Supernatural: Season 2, Episode 15: “Tall Tales”

Directed by Bradford May
Written by John Shiban

When something works, it just works. And when it works once, hopefully it works repeatedly. I’ve read Jane Eyre probably 20 times. It always works. I’ve seen What’s Up, Doc? probably 200 times. It is never not funny. I cherish those things I can “visit” over and over again, the things that never disappoint, that always entertain, and that get more entertaining WITH repetition.

Now the question of WHY these things work all the time is up for grabs, and there are multiple factors going into it. I love discussing the “why” of the thing, although sometimes you just pop in Bringing Up Baby because you need to roll around laughing and you don’t worry about why it’s so funny. But the nuts-and-bolts architecture is fascinating to me.

Where does magic come from? in other words.

Film-makers work hard to create magic. It’s one of the things everyone hopes for, to create something that people will adore, that people will cherish, that will become a repeat-watch. Naturally, though, 9 times out of 10, magic is NOT created.

In terms of Supernatural:

The show is a good solid show. It’s got a wonderful stable of directors and writers, who bring different strengths to the table. It’s got top-notch acting. The focus on psychological backstory is compelling and hooks people in to such a degree that fans write dissertations on emotional trauma. All good. I’m not sure I would have hung in there for 10 seasons, though, without the Humor. I’ve written about this before – but I tend to repeat myself in these re-caps because a lot of people come into these re-caps in the middle, or they discover one of the re-caps and then go back to read the rest. So I hope a little repetition is forgivable. I wrote here about the progression of “hooks” for me in Season 1 and into Season 2 that moved me from fandom-watcher to fan. The first hook was Dean’s fear of flying in “Phantom Traveler.” It was so entertaining and so goofy and unexpected that my reaction was: “More of that, please.”

The very best episodes are the funny ones. Not the season finales, or the season mid-point cliff-hangers, but the episodes devoted to goofing off. Not every show could “take” the levity that Supernatural brings to its universe. But the structure is such that it can veer wildly from operatic/emotional to slapstick/ridic – sometimes in the same episode. I wrote a little bit about thirtysomething in one of my first posts about Supernatural. There I focused on the pilot, but one of the things that thirtysomething has in common with Supernatural is its devotion to both realism and surrealism. You had deeply serious arcs about divorce and infidelity, parenting, and friendship, cancer … mixed with complete stylistic excess, like dream sequences, fantasy moments, non-literal storytelling, visualization of people’s interior fears/dreams/thoughts. thirtysomething felt no obligation to “keep it real.” They did entire episodes that were homages: to Hitchcock, to James Joyce’s “The Dead”, to The Dick Van Dyke Show, to Kurosawa’s Rashomon (speaking of which … “Tall Tales” takes Rashomon as its launching-off point as well). From almost the pilot, thirtysomething announced its intentions. This would be a realistic examination of the lives of a bunch of people, but the style would not be kitchen-sink drama. It gave the show such freedom. They could do anything, go anywhere.

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, a clear influence on Supernatural, felt similarly free in its intentions and style.

That, for me, is one of the main flaws in today’s comic-book/superhero franchise universe. Starting with The Dark Knight. It’s all so freakin’ SERIOUS. Let’s treat this material with all the seriousness of Tolstoy, so that everyone feels validated that their childhood wasn’t wasted on something silly … Honestly, I was into tons of silly/light stuff when I was a kid. I don’t need to be validated about that as an adult. I don’t need Little House on the Prairie to re-emerge as a hard-hitting gritty franchise, for example, in order for me to feel good about my taste as a 9-year-old. What the hell is wrong with people? Yes, since I was obsessed with the Trixie Belden mystery series as a 10-year-old child, any whiff of anyone making fun of those books must be CRUSHED WITH A HAMMER OF OUTRAGE. How DARE you make fun of my childhood obsession?

I love all of my obsessions, silly and serious, and I stand by my taste as a child, because it was part of me falling in love with story-telling. I knew what I liked, and I loved it fervently. I don’t need outside validation for ANY of that. It occurs to me that I have ranted about this before, in this piece about Christopher Hitchens’ 2007 book review of the last Harry Potter.

We saw this type of thing go down recently when the all-female Ghostbusters was announced and these man-boys howled that there was a conspiracy to ruin their childhoods. If your childhood is ruined by a remake of Ghostbusters … Therapy. I can recommend some good doctors.

Supernatural, as we all know now, after 10 seasons, feels free to let its Silly Flag fly. I’m not sure if anything, ever, has been as silly as “Changing Channels”. Or “The French Mistake” . Elements of “Yellow Fever” (Dean being frightened by the cartoon he watches gets funnier with repetition). “Mystery Spot.” The 200th episode. The X-files homage. Your mileage may vary, but my take is: Supernatural is most ITSELF during the funny episodes. Supernatural has many selves, of course, it’s a diverse show … but the absolute mayhem that erupts when they decide to go silly is so confident, so sure of itself, that something ELSE is unleashed during those episodes. I sense some strain in some of the larger more serious Arcs. A strain for the cliffhanger feeling, a strain of “Oh, no, look what Big Bad thing is happening next!” It’s not awful, it’s just part of being a long-running episodic. But I NEVER feel the strain in the Silly episodes. They are free-wheeling, and yet totally logical. They follow conclusions to their most absurd lengths. They extract out of the Supernatural universe its most common tropes, and then turn it all inside out, flop it upside down, run it through a Vaudeville Filter. And this is where the show really shines. This, above all else, makes it unique. Almost every show nowadays features top-notch acting. Television acting is where it’s at, currently, and A-list people devote themselves to television. Almost every show has a world-class crew, and great direction. These things do not set Supernatural apart. But its understanding of its own silliness, its devotion of silliness (from time to time), its innovative ways of bringing the silliness out … THAT is what sets Supernatural apart.

I wasn’t hooked by Dean’s sensitivity in “Dead in the Water,” although it was compelling and added depth to his character. But I was hooked by Dean freaking out about airplanes in the next episode. That was when I thought, “Oh … okay. These people mean business.”

Nothing more serious than comedy. It’s harder to do than melodrama, first of all. It’s harder to do than almost any other style. Nothing worse than something trying, and failing, to be funny. Supernatural is not just witty, or mildly comedic, or snarky. It is laugh-out-loud funny. Without that humor, I probably wouldn’t be watching at all.

If you look at the trajectory of first Season 1, and then Season 2, thus far, there are definitely comedic-ish episodes. But it was more that there were “light” episodes, and then “dark” ones. And some episodes went out of their way to add “light” elements (like Dean and Sam pranking each other in “Hell House”), but that read more as a “bit” than the defining characteristic of the entire episode. Season 1 is pretty damn serious, as a whole. They’re staking their claim for X-Files-ish territory. They need to set up those arcs: Dad, Mom, demon, Sam … The moments of humor are there, and totally welcome. (It’s one of the reasons I cherish “Provenance,” an episode that doesn’t seem to have too many fans. It’s one of my compulsive re-watch episodes, because of that ongoing loopy comedic element in Dean’s behavior. It’s so well-done, it fits so perfectly in the environment established in all the “dark” episodes. That’s the beauty of Supernatural‘s humor. It is clear that Padalecki and Ackles are both naturally funny people. Or, it’s clear now. But in Season 1, it was not at all clear. They had to sort of ease us into that, and the further they pushed it, the more Padalecki and Ackles ate it up. They COULD pull off that goofy stuff, in other words. Not all actors can.)

Season 2 has been a bit more loosey-goosey than Season 1. The show has been picked up for another season. That is always an interesting moment for any series. People relax. They also dig their heels in: “We’re on the air, and we’re gonna STAY on the air.” Their jobs are safe (for the moment), so they can let go of their grip a bit. (You could see that happen in thirtysomething as well.) The opening episodes of the season were a fascinating mixture of light and dark, levity and gloom, the confusing atmosphere anyone goes through following losing a parent. Layers of complexity were added. Gordon. John’s whisper. Etc. The psychic children, who add a wacky whiff of the outside world to their episodes. Sam and Dean leaving their hermetically-sealed hunter universe and having to deal with bong-smoking outlaws and freaked-out secretaries from Peoria. Lots of humor possibilities there. Women are added to the mix. They are a welcome addition. There have been a couple of homage-isn episodes: Linda Blair with a star cameo in “The Usual Suspects,” and “Playthings,” the Shining homage.

But still, in general, the comedy here is relegated to moments only. Or one-off characters like Ronald and his “laser eyes”. The mood is still pretty gloomy, and the structure of the show is pretty set. Either it’s a monster-of-the-week stand-alone (with a nod to the larger Arc in the last 5 minutes), or it’s a monster-of-the-week-PLUS-larger-arc (like “Croatoan”).

Suddenly, though, in the midst of worry about Sam going dark side, we get “Tall Tales.” “Tall Tales” was the real game-changer. Not only is it hilarious, but the structure is entirely different from any other episode (before or since: its style stands alone). It’s a radical style-shift, appropriate to the story being told, and its Rashomon-like qualities.

About Rashomon

One of the greatest films ever made, Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, is a masterpiece examination of the nature of reality. It tells the story of a murder/rape through the eyes of four of the witnesses/participants: the bandit, the wife, the samurai, and the woodcutter. The testimonies are in complete conflict. Concepts like reality and justice and mercy all start to lose their stability. It’s the human condition. It’s easy enough (too easy) to say “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” … but who can really do that? We are who we are. We see our lives through our own eyes. We cannot enter the experience of someone else. A cop interviewing multiple witnesses to a crime knows that every single story will have differences. No two people ever see the exact same thing. The witnesses and participants in Rashomon can’t agree on even the smallest details. As far as they all are concerned: it is 4 completely different events entirely.

The X-Files, of which John Shiban was an important part, also had a Rashomon-inspired episode (“Bad Blood”). The Dick Van Dyke Show imitated Rashomon in an episode.

Rashomon is so imitated now that it has been wholly absorbed into the culture.
See Rashomon, if you haven’t already!

The brilliant John Shiban wrote the episode, and Bradford May directed (it is his only episode). Bradford May has had a lengthy career, stretching back to the 1960s, when he started out as crew, and became a cinematographer. He worked for decades as a cinematographer (winning an Emmy for Best Cinematography in 1992). Many directors don’t have that cinematographer background. May’s understanding of the camera is a huge asset to “Tall Tales,” although I’m imagining that in this case the script dictated how the story was told. (That’s not always the case. Supernatural is a moody show, the moodier the better. Give us those Kim Manners close-ups in the middle of a nonentity episode like “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things” and we forgive the episodes its flaws. Or I do.) But here: John Shiban wrote a script that was non-linear. He wrote a script that included multiple points of view, with the same episodes shown in repeat, from different viewpoints.

I am making a guess that Shiban wrote the very important “freeze frames” into his script. It doesn’t matter who came up with it, this is a collaborative business after all – but the freeze-frames feel engrained in the script to me, it’s part of how the whole thing is structured. A memory begins, re-told by Sam or Dean, and then the other one interrupts the memory (cue freeze-frame) saying, “Wait, that’s not how it went at all.” A decision like that cannot be created in the editing room. It has to be planned for. The freeze-frames when they come are always hilarious, and you can tell (especially in the scene where Dean and Sam roll around on the bed fighting) that both actors are aware a freeze-frame is coming and exaggerate their facial expressions, for the biggest possible comedic impact.

I mean …

Those ridiculous faces are not accidental. They represent conscious choices made by those two goof-balls, so that their faces would be funny and grotesque at any point during that take.

There are multiple reasons why “Tall Tales” works so well – on the first viewing and in all repeat viewings afterwards:

1. The freeze-frames, first and foremost. It’s a risk, switching up the structure like that, and going as goofy as they do. It could have been a huge bust, but they would never have known if they hadn’t taken that risk.

2. The almost rudimentary flashback structure, justified by the device of having Bobby show up and say repeatedly, “So what happened next?”You can actually see the script’s architecture there, but it works. It is the kind of device that allows for all kinds of weirdness which you wouldn’t get if it had been a chronological structure.

and finally, and this is probably the most entertaining part of it:

3. The way the flashbacks are set up gives us an opportunity to
a. see how Dean and Sam see one another
b. see Padalecki and Ackles having to act out different versions of their characters, Sam-as-seen-by-Dean, Dean-as-seen-by-Sam

So it’s satisfying on a character level, for sure, but it’s REALLY satisfying on an actor level. I fall in love with both of those actors every time I watch “Tall Tales.” They show not only a willingness to make fun of themselves and look ridiculous, but they are able to pull it off. Easily. They are both classic leading men, okay? They’re handsome, sexy hunks. But deep down inside, they are character actors. This is a rare rare combination. Cary Grant was one of those guys. Leading man. Inside, though? He was a wacky sidekick who happened to be the most beautiful man who ever lived. I CHERISH that weird combo, and there just aren’t many men who qualify.

There’s a knowing-ness in this type of storytelling, a knowingness that includes the audience in the inside-joke of it all. The characters have been established enough now that the show can “take” us/them making fun of it a little bit. This is the first time an entire episode is a goof. It won’t be the last.

We are moving into the second half of the season now. Chips are starting to fall. The final Arc of the season is one of my favorite Arcs in the series as a whole: “Heart” to “Hollywood Babylon” to “Folsom Prison Blues” to “What Is and What Should Never Be.” I mean, come ON. That sequence of great-ness is up there with “Home”, “Asylum,” “Scarecrow,” “Faith.” The four episodes in Season 2 are practically breath-taking in their scope and sense of freedom. Not to mention the diversity. The episodes are funny/tragic/poignant/ironic/goofy/sexy. “Heart” is poignant and sexy and deeply tragic. “Hollywood Babylon” is meta-meta-meta goofy, really silly, really fun. “Folsom Prison Blues” feels like a companion piece to “Hollywood Babylon” – two deep-under-cover episodes back to back, and then the brilliant dream-world of “What Is and What Should Never Be” which may very well be my favorite episode of the entire series. SO important. The entire series would be different if “What Is and What Should Never Be” didn’t exist. That episode continues to pay off, 9 seasons later. Talk about magic. Magic can’t really be explained or broken down into its parts. You know it when it is present.

“Tall Tales,” for me, initiates the “magic” section of Supernatural where literally no matter what they do, no matter what they try, every risk they take, it’s ALL a success. The series starts to tightrope-walk, beautifully, confidently, boldly, without a net.

I watch the second half of Season 2, those 4 back-to-back episodes in particular, and I feel myself relax. I think, “It’s okay. They’ve got this.”

But I think my real moment of relaxation, where I settled in, where I knew this show was out of its mind, and therefore right up my alley, was Jared Padalecki’s line reading of “We don’t have time for your blah-blah-blah-blah.”

Teaser

If you have such a stunning building, you may as well utilize the crap out of it, which they do repeatedly in “Tall Tales.” It looks Gothic, like a fortress, with a religious stained glass window above the doorway. The building is tall, it tilts up into the sky. At the foot of the steps is a woman in a frilly dress, futzing with the strap on her shoe. There’s snow on the ground. She is underdressed. A man (Barclay Hope) approaches. It’s nighttime and no one else is around. The Cinderella connotation of the image is clearly deliberate.

He stops to talk to her. She is girlish and coy, asking if she can meet with him. He is clearly tempted by her, but he tries to put her off. “Office hours are over.” But she flutters her eyelashes up at him, and what is he to do? He relents, and it’s almost more gross because he puts his acceptance of her offer into her hands. (“Well, but she asked so nicely.”) In that one moment, you can see how this perv operates. The two walk up the steps towards the tilting impressive building.

Inside his office, she holds his book, which has the douchey title, Modern Morality: Examining Societal Views and Belief Systems. She’s all admiring and gaga, and he, all the way across the room from her (this is not his first time in this situation, you can tell: he pays lip service to being an “authority figure” who shouldn’t “take advantage”, he stands across the room, but still, you can see him already making his decision to “tap that.”) He says, in regards to his book, “Oh, that old thing …” and it’s fake modesty. You can see how vain this man is.

Her girlishness is almost over-played, but it works like a charm. It gets him.

Behind him, the windows are open. It’s a snowy night. Cold, presumably. An interesting choice to have those windows open. Obviously he needs to plunge to his death, but it also gives this eerie movement in the background of their scene, the curtains gently waving in front of the windows.

He asks her, again trying to put her off, and at least pretend to be counseling his student before he lets the wolf out, “How’s the Anscombe paper coming?”

Okay, so. He’s a professor of Morality and Ethics. He is also an asshole. The Trickster has a sense of humor and the Trickster enjoys watching the puffed-up mighty fall. The Trickster episodes, taken together, over multiple seasons, are some of my favorite episodes in the entire series. Perhaps because the Trickster is a sort of God (at least as they understand him initially before the angel part of it is revealed) and can mess with reality. Reality is messed with in a FUN way, because the Trickster thinks it’s funny or challenging or … there is a lesson to be learned. There are always lessons to be learned. He messes with Sam and Dean’s reality to “show” them something, force them to look beneath the surface. The ending of “Tall Tales” is a clear sign that the Trickster will be returning to the series. He always brings mayhem and comedy with him.

I was interested in the fact that at the time of his death, Professor Cox was teaching the philosophy of Anscombe to his class. I had heard the name but didn’t know much more about her. Welcome to the Anscombe rabbit hole.

One quote stood out to me, and I’ll just go ahead and connect it to “Tall Tales” because it’s fun. This is Anscombe:

For years, I would spend time, in cafés, for example, staring at objects saying to myself: “I see a packet. But what do I really see? How can I say that I see here anything more than a yellow expanse?” …I always hated phenomenalism and felt trapped by it. I couldn’t see my way out of it but I didn’t believe it. It was no good pointing to difficulties about it, things which Russell found wrong with it, for example. The strength, the central nerve of it remained alive and raged achingly. It was only in Wittgenstein’s classes in 1944 that I saw the nerve being extracted, the central thought I have got this, and I define “yellow” (say) as this being effectively attacked.

What she is talking about is the nature of reality, and trying to understand it and penetrate it. Is reality changeable? Doesn’t it depend on our own individual perceptions? I was just talking about this the other day in discussing the work of great Iranian film-maker Asghar Farhadi. He is all about perception and reality. In A Separation, something happens, with horrible consequences, and nobody can agree on the event. In About Elly 8 people witness the same thing. But STILL they cannot agree on what actually went down. Do intentions matter? If you didn’t MEAN to do something bad, does that absolve you? Anscombe’s most important and influential work was her 1957 book called Intention (which I have never read – but the concept of “intention” and do intentions matter is crucial to the Supernatural universe. It’s really the ONLY thing that matters at this point.) And the Trickster relies on all of this when he plays his games. He knows reality is flexible, and that people will differ in their reactions to things, especially when the people involved start to perceive that they are in a crisis. Adrenaline and conflict impacts our perceptions of reality (which happens with Sam and Dean while under his influence.)

The humor and sick-ness is that this Professor Cox is talking about all of this great and challenging stuff with his students, stuff that matters to the Trickster too, morality and intention and reality, all while being a complete douche-bag. He eventually caves, as we all knew he would, and starts kissing her, all as she morphs into a scaly-skinned monster with cataract eyes, gleaming hurtfully at him through the darkness. “Don’t you like me anymore?” (Such a great line.)

Outside, a janitor (Richard Speight Jr.), messing with his keychain, saunters down the steps, and once you’ve seen the episode a couple of times, you can practically see him smirking. He knows what’s coming. The Master of Morality lands on the steps behind him, head-first, and it’s totally gross.

1st scene
The hotel in which Sam and Dean are staying is called “King’s Lair.” Hilarious hotel name, because “Lair” has such grimy connotations, like Fagin’s lair for his den of thieves, or a dark cave where criminals gather to do their plotting. So you have kings (i.e. the Winchester boys) hanging out in a “lair”, and when you see the interior of their room … it fits.

Despite its darkness and grime, the space has such “scope for imagination”, to quote Anne of Green Gables: the exposed brick, the dark green walls, the elaborate beds, the couch and the big armchair, the neon sign shining through the grimy curtains.

The first scene opens with an exterior shot, and a big gas-guzzling station wagon careening by through a puddle. It’s an interesting choice. Modern compact cars don’t really exist in Supernatural, at least in its regular universe. People drive old models, beat-up cars with over 100,000 miles on them. VW bugs, etc. When we get sleek modern cars, we know we’re usually looking at a villain. The car is prioritized in the shot: following the car, we come upon the entranceway to the hotel, and its marquee. That’s really the only reason for a car to go by: for there to be movement in the foreground that leads us around the corner. But I like the choice that it’s this gigantic town-car that looks like it would be appropriate in 1977. Or it’s a car filled with secret servicemen or something.

Inside Sam and Dean’s room, we start out with a slow pan of the camera: from the windows, down to Sam sitting on the couch reading, and then over to Dean, revealed sitting on one of the beds across the room. You can hear Dean chewing before you see him and it’s very gross.

Music floats through the air, “Walk Away” by The James Gang. Good old Joe Walsh, a patron saint for Dean Winchester, that’s for sure.

Taking my time
Choosin’ my line
Tryin’ to decide what to do
Looks like my stop
Don’t wanna get off
Got myself hung up on you

Seems to me
You don’t want to talk about it
Seems to me
You just turn your pretty head and walk away

Places I’ve known
Things that I’m growin’
Don’t taste the same without you
I got myself in
The worst mess I’ve been
And I find myself startin’ ta doubt you

Seems to me
Talk all night, here comes the mornin’
Seems to me
You just forget what we said
And greet the day

Seems to me
You don’t wanna talk about it
Seems to me
You just turn your pretty head and walk away

I’ve got ta cool myself down
Stompin’ around
Thinkin’ some words I can’t name ya
Meet ya half way
Got nothin’ to say
Still I don’t s’pose I can blame ya

Seems to me
You don’t want to talk about it
Seems to me
You just turn your pretty head and walk away

Kudos, music supervisor.

The episode begins with an argument. It’s shockingly petty. I immediately thought, “What the hell has come over these guys?” That’s what we should think. It’s how it’s set up: Shiban starts us in the middle of the case, and then, through the narration to Bobby, works us backward. But he launches us into the middle of the brothers’ irritation with nary a prologue, letting us play catch-up. Sam asks Dean to not eat while sitting on his bed. He sounds disgusted and at the end of his rope. With a calm sense of bratty glee, Dean keeps eating. Dean is being purposefully annoying. Sam then shouts at Dean to turn the music down. Calmly, not even looking up from his magazine, with sticky fingers, Dean reaches over and turns the music UP. (I love the old-fashioned chubby sea-foam-green radio.)

This isn’t an argument. It’s bickering. It’s extremely unattractive on both sides. Sam has somehow lost his computer and seems to blame Dean for it. Dean gives him his most obnoxious “don’t give a shit” grin in response.

Something has happened to the Impala, and Dean seems to blame Sam for it. I’m embarrassed for both of them.

A knock on the door interrupts the argument.

Sam goes to answer the door, and we get a glimpse of the squalor of the kitchen. The piled-up pizza boxes tells us all we need to know.

Although King’s Lair does not have a gimmick-motif like bowling balls or jumping fish or a disco ball, it is one of my favorite hotel spaces. It’s dilapidated, with a memory of grandeur. Green walls, ratty see-through curtains, beds with elaborate headsteads, a kitchen area, a living room area, a couch, an armchair, a damn chandelier over the formica table – everything falling apart, with a memory of better times, and probably crawling with bedbugs. Pizza boxes and Chinese food containers pile up on the counter. One can smell the dirty socks, farts, and old food. The squalor in which they live. There’s a glimpse of the tell-tale “hunter collage” on the wall of the kitchen. They’ve been there a while.

We have had discussions before about the brothers’ various responses to neatness. It’s been explored throughout the series, one of the quirks of the writing that I treasure. What is Sam’s relationship to neat-ness? Or Dean’s? Considering their childhood, one would not be surprised to discover that both have strong feelings about tidiness, order, having your ducks in a row. They never saw beautiful things in their childhood. They took baths in grimy motel bath-tubs, ringed with mold. Their blankets were scratchy. Stuff stank. Living like that can make it seem like the dirt is inside you, that no matter how much you wash yourself, or launder your clothes, you’ll never get rid of it. Both brothers are persnickety in their own ways about their possessions. This is exacerbated and made really explicit once they move into the bunker. Dean enjoys cleaning and having things neat. Messiness disturbs him. He would wear an apron and rubber gloves and feel no shame about it. He enjoys cleaning stuff and enjoys doing chores. He never had to do them before. He runs with it! Sam likes to have order in their lives, and likes to talk things out in order to accomplish that sense of order. But “mess” – as in things on the floor, clothes not put away – does not disturb him all that much. Maybe because he had no memory of a nice clean childhood home, with a Mother who cut the crusts off and a nice bedroom with all of your toys put away, ready for you. Dean has that memory. So there’s a lot of conflict there. I love that the writers have clocked that as a “thing,” as something that would have happened with these guys – it’s so specific, so subtle, but it’s brought so much out of the characters, and brings up all kinds of interesting possibilities for conflict. (This goes along with the “it’s like they are a married couple” feeling of the series. How one feels about cleanliness and divvying up chores is a huge part of marriage, from what I can tell anyway, as my married friends bore me to tears with their stories.) One of my favorite moments in the entire series is when Dean has set up his room in the bunker, and it is immaculate, and he’s so proud of it, and Sam doesn’t get it, and tosses a wrapper on the floor, missing the wastepaper basket. His response is a shrug. Dean flips out. It says so much. These character traits are not “gimmicks” or bits, i.e. they’re Felix and Oscar re-incarnated. Dean is not just a fussbudget neat-nik and Sam is not an insensitive slob. In many ways, they see one another in that way (as we will see in “Tall Tales”). Dean sees Sam as a prudish fussbudget, and Sam sees Dean as a slutty slob. Neither is true. Not really. But the Trickster uses those things to increase the conflict. But what we the audience actually see is two guys who, in their own ways, are fussy about their own things. Dean is fussy about his Impala, Sam is fussy about his computer. Dean loves food and keeps his leftovers stacked up in the fridge. Sam thinks it’s disgusting. Dean, in general, is disgusting to Sam.

When the episode opens, we are in medias res and the Trickster is already pulling his tricks. Dean is becoming more slobby, to annoy Sam, and Sam is becoming more of a strict hard-ass, to annoy Dean.

Bobby is at the door and it’s very good to see him again. He seems curious, happy to see the brothers, but slightly wary … as he usually is. He’s too smart for anything else. Calling for Bobby to come join them on location is so new (as in unheard of) that it immediately sets up the desperation of whatever case they are working. Bobby says, “It’s good to see you again so soon …” (… so soon after I burned your arm with a fire-poker and performed an exorcism on you. Good to see you!) After a manly shaking-hands greeting, the bickering from 5 minutes ago has vanished and Sam and Dean are totally in sync, telling Bobby about the case they were working on, how weird it is, and how they needed fresh eyes, since they’d never seen anything like this before.

Bobby says, “Why don’t you start from the beginning?” (John Shiban, I love your freedom with being obvious. It’s part of why the episode is so funny. “Here’s what happened next.” Boom. “No, that’s not how it went.” Boom. “Back up. Let’s look at that one again.” Boom. Bobby is the one leading them through the tale, and as it goes on, throughout the first half of the episode, you watch him become more and more suspicious. Not of the clues Sam and Dean reveal of the various cases, but of their general testy obnoxious behavior. He’s listening on multiple levels. He can’t help but see what the two of them are missing: why are you all at each other’s throats? Why aren’t you asking yourselves THAT question?

They offer Bobby a seat, and Jim Beaver has this whole mini-symphony of behavior, as he notices the empty food carton on the bed, moves it to the side, and sits down, brushing his hands off. He’s been two seconds in the room and he feels dirty. Remember the squalor in which he lives! And even this is too much for him. Sam and Dean, when they sleep over his house, at least wash the dishes and put them away. I love the moment, though, because it’s clearly just Jim Beaver, reacting to the reality of the moment. There’s no dialogue (“You guys don’t want to tidy up a bit?”). I doubt he was even directed to do that. It’s just his actor’s instinct which tells you to always be alive to the realities of whatever moment is occurring. And when you are asked to “have a seat,” and you go to sit down and notice grimy food cartons on the bed … you’re going to react to it.

Sam starts telling the “tall tale” and this leads us into our first flashback.

2nd scene
Until the freeze-frame comes, though, we don’t know what tricks the show has in store for us. We don’t know that what we are seeing is Sam’s unreliable version of events. And in Sam’s version, he is competent, devoted to getting the job done, cool-headed, and focused. And in Sam’s version, Dean is wasted and about to go home with a floozy named Starla. But until the freeze-frame comes and we hear Dean say, back in the hotel room, “Wait a minute, that’s not how it went at all” – we think that what we are looking at in the flashback is reality. Because why wouldn’t we? Sam’s telling us how it went down, and we trust him as a narrator. “Tall Tales” says, “Not so fast …”

Dean’s interruption calls into question everything we have seen in that first flashback. “Tall Tales” is one of those episodes that gets better with repetition. What we see the first time around is one thing. We think it’s reliable. The second time around, armed with more knowledge, we see that it is another thing entirely. That there are two versions of how it went down, two totally opposing versions. The truth (as it usually is) is probably somewhere in the middle. Dean did do some shots at the bar, and was flirting with a pretty girl. But she wasn’t a bar-fly like Starla, she was an anthropology student, and knew a lot about local folk-lore. (As we have seen repeatedly, Dean is able to do two things at the same time: try to get laid, and work the case.) And Sam, interrupting the tete a tete, probably was annoyed that Dean seemed to be flirting as opposed to working, but he probably didn’t read Dean the riot act. It was probably just a sigh and an eye-roll from Sam that Dean then blew up into “we don’t have time for your blah-blah-blah.” And then of course we get Dean’s version of the flashback, which is even funnier than Sam’s version, because we see him fantasizing about his own awesomeness. (This is the Dean Burlesque Show, in full flower.) He is stalwart and stoic, manly, all that, but with burning bedroom eyes. And she can barely get a coherent sentence out because “you are so ….. attractive.” Like, this is how Dean sees himself and this is how he saw the interaction. Hilarious! Dean’s version casts Dean as a Heroic Figure, working the case, and working the lady. And in Dean’s version, Sam is a loud-mouthed priss, with a jacket flung over his shoulder (maybe my favorite detail).

The fun is not just in seeing how Sam and Dean see each other. The fun is in watching the actors play these versions of their own characters.

The flashback opens with Sam questioning two college kids (Emma Lahana and David Tom) at a busy college bar. Dean is nowhere to be seen. The guy wears a letter jacket, drinks beer, and is, in general, skeptical about the things his friend is saying. She says that local legend has it the building is haunted. There’s a room called “669” (which … omg … turn the “9” upside down and what do you get? Although I can think of another double entendre that doesn’t involve turning the “9” around at all), and people leap to their deaths, and she knew someone who knew someone who saw the girl, and on and on. Sam tape records the interaction. Sam questions them. It’s fun, though, to watch Padalecki play Sam’s self-serving version of himself, as opposed to the real deal. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s there. (I really see it in the later scene with the Trickster in the office when Dean is stuffing his face. That flashback is Sam’s version of events, and Padalecki is clearly playing that. It’s a self-serving portrayal. Playing “how Sam sees himself” as opposed to “just Sam.” Great stuff.)

Curtis, the frat boy, will be very important later, and we see much of his character in this small interaction. He’s lackadaisical, a casual dick, making fun of his friend, being an all-around douche. Sam thanks them for their time and goes to find Dean.

The scene cuts to:

The legendary line of Purple Nurples, with Dean’s hand coming into the frame, downing each glass one by one. I am not an alcohol connoisseur, so I had never heard of such a thing, but they are indeed a real drink:

1 oz coconut rum
1 oz triple sec
1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
2 oz cranberry juice

My favorite part of this small sequence is hearing Dean’s huffing and puffing and drunken exclamations of breath off-screen, as he chugs that liquor. It’s extremely gross (again: Dean is gross throughout, especially when we see him through Sam’s eyes). Like, if it’s that hard to do all those shots, maybe don’t do them?

Sam interrupts the bacchanal with a quiet concerned, “Dean, what are you doing?” (Comparing that line-reading to how Dean remembers Sam’s intonation is hilarious.) Dean burps. Because of course he does. Says they’re “purple nurples,” shrugging, laughing, openly drunk, and he seems … incapacitated.

There’s no shame, no “oh man, I’m sorry”, no sense that he has let Sam down, or is playing too hard when he should be working. Total Id on Parade. Sam doesn’t scold Dean (of course not, this is Sam’s version) and says that he thinks they should go check out the professor’s office. Dean is urgent and dismayed: he can’t leave right now, because “I’ve got some feisty little wildcat on the hook – and I’m about to” (sound of fishing-line) “reel her in.” Sam has glanced at the girl standing behind Dean, and the camera moves up her fishnet-legs. The same shot will re-occur later, identically, in Dean’s version, as he lingers over the beauty of the anthropology student who thinks he is “so attractive.” Same exact shot: two very different interpretations.

I will say this. On my first time watching the episode, I laughed throughout. (Not as hard as I laughed on my second time through, once I realized what they were doing.) But when Dean said, a minute after this moment, “I don’t say things like ‘feisty little wildcat…'” I thought to myself, “That’s right! He totally doesn’t! I should have guessed immediately!” Ackles is playing Sam’s version of Dean, no-holds-barred. So no wonder it seems … just slightly off.

Elena Esovolova plays Starla, and this chick rules. When Dean introduces her to Sam (referring to Sam as his “co-pilot Major Tom”), she turns into the shot, as she’s downing her drink, and then holds out the empty shot glass to Sam, saying, elongating the word: “En … shant … ay.” It’s hysterical. Sam is shown in huge mortified closeup, his embarrassment, his tight-lipped judginess (I love his “Hi” to Starla). Before we know that this is an unreliable flashback, this can be put in the bucket of Dean flaunting his sex life exuberantly, not caring who sees, assuming his brother will be cool with it. No boundaries.

Sam is alone in his closeups, and Dean and Starla are together in their shots, falling into each other, holding onto each other, melding into one, Dean telegraphing at Sam, “Check her out! Tonight’s gonna be great!” Oblivious to Sam’s discomfort and dismay.

At one point, Starla almost vomits. Standing right there, in the middle of the bar. Her reaction is an “Oopsy” little giggle, saying, “Trying to keep my liquor down!” What is Dean’s response? “Good job.” Dying.

Even more hilarious is when you realize, in just a second, that her name wasn’t even Starla at all. That that was Sam making up some name as he told the story that sounded floozy enough to fit the character Dean had been hitting on. Starla, Sam? Have you been watching The Simpsons?

I repeat: dying.

Both Starla and Dean leer lecherously up at Sam, about the sexy times they are about to have, about Starla’s sister (apparently waiting for Sam) … and that is where we get the first freeze-frame, the first time the episode announces what it is going to be. The freeze-frame is accompanied by Dean, back in the present day, saying, “Whoa, whoa, that’s not how it happened.”

To Sam, that is totally how it happened, word for word. Bobby watches all of this like a hawk.

Dean cops to drinking a purple nurple, but he insists he “doesn’t say things like ‘feisty little wildcat’ and her name wasn’t Starla.” I love this show so much. Now it’s Dean’s turn to tell how it went, and as we go back into his version, the music changes, the lighting changes, and he seems to be standing in a different bar altogether. Definitely not a cacophonous college bar with pool tables and jello shots. Dean says that the woman he was talking to (he doesn’t remember her name) was a “classy chick” and they were talking about local legends. The camera swoops up her black legs, revealing a pretty woman in a dress that basically connotes “Crossroads Demon” in the Supernatural lexicon. The “classy chick” is played by Desirée Loewen, and she must have had so much fun with this part. It’s so ridiculously written, and you’re almost embarrassed for Dean, because if this is his version of events, you want him to tone it down. Just a notch. (The same goes for Sam, but Dean’s ego is such – the whole Burlesque thing he does – performative and extroverted and – to some degree – dependent on external validation … that when it gets deflated, or when someone pokes holes into it, into his conception of himself, it leaves Dean vulnerable. Phone call for “Frontierland.”)

Dean and Classy Chick clink their purple nurple glasses, saying, “Here’s to us” which is too much to bear, and Dean is sure of himself, manly, take-charge, and she is so blown away by his beauty that she can’t hear a word he says. He says something, and her response is, “My … God. You are attractive.”

Dean smiles a bit in acknowledgement. Not cockily, but accepting that type of attention smoothly. He’s not thrown by it. He says, “Thanks. But no time for that now.” He’s so intent on working his case that he has “no time for that now”. Even when a woman in a boobalicious black dress says out of the blue, “My … God. You are attractive.” Even then, he stays focused on his work! Take that, Sam!

All cool movie star, he tells her “lives are at stake” and she needs to tell him about the local legend. Her dazed response: “I can’t even concentrate. It’s like staring into the sun.”

Dean! Are you actually relating these words to Sam and Bobby back in the room? Please stop! Now!

What’s a Heroic Figure to do? The Lady wants it and she wants it bad, so Dean leans in for a kiss.

Then enters Sam. He strolls into what is a blank space behind Dean, which is why it’s so funny. There’s nothing-ness, and then this appears:

The jacket over the shoulder. The EYEBROWS. Sam, in his actual real-life, has never looked this bitchy, and picturing Dean, back in the room, DOING this for Sam and Bobby, showing Sam and Bobby how Sam re-entered the scene is part of the pleasure of this whole competing-versions-flashbacks structure.

Sam’s quiet, “Dean, what are you doing?” from the first flashback is now a loud angry church-lady demand. Overlaid with sighs of passive-aggressive martyr-ish annoyance. “Dean. What do you think you’re doing??”

The behavior is overwhelming. I can’t even keep track of it.

Dean pulls himself out of the kiss (slowly, though), and turns to Sam, running his finger across his lips musingly, where her lips just were – and it’s all such bull shit I want to give Ackles a medal for it. “If you wouldn’t mind, Sam … just give me five minutes here,” he says, romantic hero, Star Of His Own Awesome Life. We’ve seen this before, and I’ve babbled on about it before: how when things are going well, even just when Dean is chowing on a burger or taking a 25-minute shower (or like the entirety of “Provenance”), Dean perambulates through life as though he is the Awesome star of an Awesome movie. He’s “acting.” We can SEE it in his behavior. And here, in “Tall Tales,” in this flashback in particular, we see just how true it is for him.

Wow, Dean. Wow. That’s all I have to say.

Sam says, “Dean, this is a very serious investigation. We don’t have time for your blah-blah-blah-blah.” (And remember, that’s Padalecki doing Dean doing Sam. Try that one on for size!)

My first time watching, I almost didn’t believe what I just heard and saw. Did he actually just say, “We don’t have time for your blah-blah-blah-blah???” This is Heaven and no one warned me that this would be Heaven! I needed more time to prepare!

Dean, caught up in his own memory of how cool and sexy he was in the moment, turns back to his waiting woman, to start macking on her again, all as in the background, we hear Sam going:

“Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. BLAH.” Freeze-frame.

I am a very simple woman and I have very simple needs. I can certainly think complex thoughts and grasp the complex thoughts of others. But Sam saying “Blah blah blah blah blah” over is so satisfying on such a simple level that that’s all I need from the series. Supernatural could have been canceled the next day and I would have been happy the show existed just for that moment alone.

Back in the motel room, Sam protests: “I don’t sound like that, Dean!” “That’s what you sound like to me,” says Dean, totally over it and turning back to Bobby. (It’s not until the Impala’s wheels are punctured that Dean gets hot around the collar. For the most part, he remains big-brother-impervious, above it all.)

Bobby finally addresses the elephant in the room. “What’s going on with you two? You’re bickering like an old married couple.” Dean says the more appropriate analogy is “Siamese twins” and Sam jumps down his throat, “It’s CONJOINED twins.”

Sam continues on with the story. They figured it might be a haunting so they got the janitor at the big impressive building to let them into the professor’s office to check it out.

3rd scene
It starts with another moving tilting shot of the impressive building with the stained glass, and Sam saying, over it, “So how long have you been working here?” The janitor lets the two of them into the office.

This is Sam’s version of events. So naturally, all he remembers is that Dean shoved a bunch of treats into his mouth, embarrassing himself. That was all that Dean contributed, according to Sam. Because Dean has checked out, Sam has to take over, and he runs the interaction with the janitor, questioning him.

Now Sam doesn’t have as big (delusional?) an ego as Dean, so his version isn’t quite as self-aggrandizing as Dean’s is, but you can still tell that this is Sam putting himself in the best light, showing how good he is at what he does, and how he gets people to trust him and tell him stuff. There’s one close-up in particular of him listening to the janitor tell a story about the professor … that feels very “unreliable narrator”-ish. By that I mean, in Sam’s memory he is practically buddy-buddy with the guy, not tipping the guy off that they’re anything other than security alarm employees, not “above” him in any way. There’s a little smile on his face as he listens to the skeevy story that seems … un-Sam-like, frankly. It’s a version of Sam, the best version, the version he would prefer to see himself as, not the nerd wet-blanket of Dean’s memory. And so it goes.

Sam is engrossed with the janitor and the camera moves off Sam, and Dean re-enters the action from the side.

Looking like this.

Freeze-frame, and Dean howls in protest back in the motel room: “Come on! I ate one. Maybe two!” (His voice comes over the freeze-framed image, so that we get to look at it for a long long time.)

If “we don’t have time for your blah-blah-blah-blah” was Padalecki’s moment of comedic genius, then this is Ackles’. It goes on for what feels like forever, and he continues to shove stuff into his mouth until you fear he will choke on it. It is so CLEARLY an exaggeration of what really went down, and it’s one of those things that happens with bickering married couples too: tiny things become the most annoying. I can’t remember which comedian it was who said that one time, while lying in bed with his wife, she said, out of nowhere, “I can’t stand the way you breathe.” Maybe it was Dylan Moran. I can’t remember, but it was hilarious. Dean popping a chocolate into his mouth, “maybe two,” in Sam’s memory turns into something grotesque.

Ackles no longer has the use of his facial muscles, since they are stretched out by the food in his mouth, so all he has now are his eyebrows. Which go up and down in response to the janitor’s comments, making Dean look totally insane. When the three are in the same frame all at the same time, I have no idea how anyone could keep a straight face.

The scene closes out with …

… because if you have set up a joke, what good is it if you don’t beat that thing into the ground?

4th scene
Still in Sam’s flashback, the brothers re-enter their squalid lair. The mood is relatively calm (“we should do this next”) but that doesn’t last long. Sam pops open his laptop, only to find that it has frozen on Busty Asian Beauties Dot Com. The first reference to these lovely ladies who keep Dean company on those lonely hunter nights. 9 seasons later, those beauties continue to get play. It’s a running joke. Sometimes it’s dumb (well, it’s always dumb – which doesn’t mean it’s not funny. I like dumb!) – what I mean is that sometimes the joke is tired and old, especially when it is accompanied by the sound of a Chinese gong. My favorite reference is in “Lazarus Rising” when he sees the magazine on the shelf and lights up. His old friends! Similar to Casa Erotica, or Big Gerson’s or whatever … there are these fake brand-names that show up repeatedly. Dean likes all kinds of porn, but he is loyal to one brand. Anyone who is a porn fan of any kind could probably tell similar stories. I would tell mine but I don’t want the Google searches that will bring weird people to my site if I put the names up here. I’ve learned my lesson.

So anyway. Argument bursts forth. “Don’t touch my stuff,” says Sam. This is part of that claustrophobic thing we’ve discussed so much. They don’t book separate rooms. They sleep in the same room. You are literally up to date on every belch from your sibling, every teeny tiny mood swing, every yawn. It’s not normal, it’s not natural, and it’s probably made worse by the fact that yeah, Dean touches Sam’s stuff. Here, of course, he “touched” the laptop to surf for porn (and then lies about it – unconvincingly – I love his lie-face), but I think we can all agree that Dean has snooping tendencies. I’ve said before if you were his roommate, you had better put a lock on your diary.

Now, this is Sam’s “version” but I do think Dean being busted on looking at Beautiful Busts probably would result in an expression like this.

Dean gets annoyed at being scolded and tells Sam to control his OCD, which ratchets Sam up even further, into a freeze-frame. Scene screeches to a halt, and Bobby, now pacing in front of the windows, interrupts, asking if they found out anything about the building. All three of them are standing now and there’s a beautiful moment with all three of them walking in different directions, in and out of the frame. Rather intricate blocking, a sort of “dance”. It helps give some visual interest (in other words: it’s not just close-up to close-up to close-up.)

Despite the bickering going on constantly, when Sam and Dean talk about the weirdness of the case, they uneasily get in sync with one another. They are in agreement that this whole thing is weird (“even for us”), and they don’t know what to think, and their behavior, when trying to explain it to Bobby, is nearly identical. Full of hesitations, pauses, and weird smiles, because the whole thing seems so absurd. All they want to do is roar with laughter about “Lady in Red” and poor Curtis getting probed in some UFO … but … they’re being forced to take it seriously.

5th scene
Frat-boy Curtis strolls along the sidewalk out in front of the impressive building. He’s filmed from ground-level, giving his surroundings that tilting vertigo feeling that has been part of the episode’s style from the get-go, at least in terms of that Fortress-like building. It’s night, and there’s smoke coming up out of the sidewalk, one of those easy ways to create effects: Night-time, street-lamps, smoke? You got yourself some atmosphere.

The X-Files was clearly one of the main influences on Eric Kripke. I am now fully engrossed in watching The X-Files (for the first time: can you believe it? I completely missed it the first time around). Occasionally, I call up my friend Keith, who is the biggest X-Files fan I know, and say, “Can I come over?” and he says “Yes” and then we sit on his couch and watch 7, 8 episodes in a row. He was so excited to hear I was embarking on the journey for the first time, and wanted to be there as I experienced it. We pause the episode to discuss. He fills me in on backstory. (“This was the most expensive episode they filmed.” etc.) It’s been so much fun! Keith is such a big fan that he was asked to moderate a QA with Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny at the Paley Center (it is so entertaining), and also – when the news just broke that The X-Files was indeed coming back, Keith was asked by the Hollywood Reporter to come up with Top 5 X-Files Episodes of All Time. So, you know. I’m in good hands.

Watching The X-Files is like getting a preview of the various people who would end up making Supernatural. David Nutter! Kim Manners! And all the actors, too! Mitch Pileggi, mainly, but all of the other smaller one-off parts, so many X-Files alum. But also, just the structure: There’s Monster-of-the-Week. Then there’s the larger Alien-Abduction-Arc, sometimes there, sometimes not there, but always working on the characters. John Shiban was a writer/producer on X-Files, as were many of the other people involved in creating Supernatural, and they had always wanted to do an homage. It took until Season 6, and “Clap Your Hands”, to really do the homage right, but even in the pilot, with the “Mulder” and “Scully” reference … Kripke et al were clearly trying to position themselves, align themselves: We are like that.

Here, in “Tall Tales,” they had the opportunity to go all X-Files and film an actual alien abduction. Now that I’m actually watching X-Files, I can see the stylistic footprint all over Supernatural.

Curtis the frat boy is stalked by a strange noise from behind him, and then … roving spotlight beams from above. He finally is hauled upwards into the air, chest first, screaming into the light.

6th scene
Bobby’s pacing continues, as he says over and over again, “Aliens? ALIENS???” Sam and Dean, who have already been down this road, who have already sat in the Impala shouting, “ALIENS? Are you fucking KIDDING me??”, lean against that back wall, waiting for Bobby to get it out of his system. They are quiet, bemused, over it, their shared attitude being, “I know, Bobby. I know.” I like how Sam and Dean are placed in the room. Their leaning postures, and attitude is … what’s the word I’m looking for. Sexy as hell.

7th scene
This “flashback” appears to be neutral. It’s not Sam’s version or Dean’s version. It’s straightforward (although that won’t last long). The flashback opens with a callback to the “purple nurple” line of shots earlier. Curtis downs them one by one. He looks tormented.

Because the elements of the plot and story are so compelling/entertaining, I just want to point out (side note) the absolutely gorgeous and strange lighting in this particular scene. It takes place in the same bar where they met Curtis before. They appear to be off in a side room, although you’re not sure of the layout. Most of the background is dark, and it’s pierced with colored light. Curtis sits with a band of blue light in the distance behind his head. It’s beautiful. Sam, standing, is loomed over by a giant blue neon beer bottle.

The mood here feels a little bit back to normal, in terms of the Sam and Dean dynamic. Dean has gone into the interaction with a lot of skepticism (because: abduction by aliens? What the hell has happened to my life? and etc.), and starts off the interview with a joke about purple nurples which attempts to sound buddy-buddy and fails. (When Dean tries to be “buddy buddy” with almost anyone, it fails. It’s not his milieu. He never gets the tone right. People always look up at him, confused, like – “What the hell did you just say to me?” and Dean has to subside, in his own confusion. This dynamic is so much a part of his life that it’s normal to him, and he doesn’t find it weird. “Oh. So there’s that moment again, where I say something and it doesn’t go over well. Huh. Oh well. Moving on.”) Sam is more open, less attitudinal, I guess would be the word. “Tell us what happened. Give us a chance. Just tell us what happened.” Curtis has already told his story to people, and nobody believes him, people have laughed at him, he is totally traumatized.

He tells his story, and then we go into his flashback. The episode is a Russian nesting-doll. I just watched the X-Files episode “Duane Barry,” about a former FBI agent who had been abducted by aliens and went batshit crazy afterwards. The flashbacks, where we see what happened to him, are very much like Curtis’ experience, in terms of how they are filmed anyway. Indistinct looming big-headed alien creatures, strange noises, a hallucinatory feeling, bright lights and darkness behind, indistinct sounds and Curtis lying helpless on some alien surgical table.

So far so good. So far so X-Files.

The aliens did “tests.” The hardest part for Curtis to say is the word “probed.” (I am thinking of Paul Dooley in Waiting for Guffman, telling the camera that when the aliens abducted him they “probed” him. He says it in such a casual way. “Then another alien came in … and HE probed me …”) Homosexual panic runs riot in these “probe” stories, and there’s that whole terror-of-being-penetrated thing that is a subtextual river flowing beneath Supernatural. Penetrated by demons and other monsters, but the sexual connection is obvious. Issues surrounding consent and boundaries are omnipresent. It’s the fabric of their lives. They don’t put it into those terms – or, the closest they got to it was the amazing Season 5, with all the conversations about Michael and Lucifer, and Sam and Dean having to consent to being penetrated, being “worn”. So bizarre, but I’m just reporting the facts!

One way to deal with that anxiety is to laugh. Which is what happens when Curtis says the word “probed.” Sam turns his face away to hide his smile, and it’s so sexy I want to faint. It’s so insensitive, too, which adds to the humor. Curtis is downing purple nurples and talking like someone in a meeting at a VA hospital about his combat experience? Yes. It is funny. Dean doesn’t laugh. Instead, his face goes quiet and still, frozen practically, and he glances over at Sam, with only his eyes moving.

Comedy is very delicate. You have to know it in your bones. On a certain level, it cannot be taught. Jensen Ackles doesn’t need to be told that it’s funnier to only move his eyeballs in that moment when he looks at Sam, as opposed to turning his whole head. It’s CLEARLY more funny, because it shows Dean being shocked at what he heard, and not knowing how to deal with it, and needing to check in with his brother about it.

Curtis, in talking about the probing, says they did it to him “again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again …” God bless this actor for making every one of those “agains” distinct, each one representing its own very memorable probe, and for lingering over each “again”. That’s why it’s funny. It’s horrible and funny at the same time. Dean is literally frozen in horror after the “again” monologue.

“Yikes,” he says, and I want to fall off my chair laughing.

Curtis then says, “And you know, that’s not even the worst of it …”

No-Filter Dean has a visible reaction and starts laughing, saying, “How could it get any worse? Some angel made you his bitch.” Which could not be a worse comment, and goes over as well as can be expected. The way he delivers it has that quality of “blurting” that I find so interesting (and annoying, in real life.) If you just Google “blurting psychology” you’ll find a lot of cool articles. I know a guy in real-life who is a “blurter”, especially on Facebook pages. I’ll post something, he’ll launch into a monologue that is only tangentially related to what I posted, and you just never know how to respond: the comments are always self-involved, Me Me Me, and they’re always an attempt to be charming/humorous … but they’re just … weird. You don’t know what to say. Thanks for … sharing? It happened the other day. I decided to do an experiment. Normally I “like” every comment posted on whatever I post. It’s good manners, it’s an acknowledgement of others, it’s part of keeping Facebook pleasant. I don’t go on Facebook to argue. I know some people do, but I don’t. So anyway, this guy blurted something – not really inappropriate – but it did have a lot of swears in it, it was a monologue about his own life, “Yes, I am an asshole but boy, am I a well-read asshole” was one of the comments – and I decided NOT to “like” it and just see what happened. The FB conversation went around his strange blurt, people continued talking, having a nice conversation, and the “blurt” just sat there, un-acknowledged. No hostility, just … ignoring. I moved on with my life, went out and lived my day, later that night came back to FB and saw that he had deleted the comment. I admit, I rolled my eyes. Jesus, why don’t you participate in conversations in a normal way, guy, and stop trying to dominate with your persona, or whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing.

The second Dean blurts those words, he knows it was the wrong thing to say. In his way, he was trying to empathize. It was a companion piece to his “Yikes” comment. Commiserating. “Boy, I would hate being probed by an alien, dude. I would hate that so much!” in other words. (Oh, Supernatural, you crazy.)

Curtis stares at Dean and Dean flails about emotionally, silently, as he subsides. (I love Dean’s silent flails.) But my favorite part, is Sam, sitting on a table (above Dean), glancing down at his brother, ONLY with his eyeballs. (These guys with their eyeballs.) His posture remains Curtis-focused, strong and professional, but that blurt from Dean is a glitch in the fabric, a ridiculous moment when everything is practically derailed, and Sam’s side-eye is eloquent. Like; “Dude. What the hell is your problem.”

The whole thing with listening to victims tell their “tall tales” is that you are not supposed to express shock/dismay/skepticism, or say stuff like, “That is so gross.” If you’re a reporter, you would be trained in those things. Dean goes off-script.

But the real joke in the scene is that Curtis, yes, is traumatized at the memory of being “probed” (again and again and again and again and again … To quote Madonna, “My bottom hurts just thinkin’ about it.” Sorry.), but that is not “the worst thing.” I’m with Dean on this, even though his language to express it leaves something to be desired. What could be worse, dude? What could be worse than what you just described?

“They made me …. slow dance,” confesses Curtis, in a pained voice.

And with that revelation, “Tall Tales” careens off the rails. For good.

There’s a disco ball. There are glimmering white stars in the darkness. And Curtis slowly circles the dance floor, with a small white alien, clinging adoringly to his waist, making cooing happy sounds. All as “Lady in Red” by Chris DeBurgh plays.

1. It is hard to believe we once lived in a world where this song got radio play.
2. Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” demolished this world in four minutes and 38 seconds.

This idea comes from the sick mind of John Shiban. I mean, all bets are off in “Tall Tales,” right? With such a set-up, you can do anything. Skies the limit. The whole thing is about altering the nature of reality in order to bring comeuppance into the lives of douchebags. So what would be the worst thing for Curtis? This, for sure. And what would also be entertaining for the Trickster to enact? This, definitely. It is one of the reasons why the Trickster, though dangerous, is so beloved. Because he’s the one who thunk this thing up.

The “Lady in Red” sequence feels like it goes on forever. We get closeups of the little alien, clasping her/his/its/whatever’s hands behind Curtis’ back, and glancing up at him coyly and flirtatiously. First time watching, I literally could not believe what was happening. I was crying with laughter. It was one of the dumbest things I had ever seen in my life, and in my world that is high praise indeed.

After telling his tale of humiliation, we come back to the bar, and Sam and Dean sit in a silence that is, quite literally, stunned. Both men are frozen like statues, trying to comprehend what it was they just heard. The three reactions shots – first from Dean, then from Sam, then back to Dean, is the stuff I treasure in Supernatural. The directors know the importance of silent behavior, the things that happen beyond the lines, between the words. Not every show is in tune with silent behavior. Many shows are purely language-focused and plot-focused. But here, we have a symphony of silent reactions. Dean glancing at Sam. Sam visibly trying to re-adjust his brain to accommodate this new image. Dean trying (and failing) to laugh it off, and then wincing to himself. He winces with distaste at how weird this whole case has become. The scene freeze-frames on his wince, a perfect button to the scene.

Bobby, pacing, says to the brothers, who now both side on the bed, the window behind them (I love that deep background through the window: it’s a rich atmosphere, with depth: not shallow), “You’re exaggerating again, aren’t you?” Both of them, defeated, say simultaneously, “No.”

7th scene
On the lawn in front of Crawford Hall is a huge burnt circle in the grass, shown in an overhead shot, before panning down, and up again, revealing Sam and Dean looking on it, with the tilting building in the background. They argue about what they are looking at. Sam is struggling to deal with the implications of the “reality” in front of them. That was made by a jet engine. Dean scoffs, “A saucer-shaped jet engine?” Great. Very difficult to maintain your critical thinking skills while under the sway of the Trickster. Sam struggles too. There must be a connection between the haunted building and the “sexed-up E.T.” But …

In their experience, this is not how the supernatural works. At all.

The scene freeze-frames on the two of them, and we hear Dean’s voice saying, back in the room, “We just kept on digging.” Dean’s the teller of the tale now, which explains what happens next. Sam and Dean stand outside, interviewing a frat pledge in Curtis’ fraternity. He is played by Neil Grayston, who has a really successful career (he was on “Smallville” before Supernatural, as a lot of the actors were, including JA, but now plays Douglas Fargo on Eureka, a great gig.) This is a small “nothing” scene turned completely loopy because of Dean’s interpretation of Sam’s sensitivity. Just like picturing Sam pretending to be Dean, saying stuff like “Starla” and “feisty little wild-cat”, because that’s how Dean sounds to Sam … here Dean has Sam say stuff like, “I know how hard this must be, but I’m here for you, you brave little soldier.”

Padalecki has to deliver that bogus line with 100% commitment. I am laughing as I am typing these words.

Not to mention the earnest insane “therapist” behavior from Sam, and the frat pledge’s embarrassed reactions.

Dean casts himself in this version of events as the professional one, the one who keeps it together, getting embarrassed by Sam’s emotionalism.

In the present day, Sam exclaims in protest: “I never said that!!” Honestly, that’s probably true. Sam might have said some leading comment to get the guy to trust him and talk more, something like, “This must have been really hard for you guys, right?” Dean has turned that into “I acknowledge your pain, you brave little soldier” and I am crying with laughter.

Dean brushes it off, admitting maybe he’s generalizing, but whatever, “You’re always saying pansy stuff like that.” We don’t hear one another specifically. It becomes a “wash” of generalities, someone is “like” this and that’s the only way we can see them. Bobby watches the argument between Sam and Dean unfold like a tennis match, his eyes missing nothing. It’s a great reaction shot, and it adds to the tension of the episode, having Bobby there, the outside eye, but also the one who confirms for us What the hell is going on with these two guys? You can see it in Bobby’s face. He knows these guys. They may disagree, even bicker, but this level of sniping is not in character at all. They’re under the influence of some outside force. He probably clocks it 15 minutes into hearing their “tall tale.”

I just find it so funny (and so perfect) that yes, that is what Sam sounds like to Dean. “I acknowledge your pain.” Sam really doesn’t talk like that! And the flipside with “reel her in, that feisty little wild-cat” – that is so not Dean’s style, but it is according to Sam. That is what it looks like to Sam. Who is to say either of them are wrong? Our interpretations, in many cases, ARE reality. According to us. We are trapped in our own perspective.

This is the real guts of the episode, its motor, its interest. How they see each other. How they hear each other (or mis-hear). Is there a way to actually BE with another person, and get what they’re giving out, withOUT putting your own interpretation on it? It’s impossible, especially when the stakes are high (which is what Rashomon shows.) Memory is unreliable, especially when we are asked to tell what we remember. As we tell our memory, it solidifies into “what happened” (i.e. the truth), when really it is just a memory, a fabrication. Again, any cop trying to interview multiple witnesses will come up against that reality: 10 people saw the car crash into the crowd. Nobody can agree on what really happened. There are 10 different versions of the truth.

“Couples,” the Rashomon-inspired thirtysomething episode, is fascinating in its use of the unreliability of memory, and how – in our memory of painful episodes – we cast ourselves as the victim, or the hero. Nancy (Patricia Wetting) and Elliot (Timothy Busfield) are having trouble in their marriage. It all becomes crystal clear on a night when a bunch of the couples get together, and everyone witnesses just how bad it is between the two of them. But everyone sees the night in a different way. Nancy, a little bit tipsy on wine, starts talking about how she used to twirl the baton in high school, and, with a little prompting, she gets her old baton out of the closet, and does a routine for the group. In her version, it was playful, fun, and everyone was into it – except her husband, who felt ashamed of her. In Elliot’s version, she was extremely drunk, and making a fool out of herself, and (and this is crucial), the other couple in attendance (Hope and Michael) were ALSO embarrassed. The key is: probably a little bit of ALL of this is true. But the way we cast ourselves in our own stories is self-serving (usually), and that has to be taken into account.

Dean keeps telling the story, we’re still in his version, so when Sam lets the kid go, he is still teary-eyed, still emotional. The frat pledge lets them know in no uncertain terms that if Curtis suffered, he had it coming. He was an asshole to the pledges that year, so screw him. Hilariously, Sam is still coming down from his own emotional high, his own empathy, and Dean claps him on the shoulder like, “It’s okay, man, relax.” This is how Dean sees himself.

8th scene
Returning back to the room, yet again, Sam and Dean hash this thing out. Dean says the connection between the victims is that “they’re both dicks.” Sam is scornful, Dean is over-it: “You got anything better to go on, I’d love to hear it.” Sam, rummaging through his bag on his bed, discovers that his laptop is missing. Dean couldn’t care less. He starts riffing on the “dick” theory, and Sam keeps interrupting with comments about his laptop, which Dean ignores. Wonderful behavior from both of them. Dean babbles on, “These punishments … they’re almost poetic. Actually, they’re more like a limerick …” Meanwhile, Sam freaks out in the background.

It’s stereotypical husband behavior. “Honey, where are my socks?” “How should I know.” “Where did I leave my keys?” “What am I, your executive assistant? I have no idea.” (Like I said: stereotypical.) Sam demands to know where his laptop is. Dean doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, because he has nothing to do with it. He’ll wish for it later when he yearns for a Busty Asian Beauty (get your own laptop, Dean) but for now, Sam;s urgent questioning of him seems annoying and unfair. Sam’s heightened emotion results in Dean dialing-down, an annoying tactic making Sam look like he’s over-reacting (which, of course, he is). Dean smirks, “Looks like you lost it, Poindexter.”

That is how Dean sees Sam.

Sam takes a second. I love that he takes a second. There’s a decision made in that second of a pause. They’ve been bickering about nothing for a week now. Now it’s time to get real, and let Dean know just how annoying he is, how horrible a roommate he is, how disrespectful, how disgusting, how boundary-less. Both actors play the following scene great. Sam is furious and Dean remains totally Annoying Big Brother. He doesn’t lose his cool, he barely defends himself. He likes the food in the fridge. He’s a joy to be around. By not “going there” with Sam, Sam is left swinging in the wind. Freeze-frame again. By this point, Sam and Dean have moved over to the kitchen table, sitting, having some beers, Bobby standing over them. Bobby’s energy is cunning, watchful, and non-judgmental. He is not under the sway of what he now suspects is running the show here. He wants to know if Dean took Sam’s computer. The answer is No.

“I DON’T LOSE THINGS,” declares Sam, and Dean says, up at Bobby, “Oh, right, cause he’s Mr. Perfect.” Bobby is sick of it. How many times did he have to disentangle them when they were kids? “No, Dean did not steal your nerf-gun, your nerf-gun is right where you left it, Sam. Both of you pipe down.” Or, the classic, used by my dad and many other dads of his generation, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Bobby tries to get them to focus. What happened next?

9th scene
The animal-tester scientist emerges from Crawford Hall, hurrying across the walk to his car. It’s night. He catches a glimpse of something gleaming gold from inside a sewer grate. He kneels down, and reaches through the grate to grab onto whatever it is. (It’s a gold watch.)

Methinks John Shiban has seen Hitchcock’s Strangers On a Train:

Same shots, in many cases!

Animal-tester’s arm is gnawed off, and he screams bloody murder. Considering what you do to mice and rats and monkeys, serves you right, pal.

10th scene
Sam and Dean share narration on this scene, telling Bobby that they broke into the morgue/crime lab to investigate the body left behind. This is the type of scene that now would be drenched in color, a red light in the corner, blue beams coming in through the windows, whatever, but here: it’s monochromatic: black and white only. Blackness broken up by white flashlight beams. That’s it. It’s gritty, low-tech, realistic. This is how dark it would be and so this is how dark it IS. This look is long gone from the show, but thankfully we have a couple of seasons of it to revel in.

I also love the scene because I get to revel in this ridiculous-ness.

… also Sam’s almost-reluctant line-reading of “Alligator?”

Sam, once again, like with the quincunxes in “Playthings”, shows he has X-ray vision, or at least night-vision, because he spots a “belly scale” in plain sight, in all of that pitch-blackness. Good for you, Sam! Is it the demon blood that gives you special powers, or …?

Once Sam peers through the magnifying glass and identifies the “belly scale”, Dean starts to lose it. He likes to understand what he is hunting. He likes to know what the hell he is DOING in life, and this case is STUPID and he doesn’t understand it. Sam agrees, and suggests calling Bobby. There are a couple of wonderful shots in this scene with the two of their heads in the frame, classic beautiful Supernatural, dark and dreamy.

In the meantime, Sam informs Bobby, they checked the sewers for alligators. Just in case.

11th scene
Bobby asks, “Did you find anything?” Dean says yes, but not in the sewers, and we then see him crawling out of a sewer hole, walking around a corner to his Impala. When he sees what is before him, the music starts (the sexy rock-chord Supernatural theme, which often goes along with the Impala), the camera moves in on Dean, alarmingly. The camera move underlining the emotion, the horror of Dean’s discovery.

Low to the ground, the camera swoops around the Impala, showing 1 … 2… 3 … punctured tires, and a silver money-clip lying beside the passenger door. Sam has an engraved money clip? Since when? Was it a present from Jess for his LSAT scores or something? That’s my guess.

12th scene
Hot under the collar, Dean bursts back into the lair, demanding of Sam, who sits in the chair reading, “Do you think this is funny?” Sam’s calm response is funnier the more I think about it: “It depends.” Ha!!

It is Padalecki at his dry intelligent best. Now it is Dean’s turn to flip out and Sam’s turn to remain calm, which drives Dean insane to the point that he does a little fake-laugh, his imitation of Poindexter-Sam’s protest of innocence, before roaring on his indignation about the car and what Sam has done to it. Dean produces the money clip as evidence of Sam’s treachery, and Sam is then on his feet demanding the money back. Dean refuses. “Reparation for emotional trauma,” says Dean, and he’s not kidding.

The following fight that ensues is so entertaining that I watch it on repeat. I could watch it once a day and not get sick of it. There are a couple of elements that help make the humor, the “why” of it all, to go back to the beginning of this post.

1. Sam LOOMS over Dean. Dean looks TINY when they’re side to side like this, and Dean, as we all know, is a tall man.

2. As we saw in the pilot, in “Born Under a Bad Sign,” and as we will see again, these guys know how to fight. They know how to deliver a knock-out punch. These guys don’t “spar” when they fight. They go to put someone OUT, once and for all. But here, the fight is damn near girlie, with Sam getting grabby for the money-clip, and Dean whipping his arm back to hold it out of reach. You’re embarrassed. For both of them.

The “nyah-nyah you can’t reach the money clip” thing goes on for a while, until Sam finally attacks Dean, and they roll around on the bed, wrestling for the money clip, making exaggerated faces so they will be comedic in the freeze-frame.

Mission accomplished.

We know they are brothers. My God, the show never stops reminding us of that. But this fight, more than anything else, SHOWS that. Shows not only the influence of the Trickster, but who these big tall men must have been as kids. Picture that going on as John Winchester is sawing up a vampire in the motel bathtub. Or John goes to buy more ammo, leaving them in the car, and a fight breaks out over who gets to be the head honcho in the Army Guy game, and John comes back to the car to find them rolling around in the backseat, scuffling and snarling. They’re close enough in age that they would have “played” together, hunter-lifestyle or no.

Normally, when Sam and Dean fight, it’s this huge big monster deal, upsetting and disturbing, and emotional.

Here, it is ridiculous and you want to give both of them a Time Out.

So fun, too, because the actors here know they won’t hurt each other, so it’s not really choreographed, not as choreographed as a more violent fight would be. We’re watching these two guys actually scuffle and wrestle like this.

Joy to the world!

Bobby now takes over. “I’ve heard enough.” Hilarious. He sets out to enlighten them, and my favorite part of this small scene is Sam and Dean’s reactions, their residual annoyance with one another (especially Sam).

Bobby is basically scolding them. They’re 10 and 6 years old. “Sam, Dean did not take your computer.” Sam revolts, “BUT – BUT …” Bobby shushes him and then says, “Dean, Sam did not touch your car.” Dean goes stoic, cold, and Sam laughs across the table, saying, “Yeah!” So funny to me, because two seconds ago he was roaring his indignation, when Bobby was on Dean’s side, and he suddenly switches to like, “See, Dean? Bobby gets what’s going on here.” Childish!

The closeups of Sam are to die for, with the tiny blurry light in the background making a star right next to his mouth. Every visual element represents a choice, by Serge Ladouceur, to add some interest to the frame, something that gives it a spark, a resonance. It happened in the earlier scene in the bar, with the probing monologue, and those blue lights glowing in the distance, or the neon beer bottle suffusing Sam in its light. Even the most prosaic scenes have these bits of cinematic beauty.

Bobby is in control, he’s annoyed with the both of them for missing all of the clues of “what they were dealing with.” Sam and Dean sit there like doofuses, total blanks on their faces, in sync again (as they always are when confronted with the absurdities of the case). Sam admits, “I got nothing,” and Dean says, “Me neither,” and Bobby says, “You got a Trickster on your hands,” and Dean snaps his finger like, “I knew it!” Bringing one of my favorite Sam reaction shots in the entire episode. Across the table, scornful, but lighter now, knowing his brother is full of shit, saying, “What?? No, you DIDN’T.”

Charming. Real. Lived-in. The whole episode feels like that.

Bobby now enlightens them on the Trickster lore, and he’s the teacher (standing) and they the dunce-students (sitting).

Bobby’s monologue is good background, considering the Trickster episodes as a whole. Reality is altered. Dream-worlds created, as real as the real world. There is no way out. The Trickster episodes are there to provide lessons, show the boys something about the larger picture. (At least the later episodes are. This one appears to be when the Trickster first catches their scent, although considering who the Trickster turns out to be in the end shows there is probably some deliberate targeting going on. Let’s rope these guys in. Let’s have some fun.)

“Tricksters target the high and mighty. Knock ’em down a peg. Usually with a sense of humor.” Very important!

I can’t get enough of Sam in this scene.

13th scene
The Trickster is revealed in his own lair, a babe-magnet sex-cave lair, reading the “Weekly World News,” which has been a running joke in the series thus far, looking for ideas. Note his “aha” moment with the chainsaw guy, who shows up later in a nod to Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Skeezy porn-y music plays, the decor is sex-cave to the max (there appears to be a nude-ish photograph on the wall, I am assuming of the Trickster himself), and the Trickster strolls to the table loaded down with cakes and cupcakes and chocolates. He’s wearing a white undershirt and red gym shorts. Such a good costume choice.

Two hot babes materialize on either side of him, a blonde and a brunette, in Frederick’s of Hollywood lingerie, his playmates for the night, cooing on either side of him. No wonder Dean says later he “likes his style.”

14th scene
The Trickster, again with his key-chain, his defining characteristic and “prop” as a human being, leads Sam and Dean up the stairs of Crawford Hall, being buddy-buddy with them, over-sharing about the hot sex he had last night, “if you catch my drift.” Dean, back on track, since we are in the present-day (if this had been Sam’s version of events, Dean may have done a nudge-nudge-wink-wink in return) mutters, “Yeah. Hard not to.” Sam makes up a reason to have to go out to the truck, and hurries downstairs to sneakily go through the Trickster’s locker. We’ve got some of that cheesy filler music they sometimes glom onto. Why? I ask you, why. Sam finds a stash of Weekly World News in one locker. Later, Sam and Dean hustle out of the building, arguing about Sam’s finding.

It is here that Sam and Dean trick the Trickster, and the episode tricks us. Their argument seems to be back to same ol’ same ol’, a bickering nonentity of an argument, petty sniping at one another. The argument, though, fake as it is, all for the Trickster’s benefit, touches on some real truths. It’s deeper than the other arguments, and in “faking it” they say stuff that maybe they wouldn’t otherwise.

Dean calls Sam a “tight-ass” and says he was that way long before the Trickster showed up, and Sam, in the middle of “acting” his fight, seems actually taken aback by that mean comment. Big standoff of angry glaring looks, shot from below to make them seem huge, shot in real close-up, so we get the freckles and the little moles and the anger and all that.

Sam’s fake/real point is that they want hard proof before they “stake” a man who may be totally innocent. Sam commands Dean to wait. He’ll be back after checking out the Trickster’s apartment. Don’t do anything until I get back. Anger. Raised voices. Sharp body language, all as the Trickster stares at them out the window.

15th scene
Time has passed. It is now night. Dean waits outside the building. Honestly, Sam, what is taking you so long? There’s a beautiful overhead shot, following Dean as he paces outside the steps. As he goes in, we finally get a good long look at the beautiful religious stained-glass window above the entranceway.

Like I said if you have such an impressive natural building, you might as well use it to the hilt. It’s an actual building, clearly, and not a set, but the fact that this campus building has a religious stained-glass window above the door works beautifully with the end-game of the Trickster, not revealed for seasons. There is a religious element to what is happening here, to what is happening to Sam, to Dean, and to the Trickster. It’s that larger Arc that no one can see yet.

It’s after-hours so all of the lights are off inside, and Dean, like the criminal he is, skulks down the stairway, with his flashlight and his wooden stake.

Wandering around in the darkness, he suddenly hears … music? Could it be? He moves towards it, coming into an auditorium. Barry White’s sex-positive “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” blasts through the air. (I heard some urban legend that Barry White’s voice is so sexy it actually brings on ovulation. I have never tested that theory though.) Dean stands frozen at the top of the stairs, looking down at the scene before him. Red and blue and yellow lights pour down from above. On the stage is a bed, and writhing around on the bed in a state of readiness are the two babes from the Trickster’s apartment. It is all of a piece with the absurd surreal nature of the episode, giving Jerry Wanek so much to chew on: “Okay, so we need an auditorium full of academic accoutrements, and it also needs to be turned into a Sex Palace.” Got it.

As the camera pans down over the stage, the two ladies are revealed on the bed, underneath a gigantic banner showing the alphabet. The banner is perhaps a bit rudimentary for a university setting, but never mind: It’s funny!

Dean’s face when he sees the scene before him is classic. He looks like he wants to speak for a second, and say, “What the hell” but the words freeze in his throat. He can’t comprehend the level of the reality he is seeing. It looks so real. If it looks real, if he perceives it as real, then … isn’t it real? (Cue the real bullet that pierces his back in “Changing Channels.” The Trickster has fun, but he is also deadly serious.)

There is a disco ball. There is a lava lamp. There are martini glasses. Dean slowly walks down the steps, and his face is now open and friendly. His sex face. His “ooh, look at the pretty girl” face. On some level, he knows it’s not real. But they are pretty and they are smiling at him in a welcoming way he can’t resist and what they offer is tempting as hell. He goes soft. Or … that’s probably the opposite of what is happening … but emotionally he goes soft and open. It’s one erotic muse meeting two other erotic muses. So, you know. Match made in heaven. When one offers to give him a massage, he starts laughing. It’s too much! He reiterates to himself, but he doesn’t sound convinced, “You guys aren’t real.” (“Guys.” Hysterical. He’s a big kid.)

Dean says he’ll have to pass, but it’s hard for him, and he may have eventually just said, “Oh, fuck it” and gone for it if the Trickster hadn’t said, from behind him, “It’s a peace offering.” (Love the double entendre in that “peace”.)

But what I love even more is the construction of the shot. Dean turning at the Trickster’s voice, with the hot babes blurry in the background. It’s beautiful, and warm, and red, the whole thing, showing the appeal of the Trickster universe, the appeal it has to Dean. It’s stunning.

The Trickster and Dean talk mano a mano. Supernatural has a tendency to give the monster a monologue in the final act. It’s already tired and old, and is even more so now, 9 seasons later. But this one is really good. Much of this is to do with Richard Speight’s delivery. To use an over-used phrase, he “owns” this character. The tone here is intimate and jokey, truthful and knowing. He knows more than he’s saying. He knows the two of them. He’s “run into your kind” before. “But I like you!” His body posture is relaxed, and he has a casual-ness of delivery that makes him a totally compelling character. Before I knew that he would be featured in one of the greatest Triptych-of-episodes in the whole series, I hoped to see him again, based on this monologue. I, too, like his style.

They share a good laugh about the slow-dancing alien, but Dean reiterates, almost regretfully, that he can’t let the Trickster get away with killing people, even if they had it coming.

The fact that this whole scene is played with flashing dance-club lights and Barry White in the background adds to the fun-loving totally surreal vibe. Almost instantly, for me, it became a classic. This kind of goofball stuff, mixed with in-depth examinations of things like our relationship to reality, is what Supernatural does best. You can almost feel them, as a cast and crew, hitting some kind of weirdo stride throughout. It’s like, Yes. This is who we are as a show. This is what we bring to the table.

Sam and Bobby appear at the tops of the two flights of stairs, both wielding stakes. The Trickster turns to Dean, confused, and impressed. “That fight you had outside … that was a trick?” Dean’s reaction (a shrug – with his face – and then a smile) is outrageously and overtly flirtatious. Bedroom-eyes. Totally.

The whole thing can’t be captured in a static screen-grab, as is so often the case with Ackles, because his reactions are so fluid and so alive in the moment. The Trickster being impressed with Dean tricking him turns Dean on. The entire atmosphere is one of sexual possibility already and Dean is highly suggestible to stuff like that. In this moment, he “wins.” He has the winner aspect, he’s proud of himself, but there’s also something a little fragile there, a little broken. Getting praise … it’s a rare thing for Dean, he doesn’t trust it, he doesn’t have the skills to endure it … he can’t really live in that space, but in that moment … he is able to. And because he’s Dean, it comes off as sexual. One cannot tell an actor to put these layers into something. It’s not “on the page” at all. This is not an aspect of Dean discussed (outside of the fans). It’s subtext. It’s something Dean himself is not aware of (although Ackles definitely is). Everyone around Dean is aware of it (Sam’s constant eye-rolls at Dean’s sexual suggestibility), but, you know, they don’t sit around unpacking what it all means. That’s not who they are.

The moment lasts half a second. I just wrote a full paragraph on it. That’s the possibility of what actors bring to their roles.

Now comes the chaotic fight, involving Sam, Dean, and Bobby, fending off not only Leatherface, who appears behind Sam wielding a chainsaw, but the two babes on the bed, who kick Dean’s ass to kingdom come. The Trickster pretty much stays out of it. It’s one of the more entertaining fight scenes in Supernatural. At any moment any one of them could die, but that doesn’t stop Bradford May from milking the thing for its humor.

For example, Sam and Leatherface fight, and at one point, Leatherface’s chainsaw plunges through a huge sign showing the tragedy and comedy theatre masks. I mean, come on. Dean tries to attack the Trickster, is ambushed by Brunette Babe, who throws him onto the stage, and as he careens through the air, please look at Ackles’ face as he goes by. And look at her uplifted arms in the background.

Because Supernatural is egalitarian when it comes to monsters and demons, often what that means is that Sam or Dean (but usually Dean, come to think of it) is put in the position of having a huge fist fight with a woman. Or a little kid. Or an old lady. First of all, how much fun is it for these one-off actors, women and children and old ladies, to get a chance to do old-fashioned fight choreography, something they normally are not asked to do? And not only that, but they get to kick ass? Dean is truly hurt by these babes, and Ackles acts the hell out of it, and so do the both of them. The women make sounds of laughter, and little “Ooh!” sounds as they throw him around and it is impossible to take seriously, and I love things that are impossible to take seriously. We should more of that in the world, not less.

One of the babes punches him in the face, and Ackles does this swoon off to the side, his entire body moving with the power of the punch.

Hilarious. He’s so damn good at this stuff. It’s all totally fake. It’s a ballet. It’s awesome. Meanwhile, Sam and Bobby fight off Leatherface, and the Trickster, eating a candy bar, watches the whole thing, having the time of his life.

For example …

Can’t take it.

Dean, once again, is thrown the air and lands – head-first – on one of the seats, and that looks like it’s gotta hurt. Groping for the fallen stake, he plunges it into the Trickster’s chest, who looks amazed, stunned, upset. In a wavering moment, Leatherface disappears, and then both Babes disappear (and I love their gasp-in-unison, as they waver out of sight. No detail too small.)

Beat up, groaning, the worse for wear, Sam, Dean and Bobby convene, staring down at the dead Trickster.

Dean says again, “He had style,” and then the three guys hustle out of the building to the Impala waiting at the curb. As they hurry down the steps, Sam starts to thank Bobby for helping them out, and Bobby snaps, “Save it – let’s get the hell out of Dodge before somebody finds that body.” Bobby is in a hurry. And rightly so. Which is then underlined yet again by Sam and Dean stopping to have a damn near tender moment over the hood of the Impala, as they linger over silently apologizing for the mean things said during the various arguments. Both brothers take their time with it. They don’t say the words. They don’t need to. But it’s touching. Bobby has disappeared into the back seat as all of this is going on. It’s Sam who starts it. Of course. He can’t really say “I’m sorry” because … these are not the conversations these guys have with each other, normally. Their language is inadequate. He leaves the sentence unfinished. Going in close, Sam almost looks desperate. There’s a pleading in his face. Vulnerable. Dean is his big brother. Think about how Sam idolized him his whole life, issues notwithstanding. It’s his big brother. And Dean looks glamorous and bruised, serious and open, and okay with where the conversation has gone. Because Sammy is his little brother. Who cares if he’s a tight-ass? He’s Sammy. The Trickster has done some damage, and it’s okay to take a second to make it all right. They both look achingly beautiful.

The tortured eye contact might have gone on forever but in the final “bit” of the episode, Bobby’s head re-appears beside Sam (he basically enters into Sam’s shot – part of the humor of it – people are always wandering into each other’s shots in “Tall Tales”) and he is urgent and annoyed: “You guys are breakin’ my heart. Could we just leave?”

Nobody ever said the Winchester boys weren’t high-maintenance. Bobby will need a nice long nap after this case. And maybe he’ll even turn his phone off for 25 minutes, just to get a break from the both of them.

The car peels out, and the camera stays on the entrance to the building. Uh-oh. The Trickster lies dead in the auditorium seats, and a figure appears in the foreground, staring down at the body. The Trickster wavers away, to the no-man’s-land where all good Leatherface/Underwear-Babes go, and another Trickster stands there, staring down at the empty spot, grinning, and chewing his candy bar.

I’ll let one of my current favorite songs close out the re-cap, because the title says it all.

It’s not over till it’s over and done.