The Dee-Annotated Supernatural - The Journey Home
Personally, I think the best call of the evening came over dinner at Irish before the show, when the Male was talking about his amazing feats of sneeze during the day (he's diseased, and yesterday managed to actually snot in his own eye). A little later, I sneezed in my usual, confined, restrained manner, and I said, "See? I sneeze like a refined person."
To which he said: "Whereas I sneeze like a refinery."
The Journey Home
I think I should note that I actually really hate horror. I'm good with creepy, I even kinda like it, but that "being wound tighter waiting for something really loud to happen" horror thing? HATE IT. So that might be part of my ambivalence on this ep.
Girl: There's something in my closet.
Mom: *throws open closet*
The Male: *extensive mime, involving tentacles shooting out of the closet, dragging her in, wrenching her apart, and a slowly ebbing arterial spray painting the walls red*
Me: All that discussion of the Shoggoth at dinner set you off, didn't it?
The Male: Now put that in your summary!
Mom: See? There's nothing there.
Me: Bullshit. There's a cameraman. He's right behind you.
Chair: *moves*
Me: Why is she not with the screaming?
Closet: *contains person on fire*
Girl: *screams*
Me: Oh NOW she's with the screaming. High threshold, this kid.
Dean: Hey! Am I boring you with this hunting evil stuff?
Me: Schoolteacher!Dean
Sam: *flicks through his notebook full of trees* Wait, I've seen this.
The Male: Yeah, you just drew it six times. DUH.
Me: Hang on, there's a hot blonde screaming for help in the window of their old house and he twigs about a TREE?
The Male: Twigs about a tree. Heh.
Me: ohshutup
Sam: Dean, I know where we have to go next. Back home, back to Kansas.
The Male: But we AREN'T IN KANSAS ANYMORE, Toto.
Sam: I have these nightmares.
Dean: I've noticed.
We: *crack it*
Sam: I dreamt about Jessica's death for days before it happened...
Me: You were all "No, I will never tell you! I must keep the mystery in the relationship!" That was THREE episodes ago! And now you're just blabbing it all out and we're not even out of the credits? Fickle!FICKLE! Did Paris mean nothing to you?!
Dean: I mean, first you tell me that you've got the Shining...
We: *lose it completely*
Dean: Especially when...
Sam: When what?
Dean: When I swore to myself that I would never go back there.
Me: It's just happy brother sharing hour, isn't it?
The Male: And something else, I'm a woman!
Now, I have MAJOR HEART for soft-around-the-edges puppy-eyes Dean, but this was getting just a little touchy-feely.
House: *looks exactly the same*
Tree: *looks eldritch*
Impala: *kicks the shit out of the Volvo parked out front*
Me: The boys are back in town.
The Male: Yeah. WHERE are the guitars?
Mom: *answers the door to Sam and Dean*
Me: Hey Missy! ...I mean Mom.
Dean: Sorry to bother you Ma'am, but we're with the Federal--
Sam: I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean...
Me: What is with this HONESTY bender that he's on?
Mom: OK, come on in.
Me: I think Dean's actually too wigged out to eye off the hottie.
The Male: Also, it's his MOM, dude.
Me: Remember when you asked her to the prom?
The Male: Shut up, Ted!
Dean: So, you just moved in.
Mom: Yeah, from Wichita.
The Male: *sings* We've come from Wichita.
Me: That's "going to", actually.
The Male: Yeah, it's like Seven Nation Army backwards. Satanic Nation Army!
Me: Six-six-six Nation Army.
BTW, kudos to Ackles for doing such a great rendition of a man just about ready to bite his own thumb off at the joint from twitchy unease.
Seri: It came into my bedroom, and it was on fire.
Me: So, is Dean even still here, or has he left a Dean-shaped hole in the door on his screaming way out?
Sam: Then what are we supposed to do?
Me: Yell at each other in the street a bit more.
Dean: If this were any other kind of job, what would we do?
Me: Hit the internet.
The Male: Find the hottie with the info.
Me: And the old survivor.
The Male: What, Dad?
Me: Is he the hottie or the survivor?
Dean: ...then I carried you out the front door.
Sam: You did?
Me: Well, you were a lot shorter then and you didn't have such a fat ass.
Dad's answerphone: If this is an emergency, call my son Dean.
Me: Dude, I AM your son Dean!
Dean: I know I've left you messages before...
Me: But this time I really mean it about the running out of money.
OK, again, GREAT BIG HEART around "losing it but can only admit it to Dad" Dean, but why doesn't he know what to do? They've just outlined a plan. They've got a WILL to see this done, and their usual MO. Now, I would buy that he is freaking out (buy? Hell, as a great woman once said, I'd like to rent it by the hour) as never before and as Sam can't even get the tiniest idea of, but not knowing what to do? No. He's not lost, he's just scared. It's no bigger an admission than "I don't know what to do". I would've preferred it immensely, actually, if it was just a very bland "We're in Lawrence, there's shit in our old house, thought you might be interested" with his voice cracking like that. (omgsquish) And maybe a "Dad, I need you" on the back.
Anyway.
Monkeything: *starts clapping*
Me: OK, they win at creepy.
I hate the rest of this scene. Anywayanyway.
Sam: There are a few psychics...
Me: He's going through the phonebook? TWENTY YEARS on, and they think this person's still in town and practising? Of course she IS, but that's no excuse for that sort of sloppy thinking.
Sam: How did you know all that?
The Male: Went through your trash.
Missouri: *lays into Dean*
Me: Sam's about to die happy.
Unequivocal heart for Dean's "you a crazy scary lady!" look.
Sam: I don't know, but Dad going missing and Jessica dying and now this house... it all happening at once. It just feels like something starting.
Me: It feels like we're in a television show or something!
Fridge: *opens invitingly*
Me: The bacon. It calls to us!
Poltergeist: *lures the kid into the fridge*
Me: The FUCK? Who has a big space like that in their fridge? We are YUPPIES, man, and we don't have a big space like that in our fridge.
The Male: It's so you can put the kid in there. Duh.
Me: What, on hot days?
The Male: The thing shoulda killed the plumber and shoved him in the fridge.
Me: Then the kid wouldn't fit.
The Male: Sure he would, and he'd have something to eat.
Missouri: If there's a dark energy around here...
The Male: You! It's you! You're the dark energy!
Me: Dude.
The Male: And Sam is a DORK energy.
Missouri: That an EMF?
Dean: Yeah.
Missour: Amateur.
Me: Hey, we all work with the gifts god gave us, lady.
Missouri: This place is a magnet for paranormal energy.
The Male: No shit. I mean, look at the population of the room.
Sam: *taps the wall*
Lamp: *unplugs itself*
Me: Awesome! Two prongs - *tchung* - right in the back of the neck.
Sam: *is strangled by the cord and can't reach the wall with the little baggy*
Me: Peg it at the hole! C'mon! Two points!
Sam: *doesn't*
Me: You SUCK.
Dean: *hoves into the doorway*
Me: Big brother to the rescue AGAIN.
Dean: *kicks in the wall and shoves in the baggy*
Bright cleansing light: *happens*
Me: Dude. You should get some of that shit for your sinuses.
The Male: I have a COLD, not a poltergeist.
Me: That's what you think.
Mom: Hey, we're home.
House: *is trashed*
Mom: What happened?
The Male: Frat party.
Mom's bed: *gets its groove on*
The Male: Massage bed! I want one!
Dean: You grab the kids, I'll get Jenny.
The Male: NOW he's thinking. Hands on the hottie. Whoo!
Mom: I can't open the door!
Dean: Stand back! *kicks it open*
Me: I love his right boot.
Sam: Seri, take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don't look back.
Me: And thus is another generation born. Cue "History Repeating", maestro.
The Male: Where ARE the guitars?
Dean: Where's Sam?
Seri: He's inside, something got him.
Me: Fuck this shit. I carried him outta that house once, and I'll damn well do it again. Even if he does have a fat ass now.
Dean: *axe in one hand, shotgun in the other*
Me: I love his style.
The Male: And his right boot.
Dean: *completely fails to kick open the front door*
Me: Nah, his right boot sucks. I'm totally over it.
Dean: *axes through the door*
The Male: Here's Johnny!
Dean: *shapes up to shoot pyro-features*
Sam: No, don't!
Dean: Why not?
Sam: Because I know who it is. I can see her now.
Flamebot: *morphs into Mary*
Me: Well, if I'm busted, might as well turn the toasty off.
The Male: Gosh darn, you kids. I would've got away with it, too.
Mary: Dean. *She smiles and moves past Dean, towards--
The Male: Max.
Me: Where did Max come from?
The Male: That's his question. And then Dean goes, "Shit. Mom! What'd you have to tell him that for?" And then he has to explain about the baby dying and how they got a good genetic sample first and made a clone.
Me: Sam is actually spelt "Xam".
The Male: Because Dean needed someone to throw the good lines at.
Mary: *looks benignly at Sam*
The Male: Luke, I am your mother.
Mary: I'm sorry.
Sam: For what?
The Male: This! *plunges fist into imaginary chest*
Everything: *is over*
Me: Well, that takes care of the "I have no memories of Mom" thing from the pilot that they helpfully showed us again in the opening.
Dean: *looks at photos* Thanks for these.
Jenny: Don't thank me, they're yours.
Me: Also, I don't want a single thing from your FREAKY-ASS FAMILY in my house.
Missouri: *dribbles a bib-full about Mary cancelling out the poltergeist*
Me: Thank you, info-dump lady. That's the most pat, unsatisfying thing ever.
The Male: It's pretty stupid.
But I guess it really is all about protecting Sam. It's enough to make you wonder when Dean's going to catch fire. (If Missouri keeps on his case, pretty bloody soon, I suspect.)
ETA: (whoops, missed a bit)
Sam: What's happening to me?
Me: Puberty.
The Male: You're turning into a voodoo lady. You're shaking that stick. You're driving him crazy.
Missouri: Don't you boys be strangers!
The Male: Stranger than WHAT?
The Impala: *slouches towards Bethlehem*
The Male: WHERE ARE THE GUITARS, MOTHERFUCKERS?!
Missouri: Why he couldn't sense his own father, I don't know...
Me: Because he's actually a clone, we just covered that.
John: Not until I know the truth.
Both of us: HE'S A CLONE.
Honestly, that final scene? Had all the style and grace of a game of Porrasturvat. In fact, this whole episode, while delivering some humdingers of story, was staggering about like a drunkard. Too much going on for subtlety, so too much straight-up. Such a succession of little clunks that it sounded like a ring going down the sink.
Oh, it was kinda grand too, with the DEAN and Sam being a dork and giggly and yeah, y'know, whee. But somewhat fumbly. And also, as frequently noted, NO GUITARS. It pains us, precious.
There was fifteen minutes of advanced extrapolation on the "Sam is Max" concept after the show, but I'll spare y'all the industrial-strength crazy.
To which he said: "Whereas I sneeze like a refinery."
The Journey Home
I think I should note that I actually really hate horror. I'm good with creepy, I even kinda like it, but that "being wound tighter waiting for something really loud to happen" horror thing? HATE IT. So that might be part of my ambivalence on this ep.
Girl: There's something in my closet.
Mom: *throws open closet*
The Male: *extensive mime, involving tentacles shooting out of the closet, dragging her in, wrenching her apart, and a slowly ebbing arterial spray painting the walls red*
Me: All that discussion of the Shoggoth at dinner set you off, didn't it?
The Male: Now put that in your summary!
Mom: See? There's nothing there.
Me: Bullshit. There's a cameraman. He's right behind you.
Chair: *moves*
Me: Why is she not with the screaming?
Closet: *contains person on fire*
Girl: *screams*
Me: Oh NOW she's with the screaming. High threshold, this kid.
Dean: Hey! Am I boring you with this hunting evil stuff?
Me: Schoolteacher!Dean
Sam: *flicks through his notebook full of trees* Wait, I've seen this.
The Male: Yeah, you just drew it six times. DUH.
Me: Hang on, there's a hot blonde screaming for help in the window of their old house and he twigs about a TREE?
The Male: Twigs about a tree. Heh.
Me: ohshutup
Sam: Dean, I know where we have to go next. Back home, back to Kansas.
The Male: But we AREN'T IN KANSAS ANYMORE, Toto.
Sam: I have these nightmares.
Dean: I've noticed.
We: *crack it*
Sam: I dreamt about Jessica's death for days before it happened...
Me: You were all "No, I will never tell you! I must keep the mystery in the relationship!" That was THREE episodes ago! And now you're just blabbing it all out and we're not even out of the credits? Fickle!FICKLE! Did Paris mean nothing to you?!
Dean: I mean, first you tell me that you've got the Shining...
We: *lose it completely*
Dean: Especially when...
Sam: When what?
Dean: When I swore to myself that I would never go back there.
Me: It's just happy brother sharing hour, isn't it?
The Male: And something else, I'm a woman!
Now, I have MAJOR HEART for soft-around-the-edges puppy-eyes Dean, but this was getting just a little touchy-feely.
House: *looks exactly the same*
Tree: *looks eldritch*
Impala: *kicks the shit out of the Volvo parked out front*
Me: The boys are back in town.
The Male: Yeah. WHERE are the guitars?
Mom: *answers the door to Sam and Dean*
Me: Hey Missy! ...I mean Mom.
Dean: Sorry to bother you Ma'am, but we're with the Federal--
Sam: I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean...
Me: What is with this HONESTY bender that he's on?
Mom: OK, come on in.
Me: I think Dean's actually too wigged out to eye off the hottie.
The Male: Also, it's his MOM, dude.
Me: Remember when you asked her to the prom?
The Male: Shut up, Ted!
Dean: So, you just moved in.
Mom: Yeah, from Wichita.
The Male: *sings* We've come from Wichita.
Me: That's "going to", actually.
The Male: Yeah, it's like Seven Nation Army backwards. Satanic Nation Army!
Me: Six-six-six Nation Army.
BTW, kudos to Ackles for doing such a great rendition of a man just about ready to bite his own thumb off at the joint from twitchy unease.
Seri: It came into my bedroom, and it was on fire.
Me: So, is Dean even still here, or has he left a Dean-shaped hole in the door on his screaming way out?
Sam: Then what are we supposed to do?
Me: Yell at each other in the street a bit more.
Dean: If this were any other kind of job, what would we do?
Me: Hit the internet.
The Male: Find the hottie with the info.
Me: And the old survivor.
The Male: What, Dad?
Me: Is he the hottie or the survivor?
Dean: ...then I carried you out the front door.
Sam: You did?
Me: Well, you were a lot shorter then and you didn't have such a fat ass.
Dad's answerphone: If this is an emergency, call my son Dean.
Me: Dude, I AM your son Dean!
Dean: I know I've left you messages before...
Me: But this time I really mean it about the running out of money.
OK, again, GREAT BIG HEART around "losing it but can only admit it to Dad" Dean, but why doesn't he know what to do? They've just outlined a plan. They've got a WILL to see this done, and their usual MO. Now, I would buy that he is freaking out (buy? Hell, as a great woman once said, I'd like to rent it by the hour) as never before and as Sam can't even get the tiniest idea of, but not knowing what to do? No. He's not lost, he's just scared. It's no bigger an admission than "I don't know what to do". I would've preferred it immensely, actually, if it was just a very bland "We're in Lawrence, there's shit in our old house, thought you might be interested" with his voice cracking like that. (omgsquish) And maybe a "Dad, I need you" on the back.
Anyway.
Monkeything: *starts clapping*
Me: OK, they win at creepy.
I hate the rest of this scene. Anywayanyway.
Sam: There are a few psychics...
Me: He's going through the phonebook? TWENTY YEARS on, and they think this person's still in town and practising? Of course she IS, but that's no excuse for that sort of sloppy thinking.
Sam: How did you know all that?
The Male: Went through your trash.
Missouri: *lays into Dean*
Me: Sam's about to die happy.
Unequivocal heart for Dean's "you a crazy scary lady!" look.
Sam: I don't know, but Dad going missing and Jessica dying and now this house... it all happening at once. It just feels like something starting.
Me: It feels like we're in a television show or something!
Fridge: *opens invitingly*
Me: The bacon. It calls to us!
Poltergeist: *lures the kid into the fridge*
Me: The FUCK? Who has a big space like that in their fridge? We are YUPPIES, man, and we don't have a big space like that in our fridge.
The Male: It's so you can put the kid in there. Duh.
Me: What, on hot days?
The Male: The thing shoulda killed the plumber and shoved him in the fridge.
Me: Then the kid wouldn't fit.
The Male: Sure he would, and he'd have something to eat.
Missouri: If there's a dark energy around here...
The Male: You! It's you! You're the dark energy!
Me: Dude.
The Male: And Sam is a DORK energy.
Missouri: That an EMF?
Dean: Yeah.
Missour: Amateur.
Me: Hey, we all work with the gifts god gave us, lady.
Missouri: This place is a magnet for paranormal energy.
The Male: No shit. I mean, look at the population of the room.
Sam: *taps the wall*
Lamp: *unplugs itself*
Me: Awesome! Two prongs - *tchung* - right in the back of the neck.
Sam: *is strangled by the cord and can't reach the wall with the little baggy*
Me: Peg it at the hole! C'mon! Two points!
Sam: *doesn't*
Me: You SUCK.
Dean: *hoves into the doorway*
Me: Big brother to the rescue AGAIN.
Dean: *kicks in the wall and shoves in the baggy*
Bright cleansing light: *happens*
Me: Dude. You should get some of that shit for your sinuses.
The Male: I have a COLD, not a poltergeist.
Me: That's what you think.
Mom: Hey, we're home.
House: *is trashed*
Mom: What happened?
The Male: Frat party.
Mom's bed: *gets its groove on*
The Male: Massage bed! I want one!
Dean: You grab the kids, I'll get Jenny.
The Male: NOW he's thinking. Hands on the hottie. Whoo!
Mom: I can't open the door!
Dean: Stand back! *kicks it open*
Me: I love his right boot.
Sam: Seri, take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don't look back.
Me: And thus is another generation born. Cue "History Repeating", maestro.
The Male: Where ARE the guitars?
Dean: Where's Sam?
Seri: He's inside, something got him.
Me: Fuck this shit. I carried him outta that house once, and I'll damn well do it again. Even if he does have a fat ass now.
Dean: *axe in one hand, shotgun in the other*
Me: I love his style.
The Male: And his right boot.
Dean: *completely fails to kick open the front door*
Me: Nah, his right boot sucks. I'm totally over it.
Dean: *axes through the door*
The Male: Here's Johnny!
Dean: *shapes up to shoot pyro-features*
Sam: No, don't!
Dean: Why not?
Sam: Because I know who it is. I can see her now.
Flamebot: *morphs into Mary*
Me: Well, if I'm busted, might as well turn the toasty off.
The Male: Gosh darn, you kids. I would've got away with it, too.
Mary: Dean. *She smiles and moves past Dean, towards--
The Male: Max.
Me: Where did Max come from?
The Male: That's his question. And then Dean goes, "Shit. Mom! What'd you have to tell him that for?" And then he has to explain about the baby dying and how they got a good genetic sample first and made a clone.
Me: Sam is actually spelt "Xam".
The Male: Because Dean needed someone to throw the good lines at.
Mary: *looks benignly at Sam*
The Male: Luke, I am your mother.
Mary: I'm sorry.
Sam: For what?
The Male: This! *plunges fist into imaginary chest*
Everything: *is over*
Me: Well, that takes care of the "I have no memories of Mom" thing from the pilot that they helpfully showed us again in the opening.
Dean: *looks at photos* Thanks for these.
Jenny: Don't thank me, they're yours.
Me: Also, I don't want a single thing from your FREAKY-ASS FAMILY in my house.
Missouri: *dribbles a bib-full about Mary cancelling out the poltergeist*
Me: Thank you, info-dump lady. That's the most pat, unsatisfying thing ever.
The Male: It's pretty stupid.
But I guess it really is all about protecting Sam. It's enough to make you wonder when Dean's going to catch fire. (If Missouri keeps on his case, pretty bloody soon, I suspect.)
ETA: (whoops, missed a bit)
Sam: What's happening to me?
Me: Puberty.
The Male: You're turning into a voodoo lady. You're shaking that stick. You're driving him crazy.
Missouri: Don't you boys be strangers!
The Male: Stranger than WHAT?
The Impala: *slouches towards Bethlehem*
The Male: WHERE ARE THE GUITARS, MOTHERFUCKERS?!
Missouri: Why he couldn't sense his own father, I don't know...
Me: Because he's actually a clone, we just covered that.
John: Not until I know the truth.
Both of us: HE'S A CLONE.
Honestly, that final scene? Had all the style and grace of a game of Porrasturvat. In fact, this whole episode, while delivering some humdingers of story, was staggering about like a drunkard. Too much going on for subtlety, so too much straight-up. Such a succession of little clunks that it sounded like a ring going down the sink.
Oh, it was kinda grand too, with the DEAN and Sam being a dork and giggly and yeah, y'know, whee. But somewhat fumbly. And also, as frequently noted, NO GUITARS. It pains us, precious.
There was fifteen minutes of advanced extrapolation on the "Sam is Max" concept after the show, but I'll spare y'all the industrial-strength crazy.