Let me guess … it starts in the bunker. Sam sits at the table, reading. Dean comes into the room, holding a laptop, and says, “You got anything?” Or he says, to really shake things up, “I think I got something.”
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Look, was it a particularly deep or revelatory episode about young!them? No. Was it an outstanding repertory company? Truly, no. Was it suffused with honest tender emotion or genuine creeps? No. Did it shock and awe with its visuals? Not really. Did it tug the heartstrings via subtle deep resonances with early episodes? No. Do I buy this mawkish 10yo Sam with a college guide book under his jacket? No. Did it prominently feature a ludicrous musical sting that shifted quickly from hilariously dumb to embarrassingly dumb? Yes. Was the ghost makeup, once again, shamefully, baldly, poorly copied from a Halloween makeup youtube tutorial? Yes. Was it dreadfully clumsy in its deployment of the word ‘normal’? Yes. Was the shot construction didactic and awkward and occasionally risible? Yes. Did it feature a characteristically shithouse flashback? Yes. Were scenes kind of mangled together and everyone says everything in very obvious statements and makes up stupid aphorisms and pretends they’re something human people have ever said in their lives? Yes. Am I talking myself out of my initial “well, okay” reaction? Probably.
BUT: Did it end with a gangbusters, sharp and pained and aborted argument in the car that gave us something new and interesting between them! Hallelujah it did! Did it pick up a few neat moments for Dean along the way? Yes. Was a contained one(ish) location casefic with just Sam and Dean and their histories at stake? It was! Was that location happily absurd in its vastness and emptiness and decor? Yes. Does Sam and Dean walking down hallways and shit with shadows running on their skin please me? Yes. Did Sam’s face look particularly worn and monolithic? My goodness yes. On the whole, especially if I can manage to forget chunks of it, I’m okay with this one, even if it could/should have been so much more.
The eternal cry of whither Sam: its great failing, in my inexpert opinion, is that it sits in the wrong point of view, particularly after last week’s Dean myopia. Begins with Sam and his College Book and his Normal, but rapidly becomes about Dean and his Guilt over his Lies. Jensen found some very good moments in there, but even just for two scenes, I think it would have been stronger to have been in Sam’s perspective all along: the hallway scene, rounding the corner to see Dean kneeling, realising that something is going on; and the final argument, where if Dean’s dilemma had been more withheld it would have packed a greater sucker punch.
I also think a stronger choice would be to approach the passing of years through Sam’s shift from the desire for normal to his contentment with his current life (part of which is Jack, priming us for the final convo). Maybe that would have been a bit of a retread of After School Special, but I was more interested in Sam being an alien next to a kid his own age than an artificially spunky girl ribbing Dean about being whatever predictable stuff she was ribbing him about and then telling him he’s grown up at the end. Everything to do with Caitlin was, frankly, a real chore, so I would have been happy with anything different there.
And that’s my essay on the Supernatural episode Hurry Boy (It’s Waiting There For You).
***I bless the rains down in Africa. *** Or would it be in Russia with a Baba Yaga?
Man, a little Sam just makes things explode.
I was not in love with the child actors, oh well. I was in love with the hotel rooms. And the colors in the cannery. There was even a disgusting little clown toy on one of the shelves at the cannery. Shadows when they were in Baby. So, for me, the episode was a pleasure to look at.
What Billie knew and didn’t know was confusing.
For me, if I were to liken the episode to a song, it would be Don’t Come Around Here No More. Kinda interesting through the first 80% then just “oh yeah” when the guitar kicks in at the end. Sam is the Mike Campbell of SPN. More guitar solos please!
I also think a stronger choice would be to approach the passing of years through Sam’s shift from the desire for normal to his contentment with his current life (part of which is Jack, priming us for the final convo)
I wish I could have watched this episode instead. Retreading After School Special wouldn’t even be a bad thing, what with that one ending on Sam’s mute ambivalence about his life, and this with Sam’s vocal rage and determination to fight – even Dean – to keep it.
This episode worked for me…maybe more than it should have. I think it was the fact that certain aspects of it filled me with such pleasure that I was able to overlook with a kinder eye the parts of it that didn’t.
The hotel room made me smile the minute I saw it. When Sam and Dean were heading to said hotel room with no bunker in sight, my smile grew even more.
All Sam and Dean with no secondary plotline? Give me more! Dean keeping a secret from and lying to Sam? An argument where Dean has the flat out audacity to tell Sam he can’t handle something, and Sam getting to raise his voice for a change and actually yell? YES!!
I wasn’t overly impressed with young Sam and Dean, but I will honestly lay some of that at the feet of the writing than the actual acting. It’s the all surface and no depth writing that has plagued this show for seasons now. The fact that Sam and Dean have any depth at all anymore is pretty much all Jared and Jensen finding ways to bring depth and subtext to these characters they know so well.
Missing utterly and completely from young Dean was the “protect Sammy at all costs” mission and mentality that was the absolute dominating factor of his life. Especially, considering the case they were working. An entity that preys on children? Dean, with a Shtriga “failure” under his belt, would have gone off to investigate, leaving his little brother alone at a hotel where something had already tried to attack a kid?
Sam. Oh, Sam. Sam was not some sad-eyed, mopey, quiet boy that would have stared longingly at his college catalog. Sam hated their lives and was mad about it. Sam would butt heads with his Dad…heatedly and quite often according to past episodes. Sam also had demon blood running through his veins and even at a young age, could feel a growing darkness inside himself. I know he was supposed to be young, but he just wasn’t written well to me…..kind of like he hasn’t been written well on the show for many years now!!
Knowing the way the show is now, the argument between Sam and Dean will probably be all resolved within the first ten minutes of the next episode but it was a glorious thing to behold.
I agree. The episode sort of worked for me, also. As you mentioned, the visuals worked, the writing – not so much. God, I miss Ben Enlund and Robbie Thompson. In my opinion, what has carried the show that we all love is Jared and Jensen who are able to add depth in the stories even when the writing is woefully lacking. Look at “Don’t call me, Shurley” for example. Two secondary characters but the writing and the acting was so compelling. Can you imagine anything like that in the past four years? It’s like somewhere along the line they lost the playbook.
// Sam hated their lives and was mad about it. Sam would butt heads with his Dad…heatedly and quite often according to past episodes. Sam also had demon blood running through his veins and even at a young age, could feel a growing darkness inside himself// It’s like somewhere along the line they lost the playbook. No one seems to have any idea how to write for Sam who is so much grayer than Dean can ever be. Dean is almost easy to write for. Sam is a much more difficult character with shadows and darkness in him and only Jared and Jensen seems to see that and they do the best they can.
You’re also right about the argument in the car. That is so real. My husband sometimes have our deepest and most honest conversations when we are in the car. It’s enclosed. There is nowhere to go.
This one more or less just washed over me and didn’t leave much behind. I was mostly occupied with the sets and whether and where I’d seen them before (the diner was the disconcerting cock one from Optimism?) and whether that hotel would make it through a quarter of a century without wear and tear to its magnificent hallway signs.
I thought the kid who played Young Travis was pretty good, and Young Caitlin better than Now Caitlin, who had some doozy lines to sell us. I didn’t feel like Young Sam and Young Dean had much to tell me about Now Sam and Now Dean, but Young Sam did have a few grimace-smiles that I have seen twitch across JP’s face, and that’s not nothing.
Loved the lurid green glow emanating from Caitlin’s and Sam’s room onto Sam’s forehead and greasy hair and expected that to be our only glimpse into Where Sam’s At, until the end. This is a rupture that’s been brewing for a while, Sam and Cas vs. Dean, and like Michelle, I’m not expecting that it will get a full airing, but god help me I still hope.
Slightly bugged about the Baba Yaga illustration. Clearly a knockoff Bilibin, but I guess they needed the ring and it was too tacky to just draw one on?
I can see what people mean by the nice sort of throw back elements of this one, but man, the poor writing simply cannot be overcome in my opinion.
I don’t even know these characters anymore. Who the hell is this Dean that seems disinterested in helping someone, who’s willing to go along with the plan of an all powerful supernatural being? I feel like the Dean I came to love would never have done or said half the things in this episode. Sam is no better, but he just does nothing now, where did his agency go?
I feel like a total killjoy all the time when it comes to this show. I used to love it and really look forward to it, but everything has just gone downhill. I wanted to know how it all ended, for Dean especially because I just love him, but he’s so different from the character I fell in love with during those early seasons. I’m not sure the end will mean anything to me at this point. I guess we’ll see!
We have joking working titles for the show in my house. For much of the run, it was Supernatural: The Gaslighting of Sam Winchester. After this last ep, tho, it’s now Supernatural: The Abyss Gazes Also into Dean.
I think my main worry Jenny with the end upon us is that I see the abyss looming ready to peek at me. Also that was a great pick on the Bilibin – ripoff or no it frankly showed a level of detail and commitment to authenticity that the rest could have benefited from. Speaking of monster pictures, there was a little fella on the grass who is so familiar to me – from an episode? From a DVD menu? Someone please tell me from where and put me out of my misery.
Jenna, everyone else, I agree — the push-pull between the throw-back elements and execution was sometimes bothersome, sometimes effective, and depends on how much you can let the surface ride in place of the substance at any one time. Carolyn you’re so right this really missed the finesse of Thompson or guts of Edlund – or sick devotion of Gamble, or emotional/technical skill of Tucker. The gimmick of their last MOTW being their first MOTW (in their lives as well as in the show, thanks, “we made a good team”) sorta cheeses me, but God is a cheesy writer, and even was so in Swan Song, so I suppose I’d better bite my tongue.
Kinda interesting through the first 80% then just “oh yeah” when the guitar kicks in at the end.
Mutecypher yes — it’ll be Dean having nightmares about the kids, and that argument at the end, that is the abiding legacy of this one I think. Two good things.
(Flicking through it again to find the above screencap I found it absolutely hysterical/tragic that young Sam’s entire contribution to their “first hunt together” was to put some chocolate sultanas on a putt-putt golf course map, triangulating the location of a pile of three dead kids to a giant empty cannery in the middle of town. Who’s solving crimes in this town, Chief Wiggum? Never mind Sam, even if that was bush league, your ability to host the world’s most depressing game of Boggle is clearly Olympic-level.)
Just reading this sends me into mild hysteria. Must you swing that axe into my denial?
// Speaking of monster pictures, there was a little fella on the grass who is so familiar to me//
That little guy was flashed as an example of a shtriga in Something Wicked. It was only up on the screen momentarily when Sam was looking it up. I couldn’t find that image when googling “shtriga,” so I would guess it’s pulled from something else.
Holy crap, that’s the one! Incredible memory thank you that was bugging me 👏