's a digital artifact line down the side of her neck. But whatever. *handwaves*
-Yay info-correlating Dean! With extra added pop culture referencing action. Are we torching a bus? Are we? Are we? *bounces*
-*glee* Sam said 'lore'.
-Trivia: The Louis L'Amour book in the glove compartment of the bus is "The Riders of High Rock"
-Dirk McGregor Senior (even though the Permit totally doesn't say Senior, and the permit was issued January 1 2005 but maybe my pause function is distorting things and really that says 2009, making the in-show date January 15th-ish... yeah sure let's go with that and there's no address, but whatever. Dean's just psychic all of a sudden, or whipping out information he already knew and pretending he just found it there since he tucked that permit away pretty quick and Sam didn't see it.... *nods*) So the bully's name was Dirk McGregor. Junior. Yeesh. It was either be a bully or be a Space Ranger.
-I really, really like little Sam. Seriously, while watching so far, I have not once doubted that he was a young Sam. Well done Colin Ford! You can come back anytime! \o/
-And now I reallyreallyreally want a de-aging curse episode where Sam gets turned into a kid again. *bounces*
-Yeah! Ninja!Sammy!! Or close enough! He wasn't always lousy at hand to hand, he's just never recovered from that hellacious growth spurt. Three feet in four years'll do that to a person. Wake up in the morning and your hands and feet are in an different time zone. *nods*
-Sad history, yes. Doesn't excuse bullying kids, one of them 'til he commits suicide, but a sad history.
-Oh Sam. Ow.
-"All of him?" Dean, you're being creepy and freaking the mundane. Try subtle. Gets you more info.
-Lock of hair haunting, hunh? So... wait, does that mean just about every baby book, with the hair from the first haircut is a potential place for the kid's future ghost to haunt? What about donated-hair wigs, organ donor recipients? For that matter, humans shed so much genetic material a ghost could be bound damn near anywhere if they were determined enough. Behind hair salon and manicurist trash bins, manky old hairbrushes and the less said about hot tub drains the better. :-P I mean, I forget the percentage of dust that's made of shed human skin cells, but haunted dust bunnies are a definite threat there. Lurking under furniture, conspiring... Wow. Insidious. O.O
-Ooo, possessed bully/bullied ghost with a busload of jocks. Not looking good there.
-Where did the boys get a spike belt on such short notice? That didn't look improvised... maybe they busted into the trunk of a police cruiser before they went to head off the bus. *nods*
-Okay, this show seriously needs a bondage consultant. Also rope soaked in salt water??? Really? Guys, ghosts have been known to occur on the ocean, you know this (although if you have a trauma-induced memory blockage regarding "Red Sky" far be it from me to disturb it). But maybe sea salt in it's natural state is different. Or, er. Hm. Well... *shrugs* Just tie him up with it instead of wrapping it artfully like an accessory and it might actually work.
-"21 Jump Street". Hee because, well, 21 Jump Street, and aw, because that was a Kim Manners shout-out.
-Oooo. Did the bus driver swallow ghost boy's hair? Hm. Would that work, or would that destroy the hair? Or as the hair digested, would the individual hair molecules that remained in the body after digesting mean the ghost was permanently bound to the guy? Hmmm. Not going to ponder it too much longer because the thought of digesting a chunk of hair is making me feel like throwing up.
-"I'm not evil, Dirk." *koff* Not to be indelicate, but there's not exactly a consensus on that right now, Sam. Personally, I think you're a good person possibly doing evil things in the name of good, as far as you know. So... I don't know. I'll go with 'not evil' for now.
-Oh Sam. Oh Dean. High school = Hell. Yeah. Totally. *nods a lot and watches Dean's face as he gets it*
-"Nothing is gonna get better for me." Or Barry, as Sam just said.
-Hm. I'd say salt-soaked ropes don't seem to work. Not sure whether that's because Dirk could make the person he's possessing break the ropes without crossing them, or just because the idea was crap. *ponders* [And Dirk could go into the football kid because the possessed guy's boot with the hair in it was sort of under the kid's seat. Or something. *nods*]
-Ooof. Linebacker tackle. Sam really used to be lots better at hand to hand when he was a kid.
-They need a new flint for that lighter. Sam was having trouble with it in Metamorphosis, and when it's a "life or death" thing to be able to spark up at the drop of a hat, a flint is a damn fine investment.
-Help? Really Sam? You do totally suck. Your opponent is unconscious and he's still beating you in hand-to-hand combat. *facepalm*
-Full cowgirl? I don't want to know. I think I do know, but I don't want to. Dean is really pushing the 'skeeve Sam out' defense, isn't he. I guess with all the yacking abut high school equating almost directly to Hell, Dean's trying to head off a 'meaningful conversation' with Sam so he can get back to suppressing everything.
-Teen!Dean cheating on the girlfriend with another girl. That's one quick sure-fire way to make sure she won't make you go meet her parents or want to stay in touch with you; make her think you're an utter asshole. Kind of a 'rip off the band-aid' way to break up, and a little low of Dean, but it's effective and expedient, and gets the job done before John comes back.
-"Sad, lonely little kid." Ow and yeah, on a few levels.
-"I'm a hero." See? What I said above about Dean having made his choice and having no use for school and society anymore? There it is. And it's true, and no one's going to believe him.
-Oh. Oh. This juxtaposition of scenes here. Dean rejected by normal society, falling out; Sam accepted and falling in. And subsequently less than a decade down the road, Sam's attempt at normal being taken from him by YED. Oh. Ow show.
-Heee! Old Cellphone! I'm surprised he gets a signal at all inside the school, the place must be solid rebar.
-Caaaaar!!! *makes grabby hands* Was that a very altered 'Dean family theme' playing there?
-Aw. Barry.
-Went to college because of Mr. Wyatt eh? And that really went so very well. Sigh.
-"You're happy, Sam?" Heheh. Eeek. Um. I'd say no. And the idea of someone encouraging Sam at this point to seek his own happiness is... scary. Very very scary.
-Credits: Two crew people down recently too? Damn, guys. *hugs the crew*
I'm guessing this didn't have Kim Manners memory noted in the credits because this was filmed back in December and post-production had already been done and sent to stations and all the ads and bureaucracy had it locked in already.
I think it was a signal feed dropping at the end, and not a deliberate moment of silence put in after the credits, but I observed it anyway.
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