Initial reaction 13.04: "The Big Empty"
Ridiculously late, and probably of interest to no one, but here's my recap/review...
THEN: We kill monsters. And don't act like you care about that one.
NOW: A guy named Wes gets killed by his late wife. Sorry about that, Wes. I really liked your kitchen.
Title card! (I also really like the S13 title card, guys.)
Sam walks in the front door of the bunker with takeout and asks Dean how he's feeling, which (1) seems to indicate Dean isn't/wasn't feeling well, and (b) Dean doesn't answer, which implies it was emotional and not physical unwellness. He's working up the case of poor dead Wes, and isn't too taken with Sam's suggestion that they go to Wisconsin, because what are they going to do with "Damien?" Bring him along, Sam says, but Dean reiterates his earlier position that he's not interested in babysitting the antichrist. And by the way, Sam, does your desire to go out on a hunt with the kid mean your hopeless plan to bring Mom back isn't working? Cause remember, she's dead.
And the sooner you can wrap your head around that, the sooner we can move on.
So you're saying you want to move on. From Mom.
Oh, ouch. And Dean doesn't really have a response to that. Sam says they all need to get out and then brings on the puppy dog eyes and says "Just give him a chance. Please. For me."
Someone remind me to send a nice thank-you card to director John Badham, cause DAMN.
And Dean, being only human, is completely powerless under that spell, so the next thing we see is Sam knocking on Jack's door. Jack is sitting on his bed watching Netflix.
Clone Wars?
The computer said I'd like it. I do like Osaka. Kinda hate Anakin.
Uh. That's probably for the best.
Hee! Yes, Jack, it's a good sign if you kinda hate the potentially-good guy with special powers who went very, very bad. It's an extremely good sign. (But what's your opinion on Luke, who had the choice of following his evil father, or rebels who were wise and/or hot? This is also important.) Sam invites him to go out on a case, and Jack calmly responds "no." He figures Sam only wants to give him a needed change of scenery because it might "Get my powers working again? So I can be your interdimensional can opener? You're using me."
Oh, wait. We're doing this? We're getting this right out in the open? Rather than letting it fester? We're having Jack come right out and say I overheard this conversation and what you're doing isn't cool? Thank you baby Jesus.
Sam explains the rift into AU Land, and how Mary ended up on the wrong side of it, and confirms that he does hope Jack can open it. "But if this doesn't work, if that can't happen, that's okay. Because I do care about you. But I should have told you. I'm sorry." WHAT SHOW AM I WATCHING? We took a misunderstanding that could have caused an entire season's worth of unnecessary drama and cleared it up in the first six minutes?
Also there's a lot of sincere looks and swallowing and I might need to watch this again a few times.
Jack reminds Sam that Dean wants to kill him, and Sam says he won't let that happen, and that's all well and good, Sam. I absolutely believe you. But I still wouldn't want to travel from Kansas to Wisconsin in a car with someone who's pretty eager to kill me. It's just awkward. But Sam promises that Dean respects effort, so if Jack comes along and tries to help... well, who knows what could happen?
Outside poor dead Wes's house, complete with nice kitchen, Jack examines their fake IDs and is surprised to learn that the "good guys" are liars. Sam explains about hunting and ghosts and revenants, while Dean is still short-tempered and not particularly friendly. He instructs Jack to stay in the car while they talk to a witness, but after a short interview, they look up and see the Impala is empty and the door to the house is open.
Jack's in the house, trying to show some effort, but Dean's still not impressed. And really, all he found was the already-marked bloodstain on the floor, so it's hard to argue with Dean's judgment. Still in trainer mode, Sam explains the EMF meter to his protege. Since it's not picking up anything, Dean announces they're dealing with a revenant.
Later, at the cemetary, Dean puts Jack to work digging up poor dead Wes's poor dead wife, while Sam argues that he's acting like Dad. "And that's a bad thing?" answers Dean. Well, yeah, sometimes. Sometimes you remember that he was an obsessive bastard. But I guess tonight's not one of those times. Tonight, Dean says "I'm not gonna be his mother, and neither are you." Hmmm. Mothers are a touchy subject these days.
The poor dead wife turns out to be snug as a dead bug in her coffin, which means they're not dealing with a revenant. They burn her anyway, while Dean grouses about these new monsters today, what with shapeshifting demons and apocalyptic worlds and whatnot, and if he had a lawn, he'd be telling kids to stay off it. Jack asks if his mom could be a ghost, and Sam explains that they burned her body, so she can't. "And what gets burned, stays dead," says Dean.
A nice little family portrait.
And I'm sure that's going to be a segue to formerly dead-and-burned Mary in AU Land, but no! We actually transition to presently dead-and-burned Cas. Let's just get Cas's story done right here, shall we, because I can't be bothered to spend a lot of time on it. Cas wakes up in the Empty and the only interesting things about these scenes are (1) we find out every angel and demon who ever died is asleep in the Empty, and does that mean they might be able to come back? and (b) Cas gets flung out of the Empty simply by annoying the hell out of the more interesting being who seems to be in charge of the place.
Back in the non-Empty, another person is killed by a dead loved one. Since she was talking to roadside assistance when she died, the operator knows who she was talking to - her dead son. Again, there's no EMF. The guys head to the police department, where Sam goes inside and leaves Dean to keep an eye on Jack. I'm sure Jack was thrilled about the guy who says he'll keep him from being killed leaving him alone with the guy who wants to kill him. Sam's annoyed that Dean sent him to a hot dog cart, but honestly, there are a lot of worse things he could have done.
Let's pause for a minute and appreciate the boys out in the sunlight, and to ignore that the cups are, once again, empty. (Actually, that front cup might have something in it. But Sam's cup isn't fooling anybody.)
Sam discovers that both of the victims were seeing the same grief counselor, and there's a cute scene where Dean eats a hot dog and hypothesizes that the grief counselor is a medium. "This woman can talk to ghosts?" Jack asks. I didn't catch any of this on the first watch, but clearly Jack is thinking a lot about his mom as he learns about the supernatural.
Cut to the grief counselor's house, which is also her "family therapy" office. The Winchesters and Jack pass a client on his way out, and Jack cheerfully greets him, because he's either absolutely the most precious cinnamon roll, or he's doing a damn good imitation of one, with malicious intent. (I need a good shorthand name for these guys - "the Winchesters and Jack" is kind of long and unwieldy. Accepting nominations!) They walk in on someone who seems to be her assistant and Dean insists on an appointment right now. The assistant tries to brush them off, but the counselor walks in and says "you've lost someone recently?" Dean says no and looks annoyed, but Jack pipes up with "my mother!" Sam claims they're all brothers, and the counselor, whose name is Mia, agrees to see them immediately. Which is convenient.
Dean orders Jack not to speak until he's instructed to, and then goes on to try to sabbotage the appointment ("Mom was great, now she's dead, what's the deal with catharsis?") while Sam tries to subtly (and maybe not so subtly) get information from Mia about her process. And the brothers end up accidentally having a real therapy session and getting their feelings out. Dean insists that he knows and accepts that their mother is dead, but Sam is delusional.
He won't even admit that Mom's dead. Won't even admit it.
Stop.
Because if he admits it, then it's real. And if it's real, then he has to deal with it. And he can't handle that.
Right, because this is so easy for you, huh?
No, it's not easy.
Yeah, but at least you had a relationship with Mom. I mean, who did she always call? Who did she look to for everything? You had something with her I never had! And now I'm just supposed to accept that I never will have it?
Oh, Sammy. All this time I thought you were sure Mary was alive because you didn't think Lucifer would be kind enough to kill her outright. I thought this was you being realistic, with a side of pessimism. And it turns out you were full of hope? You were just wishing so hard that she was alive so you could have another chance at the relationship you were denied?
Excuse me, I'll be over here in the corner, crying.
Dean is almost savagely happy to tear Sam down.
As everyone else looks anxious (Jack and Mia) or annoyed (Dean), Sam leaves the room. While innocently getting a drink, he notices a smear of blood on a sign blocking the staircase, and he immediately shifts into hunter mode and non-innocently ignores the sign and goes upstairs. Where he discovers more blood smears and finally, in the bathroom, bloody handprints and a gore-filled bathtub and evidence of... a shifter! Okay, I have to confess I did not immediately get that this was shifter remains, because they usually show us an ear. This was just a nasty glob of tissue and hair. Ew.
Back downstairs, Dean takes a drink from his flask while Mia points out that he's kind of a douche and Jack is terrified of him. "You're angry, Dean. And if you don't want to do anything about it, that's your business. But you're aiming it at everyone in your life." Which is very true. But this useful counseling ends when Sam bursts into the room, gun in hand, and announces Mia is a shapeshifter. She insists that yes, she is a shifter, but she hasn't killed anyone. She says she helps her patients by shifting into the person they lost, so they can see them one last time and say goodbye. And a flashback shows her doing this by looking at pictures on Wes's phone. So, she doesn't need physical contact with her target? That's something new, isn't it? (Ha ha ha continuity.) Sam says Wes was killed "three nights ago" and she says she has an alibi for that night, because she was volunteering at the woman's shelter. All night, Mia? Because Sam didn't tell you what time he died. Your alibi sounds fishy to me. But it checks out.
Mia thinks she knows who the killer might be, and shows them a picture of another shifter named Buddy, who likes hurting people. (How useful is a picture of a shifter?) She says Buddy liked to see the look on someone's face when they realized they had nothing left. That's oddly specific. Since the shifter is targeting her patients, it's someone who has access to her. Her best guess is the assistant we saw earlier. Dean says he'll go check the guy out, and Jack volunteers to go with him. Dean's not thrilled but Sam gives him A Look, and he knows the puppy dog eyes are next, so he gives up and leaves with Jack in tow.
In the car, Jack tells Dean that Sam told him about his plan to rescue Mary. "Well, here's something you should know," says Dean. "Sam's plans don't always work out." And okay, that's true, but it's also pretty cold. He makes Jack wait in the car while he checks out the assistant.
The next scene is Sam, still at Mia's, getting a call from Dean saying the assistant isn't the shifter and he's on his way back. Sam's going through her security camera footage looking for flashy shifter eyes. He asks how the whole visit-from-your-dead-loved-one thing works, and she explains that her patients "chalk it up to hypnotism, a lucid dream." Oh, wait. They don't know she's pretending to be their dead loved one? That makes this a whole lot worse. I thought she was doing this explicitly, but she's just disappearing and then coming back as their dead loved one and that's really, really not okay. And it also means there's no reason for those two victims to be so shocked and confused when they saw their dead loved ones. Not until they killed them, anyway. I mean, Wes, you just saw your dead wife at your counselor's office. Why are you so surprised she turned up at your house too?
(Also, I don't think counselors ever refer to patients. I think they call them clients.)
Anyway. Sam's kind of surprised it works, but Mia says people are hard-wired to want closure, and you didn't get closure, did you? Oh, I see what's coming, and I don't like it. Mia's going to pretend to be Mary so Sam can get closure. As if a few minutes of saying "goodbye" to a monster who looks like his mother are going to fix a lifetime (multiple lifetimes) of hurt. Sam deserves more than a fake emotional moment. I don't like this at all.
(Have I mentioned before that I cover the bottom of the screen at the beginning so I don't see who the guest stars are? Why do I bring this up now? No reason.)
This man deserves closure. And a hug. And a puppy.
On the video, we watch Team Jackchester (no, that's not good) walk up the stairs, and it turns out the man Jack greeted on their way in is our flashy eyed shifter! We should have known. Well, done, Sammy. Since he knows Dean is on his way back, he sits tight and waits for backup. No, ha ha, of course he doesn't. When Dean returns, he finds that Sam borrowed Mia's car to go get Mr. Shifty Eyed Buddy. Dean's surprised Sam didn't call him, and Mia says "can you blame him?" but that's not how this works. When you're hunting you have to be able to put your petty differences about dead mothers aside and forget everything but the hunt. Oh, god, I'm turning into John Winchester.
Dean walks off to call Sam, and Jack goes off with Mia. He tells her about Kelly's death and shows her the video, and asks if he can "see her, just once. Please." Mia tells him to shut his eyes, and walks out of the room for a couple of seconds, and there's no blood and no tissue and no ears left lying about, just Kelly wearing Mia's clothes. So, I don't understand how these crazy new shifters work, and why sometimes they leave lots of bloody goo and other times they don't. And I understand why Dean was so curmudgeonly about such things earlier. But let's move along.
Jack tells Kelly that Sam thinks he's good, and he wants to be good, but he's hurt people accidentally. And he usually doesn't feel anything about that, so he thinks maybe he's a monster. Kelly/Mia tells him "it doesn't matter what you are, it matters what you do, and even monsters can do good in this world." Oh, where have we heard that before? It's true, Jack. Please believe it. It worked for Sam and it will work for you. Stay good for me, little buddy. Be Luke, not Anakin.
Meanwhile, Dean's phone rings. It's Sam, telling him he missed the shifter and is on his way back. "Well, that was too freakin' easy," Dean says, looking down at... Dean's unconscious body. Ooooh, the Dean/shifter fakeout! It was good in "Skin" and it's good today.
Two Deans are definitely better than two Castiels.
Mia returns as herself and gets a hug and a thank you from Jack. Then Shifter!Dean comes in, picks up a fireplace poker, and smacks Jack in the head. And the saddest part of this is that Jack probably thought oh, it's finally happening, he's going to kill me instead of this clearly isn't Dean. Shifter!Dean removes his pretty Dean face, which I know makes filming the show easier, but it's certainly less pleasing to look at.
Dean wakes up cuffed to a fireplace next to Jack. He tries to get Jack to snap the cuffs off, and he's all, Sam believes in you, do it for Sam. Do it for the puppy dog eyes. Buddy, meanwhile, is arguing with Mia and he tells her "I'm not going to kill those boys, you are." And why do people keep calling them "boys?" They're well into their 30s. In Show years, Dean is 40 or 41 if you count the two skipped years. (Which they don't.) It's time to stop. But I digress. Buddy tells Mia that he'll kill her unless she agrees to shoot Dean and Jack, but she refuses. Then he sees Sam on the security camera and says "look, baby brother!" and Dean's face gets gloriously panicky and we like it. Dean yells "Sam, no!" but Sam doesn't hear enough to be properly alarmed and Buddy punches Dean out and then imitates his voice to make it sound like everything's okay. As Sam walks right into the ambush, Jack sees what's going on and he gets the glowy eyes and yells "no!" and his power emerges, suspending the shifter in slow motion and deflecting the bullet. Just like Sam deflected the bullet when Dean tried to shoot Jack! Sam shoots Buddy and yay, happy ending!
Aftermath! Mia says she'll dispose of Buddy and it was all her fault and she only wanted to help, etc., and Jack tells her "you did." Aw.
Later, in the bunker, Jack's in the kitchen. Dean comes in a gets a couple of beers - but not one for Jack - and tells him he did good. And thus Jack learns that the way to Dean's heart is to save Sam. (Okay, he saved Dean too. But it was clearly the sight of the shifter pointing his gun at a door that Sam was about to walk through that empowered him. It is known.)
Dean goes into the library and hands Sam his beer and apologizes for "being a dick lately" and admits Sam might be right about Jack and oh, Dean, I love you and your bursts of emotional maturity and your alcoholic peace offerings and your pretty, pretty bandaged face. But Sam's not as excited about Jack accessing his powers as you'd expect him to be.
What if you're right? About Mom? What if she is dead and I'm just in denial?
Don't say that.
What? You've been wanting me to admit that since it happened.
I know I have. But don't say that. I need you to keep the faith. For both of us. Cause right now, I. Right now I don't believe in a damn thing.
Thank you again, John Badham.
So, what do we think about this about-face of Dean's? Has he been harboring a tiny bit of hope all along, thinking that Sam might actually come up with a way to save Mary after all? Did he not realize he even had that hope until Sam threatened to take it away?
I loved a lot of things about this episode, but especially the way they communicated. Jack told Sam what he overheard, and Sam apologized and told Jack how he really feels. Dean told Sam how he feels about Sam's insistence that Mary is alive. And then he told him the exact opposite. And they both seemed real and legitimate and not in conflict at all. And Sam revealed why he needs Mary to be alive. Dean apologized to Sam and warmed up to Jack. And my cold, black little heart grew three sizes. I liked this one, guys. I hope you did too.
Oh, and Cas is back. So, there's that. :-|
Again, no spoilers for future episodes, please!
THEN: We kill monsters. And don't act like you care about that one.
NOW: A guy named Wes gets killed by his late wife. Sorry about that, Wes. I really liked your kitchen.
Title card! (I also really like the S13 title card, guys.)
Sam walks in the front door of the bunker with takeout and asks Dean how he's feeling, which (1) seems to indicate Dean isn't/wasn't feeling well, and (b) Dean doesn't answer, which implies it was emotional and not physical unwellness. He's working up the case of poor dead Wes, and isn't too taken with Sam's suggestion that they go to Wisconsin, because what are they going to do with "Damien?" Bring him along, Sam says, but Dean reiterates his earlier position that he's not interested in babysitting the antichrist. And by the way, Sam, does your desire to go out on a hunt with the kid mean your hopeless plan to bring Mom back isn't working? Cause remember, she's dead.
And the sooner you can wrap your head around that, the sooner we can move on.
So you're saying you want to move on. From Mom.
Oh, ouch. And Dean doesn't really have a response to that. Sam says they all need to get out and then brings on the puppy dog eyes and says "Just give him a chance. Please. For me."
Someone remind me to send a nice thank-you card to director John Badham, cause DAMN.
And Dean, being only human, is completely powerless under that spell, so the next thing we see is Sam knocking on Jack's door. Jack is sitting on his bed watching Netflix.
Clone Wars?
The computer said I'd like it. I do like Osaka. Kinda hate Anakin.
Uh. That's probably for the best.
Hee! Yes, Jack, it's a good sign if you kinda hate the potentially-good guy with special powers who went very, very bad. It's an extremely good sign. (But what's your opinion on Luke, who had the choice of following his evil father, or rebels who were wise and/or hot? This is also important.) Sam invites him to go out on a case, and Jack calmly responds "no." He figures Sam only wants to give him a needed change of scenery because it might "Get my powers working again? So I can be your interdimensional can opener? You're using me."
Oh, wait. We're doing this? We're getting this right out in the open? Rather than letting it fester? We're having Jack come right out and say I overheard this conversation and what you're doing isn't cool? Thank you baby Jesus.
Sam explains the rift into AU Land, and how Mary ended up on the wrong side of it, and confirms that he does hope Jack can open it. "But if this doesn't work, if that can't happen, that's okay. Because I do care about you. But I should have told you. I'm sorry." WHAT SHOW AM I WATCHING? We took a misunderstanding that could have caused an entire season's worth of unnecessary drama and cleared it up in the first six minutes?
Also there's a lot of sincere looks and swallowing and I might need to watch this again a few times.
Jack reminds Sam that Dean wants to kill him, and Sam says he won't let that happen, and that's all well and good, Sam. I absolutely believe you. But I still wouldn't want to travel from Kansas to Wisconsin in a car with someone who's pretty eager to kill me. It's just awkward. But Sam promises that Dean respects effort, so if Jack comes along and tries to help... well, who knows what could happen?
Outside poor dead Wes's house, complete with nice kitchen, Jack examines their fake IDs and is surprised to learn that the "good guys" are liars. Sam explains about hunting and ghosts and revenants, while Dean is still short-tempered and not particularly friendly. He instructs Jack to stay in the car while they talk to a witness, but after a short interview, they look up and see the Impala is empty and the door to the house is open.
Jack's in the house, trying to show some effort, but Dean's still not impressed. And really, all he found was the already-marked bloodstain on the floor, so it's hard to argue with Dean's judgment. Still in trainer mode, Sam explains the EMF meter to his protege. Since it's not picking up anything, Dean announces they're dealing with a revenant.
Later, at the cemetary, Dean puts Jack to work digging up poor dead Wes's poor dead wife, while Sam argues that he's acting like Dad. "And that's a bad thing?" answers Dean. Well, yeah, sometimes. Sometimes you remember that he was an obsessive bastard. But I guess tonight's not one of those times. Tonight, Dean says "I'm not gonna be his mother, and neither are you." Hmmm. Mothers are a touchy subject these days.
The poor dead wife turns out to be snug as a dead bug in her coffin, which means they're not dealing with a revenant. They burn her anyway, while Dean grouses about these new monsters today, what with shapeshifting demons and apocalyptic worlds and whatnot, and if he had a lawn, he'd be telling kids to stay off it. Jack asks if his mom could be a ghost, and Sam explains that they burned her body, so she can't. "And what gets burned, stays dead," says Dean.
A nice little family portrait.
And I'm sure that's going to be a segue to formerly dead-and-burned Mary in AU Land, but no! We actually transition to presently dead-and-burned Cas. Let's just get Cas's story done right here, shall we, because I can't be bothered to spend a lot of time on it. Cas wakes up in the Empty and the only interesting things about these scenes are (1) we find out every angel and demon who ever died is asleep in the Empty, and does that mean they might be able to come back? and (b) Cas gets flung out of the Empty simply by annoying the hell out of the more interesting being who seems to be in charge of the place.
Back in the non-Empty, another person is killed by a dead loved one. Since she was talking to roadside assistance when she died, the operator knows who she was talking to - her dead son. Again, there's no EMF. The guys head to the police department, where Sam goes inside and leaves Dean to keep an eye on Jack. I'm sure Jack was thrilled about the guy who says he'll keep him from being killed leaving him alone with the guy who wants to kill him. Sam's annoyed that Dean sent him to a hot dog cart, but honestly, there are a lot of worse things he could have done.
Let's pause for a minute and appreciate the boys out in the sunlight, and to ignore that the cups are, once again, empty. (Actually, that front cup might have something in it. But Sam's cup isn't fooling anybody.)
Sam discovers that both of the victims were seeing the same grief counselor, and there's a cute scene where Dean eats a hot dog and hypothesizes that the grief counselor is a medium. "This woman can talk to ghosts?" Jack asks. I didn't catch any of this on the first watch, but clearly Jack is thinking a lot about his mom as he learns about the supernatural.
Cut to the grief counselor's house, which is also her "family therapy" office. The Winchesters and Jack pass a client on his way out, and Jack cheerfully greets him, because he's either absolutely the most precious cinnamon roll, or he's doing a damn good imitation of one, with malicious intent. (I need a good shorthand name for these guys - "the Winchesters and Jack" is kind of long and unwieldy. Accepting nominations!) They walk in on someone who seems to be her assistant and Dean insists on an appointment right now. The assistant tries to brush them off, but the counselor walks in and says "you've lost someone recently?" Dean says no and looks annoyed, but Jack pipes up with "my mother!" Sam claims they're all brothers, and the counselor, whose name is Mia, agrees to see them immediately. Which is convenient.
Dean orders Jack not to speak until he's instructed to, and then goes on to try to sabbotage the appointment ("Mom was great, now she's dead, what's the deal with catharsis?") while Sam tries to subtly (and maybe not so subtly) get information from Mia about her process. And the brothers end up accidentally having a real therapy session and getting their feelings out. Dean insists that he knows and accepts that their mother is dead, but Sam is delusional.
He won't even admit that Mom's dead. Won't even admit it.
Stop.
Because if he admits it, then it's real. And if it's real, then he has to deal with it. And he can't handle that.
Right, because this is so easy for you, huh?
No, it's not easy.
Yeah, but at least you had a relationship with Mom. I mean, who did she always call? Who did she look to for everything? You had something with her I never had! And now I'm just supposed to accept that I never will have it?
Oh, Sammy. All this time I thought you were sure Mary was alive because you didn't think Lucifer would be kind enough to kill her outright. I thought this was you being realistic, with a side of pessimism. And it turns out you were full of hope? You were just wishing so hard that she was alive so you could have another chance at the relationship you were denied?
Excuse me, I'll be over here in the corner, crying.
Dean is almost savagely happy to tear Sam down.
As everyone else looks anxious (Jack and Mia) or annoyed (Dean), Sam leaves the room. While innocently getting a drink, he notices a smear of blood on a sign blocking the staircase, and he immediately shifts into hunter mode and non-innocently ignores the sign and goes upstairs. Where he discovers more blood smears and finally, in the bathroom, bloody handprints and a gore-filled bathtub and evidence of... a shifter! Okay, I have to confess I did not immediately get that this was shifter remains, because they usually show us an ear. This was just a nasty glob of tissue and hair. Ew.
Back downstairs, Dean takes a drink from his flask while Mia points out that he's kind of a douche and Jack is terrified of him. "You're angry, Dean. And if you don't want to do anything about it, that's your business. But you're aiming it at everyone in your life." Which is very true. But this useful counseling ends when Sam bursts into the room, gun in hand, and announces Mia is a shapeshifter. She insists that yes, she is a shifter, but she hasn't killed anyone. She says she helps her patients by shifting into the person they lost, so they can see them one last time and say goodbye. And a flashback shows her doing this by looking at pictures on Wes's phone. So, she doesn't need physical contact with her target? That's something new, isn't it? (Ha ha ha continuity.) Sam says Wes was killed "three nights ago" and she says she has an alibi for that night, because she was volunteering at the woman's shelter. All night, Mia? Because Sam didn't tell you what time he died. Your alibi sounds fishy to me. But it checks out.
Mia thinks she knows who the killer might be, and shows them a picture of another shifter named Buddy, who likes hurting people. (How useful is a picture of a shifter?) She says Buddy liked to see the look on someone's face when they realized they had nothing left. That's oddly specific. Since the shifter is targeting her patients, it's someone who has access to her. Her best guess is the assistant we saw earlier. Dean says he'll go check the guy out, and Jack volunteers to go with him. Dean's not thrilled but Sam gives him A Look, and he knows the puppy dog eyes are next, so he gives up and leaves with Jack in tow.
In the car, Jack tells Dean that Sam told him about his plan to rescue Mary. "Well, here's something you should know," says Dean. "Sam's plans don't always work out." And okay, that's true, but it's also pretty cold. He makes Jack wait in the car while he checks out the assistant.
The next scene is Sam, still at Mia's, getting a call from Dean saying the assistant isn't the shifter and he's on his way back. Sam's going through her security camera footage looking for flashy shifter eyes. He asks how the whole visit-from-your-dead-loved-one thing works, and she explains that her patients "chalk it up to hypnotism, a lucid dream." Oh, wait. They don't know she's pretending to be their dead loved one? That makes this a whole lot worse. I thought she was doing this explicitly, but she's just disappearing and then coming back as their dead loved one and that's really, really not okay. And it also means there's no reason for those two victims to be so shocked and confused when they saw their dead loved ones. Not until they killed them, anyway. I mean, Wes, you just saw your dead wife at your counselor's office. Why are you so surprised she turned up at your house too?
(Also, I don't think counselors ever refer to patients. I think they call them clients.)
Anyway. Sam's kind of surprised it works, but Mia says people are hard-wired to want closure, and you didn't get closure, did you? Oh, I see what's coming, and I don't like it. Mia's going to pretend to be Mary so Sam can get closure. As if a few minutes of saying "goodbye" to a monster who looks like his mother are going to fix a lifetime (multiple lifetimes) of hurt. Sam deserves more than a fake emotional moment. I don't like this at all.
(Have I mentioned before that I cover the bottom of the screen at the beginning so I don't see who the guest stars are? Why do I bring this up now? No reason.)
This man deserves closure. And a hug. And a puppy.
On the video, we watch Team Jackchester (no, that's not good) walk up the stairs, and it turns out the man Jack greeted on their way in is our flashy eyed shifter! We should have known. Well, done, Sammy. Since he knows Dean is on his way back, he sits tight and waits for backup. No, ha ha, of course he doesn't. When Dean returns, he finds that Sam borrowed Mia's car to go get Mr. Shifty Eyed Buddy. Dean's surprised Sam didn't call him, and Mia says "can you blame him?" but that's not how this works. When you're hunting you have to be able to put your petty differences about dead mothers aside and forget everything but the hunt. Oh, god, I'm turning into John Winchester.
Dean walks off to call Sam, and Jack goes off with Mia. He tells her about Kelly's death and shows her the video, and asks if he can "see her, just once. Please." Mia tells him to shut his eyes, and walks out of the room for a couple of seconds, and there's no blood and no tissue and no ears left lying about, just Kelly wearing Mia's clothes. So, I don't understand how these crazy new shifters work, and why sometimes they leave lots of bloody goo and other times they don't. And I understand why Dean was so curmudgeonly about such things earlier. But let's move along.
Jack tells Kelly that Sam thinks he's good, and he wants to be good, but he's hurt people accidentally. And he usually doesn't feel anything about that, so he thinks maybe he's a monster. Kelly/Mia tells him "it doesn't matter what you are, it matters what you do, and even monsters can do good in this world." Oh, where have we heard that before? It's true, Jack. Please believe it. It worked for Sam and it will work for you. Stay good for me, little buddy. Be Luke, not Anakin.
Meanwhile, Dean's phone rings. It's Sam, telling him he missed the shifter and is on his way back. "Well, that was too freakin' easy," Dean says, looking down at... Dean's unconscious body. Ooooh, the Dean/shifter fakeout! It was good in "Skin" and it's good today.
Two Deans are definitely better than two Castiels.
Mia returns as herself and gets a hug and a thank you from Jack. Then Shifter!Dean comes in, picks up a fireplace poker, and smacks Jack in the head. And the saddest part of this is that Jack probably thought oh, it's finally happening, he's going to kill me instead of this clearly isn't Dean. Shifter!Dean removes his pretty Dean face, which I know makes filming the show easier, but it's certainly less pleasing to look at.
Dean wakes up cuffed to a fireplace next to Jack. He tries to get Jack to snap the cuffs off, and he's all, Sam believes in you, do it for Sam. Do it for the puppy dog eyes. Buddy, meanwhile, is arguing with Mia and he tells her "I'm not going to kill those boys, you are." And why do people keep calling them "boys?" They're well into their 30s. In Show years, Dean is 40 or 41 if you count the two skipped years. (Which they don't.) It's time to stop. But I digress. Buddy tells Mia that he'll kill her unless she agrees to shoot Dean and Jack, but she refuses. Then he sees Sam on the security camera and says "look, baby brother!" and Dean's face gets gloriously panicky and we like it. Dean yells "Sam, no!" but Sam doesn't hear enough to be properly alarmed and Buddy punches Dean out and then imitates his voice to make it sound like everything's okay. As Sam walks right into the ambush, Jack sees what's going on and he gets the glowy eyes and yells "no!" and his power emerges, suspending the shifter in slow motion and deflecting the bullet. Just like Sam deflected the bullet when Dean tried to shoot Jack! Sam shoots Buddy and yay, happy ending!
Aftermath! Mia says she'll dispose of Buddy and it was all her fault and she only wanted to help, etc., and Jack tells her "you did." Aw.
Later, in the bunker, Jack's in the kitchen. Dean comes in a gets a couple of beers - but not one for Jack - and tells him he did good. And thus Jack learns that the way to Dean's heart is to save Sam. (Okay, he saved Dean too. But it was clearly the sight of the shifter pointing his gun at a door that Sam was about to walk through that empowered him. It is known.)
Dean goes into the library and hands Sam his beer and apologizes for "being a dick lately" and admits Sam might be right about Jack and oh, Dean, I love you and your bursts of emotional maturity and your alcoholic peace offerings and your pretty, pretty bandaged face. But Sam's not as excited about Jack accessing his powers as you'd expect him to be.
What if you're right? About Mom? What if she is dead and I'm just in denial?
Don't say that.
What? You've been wanting me to admit that since it happened.
I know I have. But don't say that. I need you to keep the faith. For both of us. Cause right now, I. Right now I don't believe in a damn thing.
Thank you again, John Badham.
So, what do we think about this about-face of Dean's? Has he been harboring a tiny bit of hope all along, thinking that Sam might actually come up with a way to save Mary after all? Did he not realize he even had that hope until Sam threatened to take it away?
I loved a lot of things about this episode, but especially the way they communicated. Jack told Sam what he overheard, and Sam apologized and told Jack how he really feels. Dean told Sam how he feels about Sam's insistence that Mary is alive. And then he told him the exact opposite. And they both seemed real and legitimate and not in conflict at all. And Sam revealed why he needs Mary to be alive. Dean apologized to Sam and warmed up to Jack. And my cold, black little heart grew three sizes. I liked this one, guys. I hope you did too.
Oh, and Cas is back. So, there's that. :-|
Again, no spoilers for future episodes, please!