Picspam Reaction: Supernatural 8.12
Warning: Contains profanity, capslock, incoherence, and references to Torchwood.
Spoiler and Theory Summary
I've heard a rumour there may be the ghost of John's dad running around somewhere, or some sort of time travel, which would be awesome, but it's probably just a rumour.
...Or not, as early pre-cut comments are giving the name 'Henry Winchester'
Sigh. So. Time travel and John's dad. Cool. Given that whole vessel to archangels thing runs in bloodlines, John's parents might have had an interesting life too, in one way or another. Early pre-episode feelings seemed to be tending toward worry about what this meant for the characterization of John, but post-episode feelings seem to be approaching transports of delight, and a minor explosion of new fic, so this is a sign that perhaps the worry was unwarranted?
Let's find out.
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 8.12 - "???" "As Time Goes By"
-Skipping the.... hm. No actually, I'm going to watch the THEN this time, given what's happening in the episode. "Saving people, hunting things." \o/ "This book." \o/ "How many people do you think Dad saved? That's his legacy. So we've gotta keep going." \o/\o/\o/\o/ Ahh, lovely.
-"Normal, Illinois", eh? Not for long if it's getting a location card on this show.
-1958. It's 1958... According to the tombstone in "What Is and What Should Never Be", John Winchester was born April 22, 1954. DOES THIS MEAN WE GET WEE!JOHN? O.O
-I CANNOT EXPRESS MY GLEE AT WEE!JOHN (I think?) AND HIS 50's KID LIFE FULL OF TOY PLANES AND BASEBALL AND YOYOS AND CAP GUNS AND HARDY BOYS BOOKS EXCEPT BY CAPPING!
-"Hey, Sport." Well, I was hoping the guy in the trenchcoat was an angel which seemed to be the case with the flapping noise, but now it seems like this is John's (?) Dad... OR IS IT BOTH? Because as I said above, if John's bloodline is Angel vessels, so is John's Dad, probably. Maybe he's got some kind of time-share arrangement with his angel, unlike poor Jimmy has with Castiel? O.o
-OH HI HUNTERY SYMBOL THING. ONNA TIE PIN. ONNA SOLID BLACK TIE. I... I... You know, Show, if you're lurking around my LJ and watching me make an idiot of myself with the tie reports, you could just say howdy and not MAKE MY HEAD EXPLODE like this. SO. Possibly John's Dad Tie Report: *BOOM* Needs more brain.
-Gastown doesn't do too bad at mimicking the 50's, though I don't know how prevalent cobblestone streets were in Illinois back then.
-Or maybe it's the Masons? OH! SECERT SOCIETY! Passed down, which is why 'tell you when you're older' with the tie pin, and and OH COOL!!!
-Secret knocks and everything, hee!
-Hm. Conversation with Josie about making it gives me the thought that it isn't a secret society he's been in a long time, but maybe one he and Josie have infiltrated to try to break up, as hunters. Hmmm. Either way, COOL.
-*sneeeeeeerk* Maroon velvet bathrobes, a requirement in any secret society.
-Sudden screaming and wild-animal-like snarling are never what you want to hear in an initiation ceremony.
-That's what you get for ignoring rule number 101 in the Evil Overlord's Guide ("Never invoke anything bigger than your head.") You get your maroon bathrobe all mucky.
-They seem to be exorcising Josie, but not doing to well at it. Hmmm.
-When a guy in a pointy hat and a bathrobe cultist with bleeding eyes hands you a shiny ring special box and mumbles something about keeping it hidden or whatever, probably best you do what he says.
-Wait, what did he say exactly? *rolls back audio* "Do not let Abaddon get it." OH HEY! ABADDON! Torchwood had him stomping around Cardiff that one time. Cool! Looks like he's wearing Josie on this outing rather than a 20-story-tall wingless-vampire-bat-looking ensemble.
-Yes, much more stealthy than last time.
-I must stop and squee at the historical sciencey equipment. It's the 1950's, where men in bathrobes fight demons, with SCIENCE! *points finger in air dramatically*
-See? SCIENCE! Or spell casting. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
-Well, spell casting does tend to involve more chanting and bodily fluids.
-Ooooo, pretty!
-Well crap! I wasn't expecting that! *runs back through old reactions* It's not the symbol from French Mistake, which of course it isn't, that's for dimension hopping, not time travel. *facepalm* Duh. Oh, hey, if they have the rituals for dimension travel and time travel could they Turn the Impala into a TARDIS? Maybe. It'd require a lot of weird parts and stuff and crashing through windows and doors, and it wouldn't be bigger on the inside unless they stumbled across a bag of holding spell, but maybe! ...I seem to have gotten sidetracked. Oh yes. Grandpa Winchester (I assume) is about to have an even more interesting day.
-"Which of you is John Winchester?" Um. Awkwaaaard...
-Title: "As Time Goes By." Cute.
-"Who the hell are you, Mister?"/"Not now." Heh. Yes. Now. Try again.
-"When one of us falls out of your closet, then you can ask the questions." Hee! He's a closet monster! XD
-Ahahahaha! They try to handcuff him, he cuffs them, and I can't get a good cap of any of it, and it's around a very movable and or breakable chair though, so that won't hold them for long, but regardless, don't try and teach your Grandpa to suck eggs, boys! XD
-Welcome to the 21st Century! Full of boom cars, cell phones and just wait 'til you see the internet.
-Hi Impala! Even the Impala is ten years after his time, but at least it's closer to looking familiar.
-If the show's going to let us have that much detail, I'm gonna cap it. Now, license plates didn't have stickers in 1958, but Grandpa's a bright boy and can figure out from where it says "Expires on Mar 31" in teeny-tiny text under the 2013 what year is is.
-"I guess the Mayans were wrong." HEEEEEEEEEE! Though that's just when the plate expires, so it could be anywhere between April 1 2012 and March 31 2013, so it might not be Mayan time in SPN-verse yet, because seriously, timelines? This show? Pft.
-Aw, Grandpa Winchester, no. Silly. Just go explain everything to Sam and Dean and they'll help you out. No need to break the Impala.
-Ahahahahah. Yeah. Also, this car comes with a really pissed off and armed security system.
-Wait. *rewinds* *mad cackling* Sam just opens the passenger door. THE PASSENGER DOOR WAS UNLOCKED. First, Dean will be glaring at Sam for leaving the door on his baby unlocked, then he'll be glaring at Grandpa for not even checking the doors before going straight for the elbow-smash.
-"I'm quite certain this is all beyond your understanding." Maybe, but that hasn't stopped them before!
-Whoops, missed a bit. "My alpha male monkey friend." BWAHAHAHAHAH.
-"Some asshat pops out of my closet asking about my dad." WHOOPS. And this is how not to do an interrogation, by giving the interrogatee more info than he initially had.
-Written by Adam Glass, Directed by Serge Ladouceur, all familiar names.
-"John Winchester is your father?" And then there's an earthquake. This does not bode well.
-"Run!" Favorite word of all time travelers it seems. Considering it probably means Abaddon's about to pop out of your closet, it's also a pretty darn good idea.
-Yep. I've been trying to get a good cap of it, but the blood spatter on that dress does it a world of good. I can't decide though, whether the lack of contiguous blood on her skin is a snerk-worthy production error, or a sign that she just sort of absorbed any blood that touched her skin tracelessly and therefore super-creepy. I think I'll go with super-creepy blood absorption. *handwaves*
-Hey! Sam and Dean flying into walls! Been a while!
-Heheh. Yeah, Ruby's knife is only gonna piss Abaddon off.
-When in doubt, run for the Impala and drive like hell, worry about who the weird guy who fell out of your closet is after you get away from the major demon who followed him. And next hotel, put some wards up on your closet.
-Okay, that's not a full repossession, so can Abaddon split up and possess multiple people? Eeeek. O.o
-"Show me what you've seen." Okay, that's a handy skill, and a smart use of the ability to possess people. More effective than torturing them for information and faster too!
-"She's from Hell." Dean's little "No shit, Sherlock" head-bobble. HEE!
-"Dudes time-travellin' into motel room closets, is that what we've come to?" *snerk*
-"Because he's dead."/"No." Hell of a way to find out your son died. Today really sucks for Grandpa Winchester. *pats him*
-"I'm his father." Yep. Aaaaaand family theme on the soundtrack. Of course. Wish I hadn't known about that already, because my head might have exploded again some more there.
-Awwww. And reminiscent of Sam holding the photo of John and the boys in the Pilot. Aww.
-"Either way, Dad hated the son of a bitch." Well, if he suddenly zapped forward in time 55 years and never came back, it'd look a lot like abandonment. At the same time, they can't send Henry back, because that part of John's life is part of what formed him, and sending Henry back to be there as John grew up would change it all, so they would have had different childhoods and been in different places and so, not able to help Henry get back aaaand PARADOX. So it sucks, but that's the joy of time travel. Come to think of it, since Abaddon wore Josie into the 21st century, she disappeared at the same time as Henry, so that really wouldn't have looked good at all.
-"Dad had his issues, but he was always there for us." I'm just going to pause for a minute and smile. And giggle at Sam's salad. Hee.
-"After all, despite everything, I've just met my grandsons, haven't I?" Sam with the sad puppy face and Dean with the... slightly eye-rolly dyspeptic fry-chewing face.
-"Dinner." Dean's got some issues with Grandpa. I expect we'll be hearing all about them real soon.
-"Because demon's can't be killed by run-of-the-mill cutlery?" Oooo Grandpa's got a steep learning curve ahead of him.
-"At the very least you'd need an ancient demon-killing knife of the Kurds."/"That's what this is." Is it really? I thought Ruby made it or something. I like the ancient Kurdish knife idea much better.
-"It's a blood sigil. Blood leads to blood." I'm really liking the lore we're getting in this episode.
-"My blood, an angel feather, tears of a dragon, pinch of the sands of Time." That's one great thing about being part of an ancient cult. Their ritual supply cupboard has been building a stockpile for generations.
-"What level are you two?" Heeeeeeeeee! Hard to say, lot of Fighter, some Ranger, a little Paladin here and there, maybe some Psion for Sam...
-"You are Men of Letters, correct?"/"I'm a little rusty on my boy-bands. Men of what?" *sneeeeeeeeeeerk* Yep. Because Henry wasn't there to initiate John, the haven't got a clue about the whole cult thing. Where members have the ability to directly tap the power of their souls. Oooooo...
-"Hunters are apes!" HEEEEEEEEE!
-"Legacies of what?" Yeah, legacies and the Winchester boys don't usually get along too well.
-Heheheheh. 55 years, a lot of things change. Particularly after many of the cult members were killed by a demon. Generally packing up and moving base is wise after that. Particularly if the mundane authorities got involved before all the paraphernalia was tucked away.
-"We just spent four hours driving, all he did was stick his head out the window and request Pat Boone on the radio, he had his time." Now there is a place for a missing scene fic.
-"Aside from the unthinking, unwashed, shoot first and don't bother to ask questions later part, not much really." Hmm... There's a thought trying to form about that... needs more brain.
-"We're preceptors. Beholders-" Nah, you don't have nearly enough eyes to be a Beholder. Also, you're not a floating ball. (Sorry, sorry, between last week and the mention of levels this week, and the comic store, my brains' gone firmly down the gaming chute again.
-"We share our findings with a few trusted hunters. The very elite." 'Scuse me a second while I clap both hands across my mouth and try not to scream 'BOBBY!' loud enough to wake the neighbours.
-"So you're like Yodas to our Jedis?" *facepalm* Yeah, Grandpa Henry's not going to be getting that reference anytime soon.
-Yes. Walk into the rooms that you left full of dead people and start brandishing the box you're supposed to keep hidden. Good plan. *facepalm*
-"Let me get this straight. You travelled through time to protect something that does... you don't know what, from a demon that you know nothing about?" You've done stranger and less advisable things for less cohesive reasons, Dean.
-"Hand me your... walkie-talkie." Heeeeeee!
-"Operator, I need Delta 457." *sneeeerk* Yep. Steep learning curve on the mundane side too.
-"Like you could fit a computer in this room!" Heeee! I've gotta say, I love the way this actor for Henry is playing the lack of future knowledge, it feels quite genuine. If Henry doesn't die at the end of this episode, I hope he sticks around with the boys. A conversation between him and Castiel would be mind-blowing.
-Well, yeah, I suppose a fire would cover the evidence of the secret society just as well as it's covered so many other things on this show.
-The guy's name was Albert Magnus, and he was in a secret society that collected supernatural lore. I'm guessing his family have been really long time members. Or he has... Hm. *ponder*
-Impala driving at night past a graveyard. *grin* You know, all these road trips with grandpa demand fic.
-Pretty fog and flashlight-fu.
-"The greatest alchemist of the middle ages." Definitely a long time member then. Oooor... a code word. For where to look for an empty grave with an emergency cache? Hmmm.
-Yep, it's a code word. NIFTY!!! *squirming with glee*
-Aquarian star, from the gates of Atlantis *rolls happily in the new lore*
-Larry Ganem. Looks like a *hand gesture* mix-the-letters around thing. Anagram. *plays with letters* ...uhhh... "MARRY ANGEL" That... can't be right. Can it? O.o
-"The Haitian symbol for speaking to the dead." Lore! Wonderful lore! Also doesn't that involve zombies?
-"You boys ever exhume a body?" Only since they were big enough to hold a shovel. Although it's usually less exhume, and more immolate.
-Crap. Run now, goth girl! See what I mean about the dress though? It looks much better with the splattering.
-Oh dear. What an ironic t-shirt choice for a character on this show.
-The boys have upgraded their grave-digging lights! Just in time to fascinate Grandpa offscreen during the digging I'd imagine. Seriously, so many missing scenes.
-Nice detail, in WWI, US dog tags were indeed round. Thomas Carry. More names ending in "arry". Hm.
-Captain Thomas J. Carry the Third to be exact. Okay, that has to mean something.
-Whistling. Dean's face. Oh. If that's not just annoyance at someone whistling loudly in an enclosed space with him, I think Dean might be getting his memory bells rung.
-"Dad used to whistle it from time to time." Aw. Sam remembers that first. That's even better.
-"Your dad saw Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy at the drive-in one night. Scared the beeswax out of him. Well, he would have been under well the age of four, since the music box is a regular unremarkable thing in 1958, so yeah. Makes sense for John to get freaked out by Abbot and Costello. Man, those two were scary. XD
-Tom Carry lives in Lebanon, Kansas and is 127 years old. So this alchemy thing is really working out for him then? And again. Kansas. Kansas. What did Kansas ever do to Eric Kripke, that's what I'd like to know.
-"A Knight of Hell"/"What does that even mean?" LORE! Lore! All the lore! YAY! Damn, Abaddon's eyes were black, weren't they? I thought for a second this might be getting us to an explainer for what Yellow eyes was, and why Yellow. Maybe Azazel was a Paladin? ... ooo. *bouncing with glee*
-"Knights of Hell are hand picked by Lucifer himself. They're the first fallen first-born demons." Ooo, was Lilith one?
-"Legend has it that Archangels had killed all of them, Which as we have witnessed is not the case." Darn those unreliable Archangels.
-"I sent away for one the day of my initiation." *gasp* It, that, with the- INITIALS! LIKE UNDER THE IMPALA SEAT! *flails* And, AND this puts a big old nail in the coffin of the remaining canonicity of the origins of John's Journals put forward by the Origins comics. HA! TAKE THAT. Sorry. Momentary lapse of sanity. It happens.
-"I'm beginning to gather I don't make it back from this time, do I?" Not looking like it, no. Sorry, paradoxes and things. John's childhood sadly needs to be what it is because you're observing the result of it. But maybe you won't die, just sort of hang out in the 21st century and rebuild the secret society. Which would be AWESOME.
-"He thought you ran out on him." Oh, and that's a big old hit right in Dean's abandonment issues, isn't it? Which is why he's been extra spiky at Henry. Oh Dean. Sometimes people don't come back because they can't, no matter how much they want to. *pats Dean's inner four-year-old*
-"Surviving a lonely childhood, a stinking war, only to get married, and have his wife taken by demons, and later killed by one himself. That man got a bum rap around every turn, but you know what? He kept going. And in the end he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad." And that is how you explain John Winchester. Adam Glass (who wrote this), you are awesome. Thank you.
-JOURNAL PORN. I remember some of that stuff from the old flash site the WB put up where you could play with things from the show.
-Awww. Henry is a really deep reader. Wonder how long the boys sat there and watched him read and had discussions about things before passing out OH WAIT IS THAT ANOTHER MISSING SCENE POSSIBILITY? I think it might be!
-"He just left a note saying he's gonna fix everything." Oh crap. No Winchester should ever leave a note like that. It's like asking for all the doom.
-"I can use a tear of a dragon and a pinch of the sands of time, but don't bother wrapping it up, I'll be using it right away." Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Oh, hey, and while we're here anyway, TIE REPORT: Absent. Conspicuously so. Flying by the seat of his pants and determined to fix everything. Oh dear. So very doomed.
-"In your window, hunter signs." *ALL THE GLEE* Either she's a person who supplies hunters, or she's a regular herbalist who's using symbols that aren't strictly known only to hunters et al anymore and Henry's getting caught in another temporal culture shock moment. Either way *GLEE*
-Shotgun... doesn't really clear things up much, sadly.
-HAHAHAHA. Okay, it is beyond awesome that their grandpa is a serious magic user who can whip spells off without a thought, but at the same time, dude, you couldn't have whipped up a cantrip of some kind as a demonstration rather than knocking out the shop owner?
-"Unless there's someplace nearby that sells real hoodoo." Something about the way he said that makes me think Jared had a real challenge keeping a straight face in this scene.
-Oh now there's a handy program to have.
-Ooooo. House. Houuuuuuse.
-"She blinded me." Ohhhhh. This is the guy with the bleeding eyes who handed over the box and probably knows what it is and might say something if Sam wasn't lying about Henry. Or rather if he could convince this guy that Henry travelled through time and... yeah, lying's probably faster.
-"The box." Heh. Yeah. And suddenly the old guy's paying a lot more attention and trying not to show it. Watch out that your tea doesn't get anything interesting suddenly added to it there, Sam.
-In the box is the key to all the things. Cool. Maybe even something to help Kevin with the tablets. Or maybe a tablet? Anyway, sounds awesome.
-This is indeed a well-supplied shop. Pinches of the sands of Time are available to hunters, not that they know what to do with them. COOL. This world is getting more gameable by the second. Also, Dean? Interrupting spell-casters can sometimes have unpleasant effects.
-"But you didn't let him down, I did!" I'm just going to flail sadly all over everything right through this confrontation because all the ow, and just, damn. You know?
-"What if it's not meant to be?" Oh ow. True, by the general rules of time travel, but Dean taking a stance that- *handwave* with fate and things, and all that. Just ow.
-"Because it's the right thing to do! I can save him!" Oh ow.
-AND IN THE BACKGROUND SOUNDTRACK, IT'S AN ALTERED FAMILY THEME. SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW WHY DO YOU HURT SO GOOD?
-"You're disappointed that me and Sam are mouth-breathing hunters." Heee, Dean has this face.
-"We stopped the Apocalypse." Yep. Exactly. Undo the things that stop that, and the world is kind of screwed.
-There won't be an Apocalypse to stop. Hmm. I suppose, if by stopping Abaddon, he keeps the secret society alive, they continue into the future, and see the signs early and can disseminate more and better intel on the early stages, rather than the hunters mostly flailing around in the dark... hm... he might actually have a point. Hmmm. Crap.
-Eee! I have a pen exactly like that on my desk at work! It's a really good pen! Sorry, it's just like... um. Office supplies. *shrug*
-"Take it to Mount Doom these coordinates. Throw it in, lock the door, walk away." Sorry, my audio went funny there... >.> *snerk*
-"It is the safest place on Earth, warded against any evil ever created. It is impervious to any entry except the key." OOO. Sounds like an excellent place for a base of operations for decoding tablets. One that isn't a rusty old boat at risk of sinking on its own, never mind demons.
-"How rude." OH CRAP. Yeah. If there was one surviving member of a secret society (one that was so conveniently left alive and blind) the best place to hang out and wait for someone to come by with the super-magical key to all the cool toys would be right there in his caretaker/grandaughter/wife/whatever. *facepalm* I can't believe I missed that. In my defense, I was distracted by her awesome cardigan.
-Ahahahahaha. She stole the kid's clothes. Really though, stealing the whole kid would have been quicker, and the clothes would fit better.
-When Winchesterian familial sense of duties collide, someone gets choked.
-"I don't want that to happen to Sam, ever. If there's a chance that I can save him, I'm gonna do it." Yep. Sometimes in the most inadvisable way possible, but it gets done.
-"That's the trouble with you hunters, you're all short-sighted."/"Yeah at least we're not extinct." HA!
-"My only interest is Henry and the key. You two are free to go." Suuuuuuure. Also ooo, big banks of dials and switches and things. Oooo. I bet they'd go boom real pretty...
-What did you expect, boys? That the Demon-Knight would keep her word? *pats them on their silly little heads*
-*wince* Ooo, crap. I still hope Henry has some secret magical schtick up his sleeve, or that this is a setup arranged between him and Dean to get Abaddon, but that spleen-grab looks rather hard to escape.
-Demon-killing bullets? Ooo! That would be a very handy thing for the boys to have around. Ranged weapons being generally a better option than a knife.
-Well, demon slowing bullets. And a pack of cards. Hee! Abaddon's gonna be really mad.
-Winchesters, working together to save Winchesters, working together to save the world. \o/
-Ooo! Henry's had his breath mints! Or some quick anti-possession Sharpie doodling. Or he's got his own set of interesting body art, given his background. Damn I want to roleplay in this world with this new information about the Men of Letters etc.
-"A Devil's Trap carved in the bullet." THE NOISES I AM MAKING RIGHT NOW I CANNOT TRANSCRIBE!
-"Close means it could get ugly."/"I know, but you do that for blood." *flailing all over everything again*
-"We're gonna cut you into steaks and bury each strip under cement." Just make sure you add a trap to each part or you could have a lot more trouble since she can segment her smoke and stuff.
-Winchesters. Just Winchesters. I hope Henry makes it, but I doubt he will.
-"You're also Winchesters. As long as we're alive, there's always hope." \o/ Of course some first aid or hauling ass to a hospital might help too.
-"I never met my son as a man, but having met you two, I know I would have been proud of him." *flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaail* AND MORE FAMILY THEME. *FLAAAAAAAAAAIL*
-Oh. Ow. In the graveyard, with his friends.
-"Kinda makes you wish he knew the truth, hunh?" Well, depending where John went after getting out of Hell, and where Henry's afterlife takes him... I think John probably does know, now.
-"We are Legacies, right?" On a quest. Oh yes. I hope the secret society plotline is going to continue in some fashion, because IT IS AWESOME. And they need it.
-And a lovely bit of mise en scène to finish off the episode, in case we forgot it was Serge Ladouceur, cinematographer and usually director of photography who directed this episode.
WELL THAT WAS AWESOME. MORE OF THAT, PLEASE.
Too bad Henry died, but this show, who knows, right? And that tie and tie pin of Henry's is lurking around in their stuff somewhere, because he left it behind when he went to do the time portal thing. And then there's the trip to Mount Doom the secret keyhole place and really, who believes they're just going to pitch the key without trying to save some toys that it accesses?
THIS IS SO COOL!!!
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR REFERENCES TO UNAIRED EPISODES IN COMMENTS! Any and all promo material for unaired episodes is considered to be a spoiler in this journal. The further definition of what constitutes a spoiler for this journal is located in left hand sidebar. Theory and speculation based on aired episodes only.)
Spoiler and Theory Summary
I've heard a rumour there may be the ghost of John's dad running around somewhere, or some sort of time travel, which would be awesome, but it's probably just a rumour.
...Or not, as early pre-cut comments are giving the name 'Henry Winchester'
Sigh. So. Time travel and John's dad. Cool. Given that whole vessel to archangels thing runs in bloodlines, John's parents might have had an interesting life too, in one way or another. Early pre-episode feelings seemed to be tending toward worry about what this meant for the characterization of John, but post-episode feelings seem to be approaching transports of delight, and a minor explosion of new fic, so this is a sign that perhaps the worry was unwarranted?
Let's find out.
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 8.12 - "???" "As Time Goes By"
-Skipping the.... hm. No actually, I'm going to watch the THEN this time, given what's happening in the episode. "Saving people, hunting things." \o/ "This book." \o/ "How many people do you think Dad saved? That's his legacy. So we've gotta keep going." \o/\o/\o/\o/ Ahh, lovely.
-"Normal, Illinois", eh? Not for long if it's getting a location card on this show.
-1958. It's 1958... According to the tombstone in "What Is and What Should Never Be", John Winchester was born April 22, 1954. DOES THIS MEAN WE GET WEE!JOHN? O.O
-I CANNOT EXPRESS MY GLEE AT WEE!JOHN (I think?) AND HIS 50's KID LIFE FULL OF TOY PLANES AND BASEBALL AND YOYOS AND CAP GUNS AND HARDY BOYS BOOKS EXCEPT BY CAPPING!
-"Hey, Sport." Well, I was hoping the guy in the trenchcoat was an angel which seemed to be the case with the flapping noise, but now it seems like this is John's (?) Dad... OR IS IT BOTH? Because as I said above, if John's bloodline is Angel vessels, so is John's Dad, probably. Maybe he's got some kind of time-share arrangement with his angel, unlike poor Jimmy has with Castiel? O.o
-OH HI HUNTERY SYMBOL THING. ONNA TIE PIN. ONNA SOLID BLACK TIE. I... I... You know, Show, if you're lurking around my LJ and watching me make an idiot of myself with the tie reports, you could just say howdy and not MAKE MY HEAD EXPLODE like this. SO. Possibly John's Dad Tie Report: *BOOM* Needs more brain.
-Gastown doesn't do too bad at mimicking the 50's, though I don't know how prevalent cobblestone streets were in Illinois back then.
-Or maybe it's the Masons? OH! SECERT SOCIETY! Passed down, which is why 'tell you when you're older' with the tie pin, and and OH COOL!!!
-Secret knocks and everything, hee!
-Hm. Conversation with Josie about making it gives me the thought that it isn't a secret society he's been in a long time, but maybe one he and Josie have infiltrated to try to break up, as hunters. Hmmm. Either way, COOL.
-*sneeeeeeerk* Maroon velvet bathrobes, a requirement in any secret society.
-Sudden screaming and wild-animal-like snarling are never what you want to hear in an initiation ceremony.
-That's what you get for ignoring rule number 101 in the Evil Overlord's Guide ("Never invoke anything bigger than your head.") You get your maroon bathrobe all mucky.
-They seem to be exorcising Josie, but not doing to well at it. Hmmm.
-When a guy in a pointy hat and a bathrobe cultist with bleeding eyes hands you a shiny ring special box and mumbles something about keeping it hidden or whatever, probably best you do what he says.
-Wait, what did he say exactly? *rolls back audio* "Do not let Abaddon get it." OH HEY! ABADDON! Torchwood had him stomping around Cardiff that one time. Cool! Looks like he's wearing Josie on this outing rather than a 20-story-tall wingless-vampire-bat-looking ensemble.
-Yes, much more stealthy than last time.
-I must stop and squee at the historical sciencey equipment. It's the 1950's, where men in bathrobes fight demons, with SCIENCE! *points finger in air dramatically*
-See? SCIENCE! Or spell casting. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
-Well, spell casting does tend to involve more chanting and bodily fluids.
-Ooooo, pretty!
-Well crap! I wasn't expecting that! *runs back through old reactions* It's not the symbol from French Mistake, which of course it isn't, that's for dimension hopping, not time travel. *facepalm* Duh. Oh, hey, if they have the rituals for dimension travel and time travel could they Turn the Impala into a TARDIS? Maybe. It'd require a lot of weird parts and stuff and crashing through windows and doors, and it wouldn't be bigger on the inside unless they stumbled across a bag of holding spell, but maybe! ...I seem to have gotten sidetracked. Oh yes. Grandpa Winchester (I assume) is about to have an even more interesting day.
-"Which of you is John Winchester?" Um. Awkwaaaard...
-Title: "As Time Goes By." Cute.
-"Who the hell are you, Mister?"/"Not now." Heh. Yes. Now. Try again.
-"When one of us falls out of your closet, then you can ask the questions." Hee! He's a closet monster! XD
-Ahahahaha! They try to handcuff him, he cuffs them, and I can't get a good cap of any of it, and it's around a very movable and or breakable chair though, so that won't hold them for long, but regardless, don't try and teach your Grandpa to suck eggs, boys! XD
-Welcome to the 21st Century! Full of boom cars, cell phones and just wait 'til you see the internet.
-Hi Impala! Even the Impala is ten years after his time, but at least it's closer to looking familiar.
-If the show's going to let us have that much detail, I'm gonna cap it. Now, license plates didn't have stickers in 1958, but Grandpa's a bright boy and can figure out from where it says "Expires on Mar 31" in teeny-tiny text under the 2013 what year is is.
-"I guess the Mayans were wrong." HEEEEEEEEEE! Though that's just when the plate expires, so it could be anywhere between April 1 2012 and March 31 2013, so it might not be Mayan time in SPN-verse yet, because seriously, timelines? This show? Pft.
-Aw, Grandpa Winchester, no. Silly. Just go explain everything to Sam and Dean and they'll help you out. No need to break the Impala.
-Ahahahahah. Yeah. Also, this car comes with a really pissed off and armed security system.
-Wait. *rewinds* *mad cackling* Sam just opens the passenger door. THE PASSENGER DOOR WAS UNLOCKED. First, Dean will be glaring at Sam for leaving the door on his baby unlocked, then he'll be glaring at Grandpa for not even checking the doors before going straight for the elbow-smash.
-"I'm quite certain this is all beyond your understanding." Maybe, but that hasn't stopped them before!
-Whoops, missed a bit. "My alpha male monkey friend." BWAHAHAHAHAH.
-"Some asshat pops out of my closet asking about my dad." WHOOPS. And this is how not to do an interrogation, by giving the interrogatee more info than he initially had.
-Written by Adam Glass, Directed by Serge Ladouceur, all familiar names.
-"John Winchester is your father?" And then there's an earthquake. This does not bode well.
-"Run!" Favorite word of all time travelers it seems. Considering it probably means Abaddon's about to pop out of your closet, it's also a pretty darn good idea.
-Yep. I've been trying to get a good cap of it, but the blood spatter on that dress does it a world of good. I can't decide though, whether the lack of contiguous blood on her skin is a snerk-worthy production error, or a sign that she just sort of absorbed any blood that touched her skin tracelessly and therefore super-creepy. I think I'll go with super-creepy blood absorption. *handwaves*
-Hey! Sam and Dean flying into walls! Been a while!
-Heheh. Yeah, Ruby's knife is only gonna piss Abaddon off.
-When in doubt, run for the Impala and drive like hell, worry about who the weird guy who fell out of your closet is after you get away from the major demon who followed him. And next hotel, put some wards up on your closet.
-Okay, that's not a full repossession, so can Abaddon split up and possess multiple people? Eeeek. O.o
-"Show me what you've seen." Okay, that's a handy skill, and a smart use of the ability to possess people. More effective than torturing them for information and faster too!
-"She's from Hell." Dean's little "No shit, Sherlock" head-bobble. HEE!
-"Dudes time-travellin' into motel room closets, is that what we've come to?" *snerk*
-"Because he's dead."/"No." Hell of a way to find out your son died. Today really sucks for Grandpa Winchester. *pats him*
-"I'm his father." Yep. Aaaaaand family theme on the soundtrack. Of course. Wish I hadn't known about that already, because my head might have exploded again some more there.
-Awwww. And reminiscent of Sam holding the photo of John and the boys in the Pilot. Aww.
-"Either way, Dad hated the son of a bitch." Well, if he suddenly zapped forward in time 55 years and never came back, it'd look a lot like abandonment. At the same time, they can't send Henry back, because that part of John's life is part of what formed him, and sending Henry back to be there as John grew up would change it all, so they would have had different childhoods and been in different places and so, not able to help Henry get back aaaand PARADOX. So it sucks, but that's the joy of time travel. Come to think of it, since Abaddon wore Josie into the 21st century, she disappeared at the same time as Henry, so that really wouldn't have looked good at all.
-"Dad had his issues, but he was always there for us." I'm just going to pause for a minute and smile. And giggle at Sam's salad. Hee.
-"After all, despite everything, I've just met my grandsons, haven't I?" Sam with the sad puppy face and Dean with the... slightly eye-rolly dyspeptic fry-chewing face.
-"Dinner." Dean's got some issues with Grandpa. I expect we'll be hearing all about them real soon.
-"Because demon's can't be killed by run-of-the-mill cutlery?" Oooo Grandpa's got a steep learning curve ahead of him.
-"At the very least you'd need an ancient demon-killing knife of the Kurds."/"That's what this is." Is it really? I thought Ruby made it or something. I like the ancient Kurdish knife idea much better.
-"It's a blood sigil. Blood leads to blood." I'm really liking the lore we're getting in this episode.
-"My blood, an angel feather, tears of a dragon, pinch of the sands of Time." That's one great thing about being part of an ancient cult. Their ritual supply cupboard has been building a stockpile for generations.
-"What level are you two?" Heeeeeeeeee! Hard to say, lot of Fighter, some Ranger, a little Paladin here and there, maybe some Psion for Sam...
-"You are Men of Letters, correct?"/"I'm a little rusty on my boy-bands. Men of what?" *sneeeeeeeeeeerk* Yep. Because Henry wasn't there to initiate John, the haven't got a clue about the whole cult thing. Where members have the ability to directly tap the power of their souls. Oooooo...
-"Hunters are apes!" HEEEEEEEEE!
-"Legacies of what?" Yeah, legacies and the Winchester boys don't usually get along too well.
-Heheheheh. 55 years, a lot of things change. Particularly after many of the cult members were killed by a demon. Generally packing up and moving base is wise after that. Particularly if the mundane authorities got involved before all the paraphernalia was tucked away.
-"We just spent four hours driving, all he did was stick his head out the window and request Pat Boone on the radio, he had his time." Now there is a place for a missing scene fic.
-"Aside from the unthinking, unwashed, shoot first and don't bother to ask questions later part, not much really." Hmm... There's a thought trying to form about that... needs more brain.
-"We're preceptors. Beholders-" Nah, you don't have nearly enough eyes to be a Beholder. Also, you're not a floating ball. (Sorry, sorry, between last week and the mention of levels this week, and the comic store, my brains' gone firmly down the gaming chute again.
-"We share our findings with a few trusted hunters. The very elite." 'Scuse me a second while I clap both hands across my mouth and try not to scream 'BOBBY!' loud enough to wake the neighbours.
-"So you're like Yodas to our Jedis?" *facepalm* Yeah, Grandpa Henry's not going to be getting that reference anytime soon.
-Yes. Walk into the rooms that you left full of dead people and start brandishing the box you're supposed to keep hidden. Good plan. *facepalm*
-"Let me get this straight. You travelled through time to protect something that does... you don't know what, from a demon that you know nothing about?" You've done stranger and less advisable things for less cohesive reasons, Dean.
-"Hand me your... walkie-talkie." Heeeeeee!
-"Operator, I need Delta 457." *sneeeerk* Yep. Steep learning curve on the mundane side too.
-"Like you could fit a computer in this room!" Heeee! I've gotta say, I love the way this actor for Henry is playing the lack of future knowledge, it feels quite genuine. If Henry doesn't die at the end of this episode, I hope he sticks around with the boys. A conversation between him and Castiel would be mind-blowing.
-Well, yeah, I suppose a fire would cover the evidence of the secret society just as well as it's covered so many other things on this show.
-The guy's name was Albert Magnus, and he was in a secret society that collected supernatural lore. I'm guessing his family have been really long time members. Or he has... Hm. *ponder*
-Impala driving at night past a graveyard. *grin* You know, all these road trips with grandpa demand fic.
-Pretty fog and flashlight-fu.
-"The greatest alchemist of the middle ages." Definitely a long time member then. Oooor... a code word. For where to look for an empty grave with an emergency cache? Hmmm.
-Yep, it's a code word. NIFTY!!! *squirming with glee*
-Aquarian star, from the gates of Atlantis *rolls happily in the new lore*
-Larry Ganem. Looks like a *hand gesture* mix-the-letters around thing. Anagram. *plays with letters* ...uhhh... "MARRY ANGEL" That... can't be right. Can it? O.o
-"The Haitian symbol for speaking to the dead." Lore! Wonderful lore! Also doesn't that involve zombies?
-"You boys ever exhume a body?" Only since they were big enough to hold a shovel. Although it's usually less exhume, and more immolate.
-Crap. Run now, goth girl! See what I mean about the dress though? It looks much better with the splattering.
-Oh dear. What an ironic t-shirt choice for a character on this show.
-The boys have upgraded their grave-digging lights! Just in time to fascinate Grandpa offscreen during the digging I'd imagine. Seriously, so many missing scenes.
-Nice detail, in WWI, US dog tags were indeed round. Thomas Carry. More names ending in "arry". Hm.
-Captain Thomas J. Carry the Third to be exact. Okay, that has to mean something.
-Whistling. Dean's face. Oh. If that's not just annoyance at someone whistling loudly in an enclosed space with him, I think Dean might be getting his memory bells rung.
-"Dad used to whistle it from time to time." Aw. Sam remembers that first. That's even better.
-"Your dad saw Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy at the drive-in one night. Scared the beeswax out of him. Well, he would have been under well the age of four, since the music box is a regular unremarkable thing in 1958, so yeah. Makes sense for John to get freaked out by Abbot and Costello. Man, those two were scary. XD
-Tom Carry lives in Lebanon, Kansas and is 127 years old. So this alchemy thing is really working out for him then? And again. Kansas. Kansas. What did Kansas ever do to Eric Kripke, that's what I'd like to know.
-"A Knight of Hell"/"What does that even mean?" LORE! Lore! All the lore! YAY! Damn, Abaddon's eyes were black, weren't they? I thought for a second this might be getting us to an explainer for what Yellow eyes was, and why Yellow. Maybe Azazel was a Paladin? ... ooo. *bouncing with glee*
-"Knights of Hell are hand picked by Lucifer himself. They're the first fallen first-born demons." Ooo, was Lilith one?
-"Legend has it that Archangels had killed all of them, Which as we have witnessed is not the case." Darn those unreliable Archangels.
-"I sent away for one the day of my initiation." *gasp* It, that, with the- INITIALS! LIKE UNDER THE IMPALA SEAT! *flails* And, AND this puts a big old nail in the coffin of the remaining canonicity of the origins of John's Journals put forward by the Origins comics. HA! TAKE THAT. Sorry. Momentary lapse of sanity. It happens.
-"I'm beginning to gather I don't make it back from this time, do I?" Not looking like it, no. Sorry, paradoxes and things. John's childhood sadly needs to be what it is because you're observing the result of it. But maybe you won't die, just sort of hang out in the 21st century and rebuild the secret society. Which would be AWESOME.
-"He thought you ran out on him." Oh, and that's a big old hit right in Dean's abandonment issues, isn't it? Which is why he's been extra spiky at Henry. Oh Dean. Sometimes people don't come back because they can't, no matter how much they want to. *pats Dean's inner four-year-old*
-"Surviving a lonely childhood, a stinking war, only to get married, and have his wife taken by demons, and later killed by one himself. That man got a bum rap around every turn, but you know what? He kept going. And in the end he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad." And that is how you explain John Winchester. Adam Glass (who wrote this), you are awesome. Thank you.
-JOURNAL PORN. I remember some of that stuff from the old flash site the WB put up where you could play with things from the show.
-Awww. Henry is a really deep reader. Wonder how long the boys sat there and watched him read and had discussions about things before passing out OH WAIT IS THAT ANOTHER MISSING SCENE POSSIBILITY? I think it might be!
-"He just left a note saying he's gonna fix everything." Oh crap. No Winchester should ever leave a note like that. It's like asking for all the doom.
-"I can use a tear of a dragon and a pinch of the sands of time, but don't bother wrapping it up, I'll be using it right away." Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Oh, hey, and while we're here anyway, TIE REPORT: Absent. Conspicuously so. Flying by the seat of his pants and determined to fix everything. Oh dear. So very doomed.
-"In your window, hunter signs." *ALL THE GLEE* Either she's a person who supplies hunters, or she's a regular herbalist who's using symbols that aren't strictly known only to hunters et al anymore and Henry's getting caught in another temporal culture shock moment. Either way *GLEE*
-Shotgun... doesn't really clear things up much, sadly.
-HAHAHAHA. Okay, it is beyond awesome that their grandpa is a serious magic user who can whip spells off without a thought, but at the same time, dude, you couldn't have whipped up a cantrip of some kind as a demonstration rather than knocking out the shop owner?
-"Unless there's someplace nearby that sells real hoodoo." Something about the way he said that makes me think Jared had a real challenge keeping a straight face in this scene.
-Oh now there's a handy program to have.
-Ooooo. House. Houuuuuuse.
-"She blinded me." Ohhhhh. This is the guy with the bleeding eyes who handed over the box and probably knows what it is and might say something if Sam wasn't lying about Henry. Or rather if he could convince this guy that Henry travelled through time and... yeah, lying's probably faster.
-"The box." Heh. Yeah. And suddenly the old guy's paying a lot more attention and trying not to show it. Watch out that your tea doesn't get anything interesting suddenly added to it there, Sam.
-In the box is the key to all the things. Cool. Maybe even something to help Kevin with the tablets. Or maybe a tablet? Anyway, sounds awesome.
-This is indeed a well-supplied shop. Pinches of the sands of Time are available to hunters, not that they know what to do with them. COOL. This world is getting more gameable by the second. Also, Dean? Interrupting spell-casters can sometimes have unpleasant effects.
-"But you didn't let him down, I did!" I'm just going to flail sadly all over everything right through this confrontation because all the ow, and just, damn. You know?
-"What if it's not meant to be?" Oh ow. True, by the general rules of time travel, but Dean taking a stance that- *handwave* with fate and things, and all that. Just ow.
-"Because it's the right thing to do! I can save him!" Oh ow.
-AND IN THE BACKGROUND SOUNDTRACK, IT'S AN ALTERED FAMILY THEME. SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW WHY DO YOU HURT SO GOOD?
-"You're disappointed that me and Sam are mouth-breathing hunters." Heee, Dean has this face.
-"We stopped the Apocalypse." Yep. Exactly. Undo the things that stop that, and the world is kind of screwed.
-There won't be an Apocalypse to stop. Hmm. I suppose, if by stopping Abaddon, he keeps the secret society alive, they continue into the future, and see the signs early and can disseminate more and better intel on the early stages, rather than the hunters mostly flailing around in the dark... hm... he might actually have a point. Hmmm. Crap.
-Eee! I have a pen exactly like that on my desk at work! It's a really good pen! Sorry, it's just like... um. Office supplies. *shrug*
-"Take it to Mount Doom these coordinates. Throw it in, lock the door, walk away." Sorry, my audio went funny there... >.> *snerk*
-"It is the safest place on Earth, warded against any evil ever created. It is impervious to any entry except the key." OOO. Sounds like an excellent place for a base of operations for decoding tablets. One that isn't a rusty old boat at risk of sinking on its own, never mind demons.
-"How rude." OH CRAP. Yeah. If there was one surviving member of a secret society (one that was so conveniently left alive and blind) the best place to hang out and wait for someone to come by with the super-magical key to all the cool toys would be right there in his caretaker/grandaughter/wife/whatever. *facepalm* I can't believe I missed that. In my defense, I was distracted by her awesome cardigan.
-Ahahahahaha. She stole the kid's clothes. Really though, stealing the whole kid would have been quicker, and the clothes would fit better.
-When Winchesterian familial sense of duties collide, someone gets choked.
-"I don't want that to happen to Sam, ever. If there's a chance that I can save him, I'm gonna do it." Yep. Sometimes in the most inadvisable way possible, but it gets done.
-"That's the trouble with you hunters, you're all short-sighted."/"Yeah at least we're not extinct." HA!
-"My only interest is Henry and the key. You two are free to go." Suuuuuuure. Also ooo, big banks of dials and switches and things. Oooo. I bet they'd go boom real pretty...
-What did you expect, boys? That the Demon-Knight would keep her word? *pats them on their silly little heads*
-*wince* Ooo, crap. I still hope Henry has some secret magical schtick up his sleeve, or that this is a setup arranged between him and Dean to get Abaddon, but that spleen-grab looks rather hard to escape.
-Demon-killing bullets? Ooo! That would be a very handy thing for the boys to have around. Ranged weapons being generally a better option than a knife.
-Well, demon slowing bullets. And a pack of cards. Hee! Abaddon's gonna be really mad.
-Winchesters, working together to save Winchesters, working together to save the world. \o/
-Ooo! Henry's had his breath mints! Or some quick anti-possession Sharpie doodling. Or he's got his own set of interesting body art, given his background. Damn I want to roleplay in this world with this new information about the Men of Letters etc.
-"A Devil's Trap carved in the bullet." THE NOISES I AM MAKING RIGHT NOW I CANNOT TRANSCRIBE!
-"Close means it could get ugly."/"I know, but you do that for blood." *flailing all over everything again*
-"We're gonna cut you into steaks and bury each strip under cement." Just make sure you add a trap to each part or you could have a lot more trouble since she can segment her smoke and stuff.
-Winchesters. Just Winchesters. I hope Henry makes it, but I doubt he will.
-"You're also Winchesters. As long as we're alive, there's always hope." \o/ Of course some first aid or hauling ass to a hospital might help too.
-"I never met my son as a man, but having met you two, I know I would have been proud of him." *flaaaaaaaaaaaaaaail* AND MORE FAMILY THEME. *FLAAAAAAAAAAIL*
-Oh. Ow. In the graveyard, with his friends.
-"Kinda makes you wish he knew the truth, hunh?" Well, depending where John went after getting out of Hell, and where Henry's afterlife takes him... I think John probably does know, now.
-"We are Legacies, right?" On a quest. Oh yes. I hope the secret society plotline is going to continue in some fashion, because IT IS AWESOME. And they need it.
-And a lovely bit of mise en scène to finish off the episode, in case we forgot it was Serge Ladouceur, cinematographer and usually director of photography who directed this episode.
WELL THAT WAS AWESOME. MORE OF THAT, PLEASE.
Too bad Henry died, but this show, who knows, right? And that tie and tie pin of Henry's is lurking around in their stuff somewhere, because he left it behind when he went to do the time portal thing. And then there's the trip to Mount Doom the secret keyhole place and really, who believes they're just going to pitch the key without trying to save some toys that it accesses?
THIS IS SO COOL!!!
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR REFERENCES TO UNAIRED EPISODES IN COMMENTS! Any and all promo material for unaired episodes is considered to be a spoiler in this journal. The further definition of what constitutes a spoiler for this journal is located in left hand sidebar. Theory and speculation based on aired episodes only.)