“I can kill you with my brain.” - River Tam, Firefly

Requiem for Ronald Reznick
by
Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review - Season 2, Episode 12

My friend in Houston and I talk about Supernatural sometimes, and inevitably the question comes up as to which episodes are best. We’ve been able to agree that since there are so many good ones and it would be impossible to give them all a blue ribbon, it becomes necessary, for example, to categorize best of Season 1, best of Season 2, best Dean ep, best Sam ep, funniest, saddest, and so on. Eventually we’ll get down to the eps that are the top of the tree, cream of the crop, and this one, Nightshifter, always comes up, and it’s always my friend who reminds me of this.

I asked her to tell me why, which she did until I had a list as long as Sam’s arm. And I had to agree, because this ep has everything cool to make, really, the perfect Supernatural ep. It brings back a MOW from a previous ep, adding a lovely dose of continuity. It has Sam and Dean in three different disguises, and then there are those sexy patterned shirts they wear, Dean in plaid flannel, and Sam in his hip-skimming blue stripe. And there are no wasted minutes here; every scene pushes the plot forward, every bit of dialog brings the whole story to a critical conclusion, and everything is so real, their actions have consequences in the real world. Plus there is the way cool Styx song at the end, which is like frosting on the cake. At which point my friend and I discuss Sam’s hair, and how sweet it was when it hung in his eyes like it did. I mean, fangirls have to have their priorities.

The first disguise has Sam and Dean dressed as FBI agents. Dean doesn’t make a very good FBI agent, for all he is so adorable in that severe suit and raincoat. He smiles and flirts with the clerk, and generally makes himself pleasant, which, if you’ve ever talked to an FBI agent, you will know is very far from the truth. They are like nuns in that they have no sense of humor. (True story. I was on the phone with the FBI once about a murder investigation where I had the business records that they needed. I made several smart-ass remarks about how they had the wrong man and how they might go about finding the right one. I told him who he should call and advised him to tell them he was with the FBI and they’d tell him what he wanted to know. He hung up on me. I’m certain that I’m now, as they say, known to the FBI.) I love the bit where, when Dean’s getting the clerk’s number for some “private” interrogation, his eyes flick towards Sam either to make sure Sam doesn’t see this, or to determine whether he can stand Sam’s wrath when he finds out. Either way, he’s cute when he does it. Also revealing is Dean’s answer to the clerk as to what it’s like being an FBI agent, which, on purpose, I’m sure, matches exactly what it’s like to be a hunter: it’s dangerous, you’ve got to keep tons of secrets, and, most telling of all, it’s lonely. Poor Dean. Poor lonely boy.

Sam, on the other hand, makes a very impressive FBI agent, in spite of his hair being Brylcreemed back over his ears. (Why is it that Sam always figures that Brylcreeming his hair will keep him from being recognized?) He’s dressed in black almost from head to toe, constantly pulling himself to his full height; he’s the guy whose way you want to get out of, even with the Brylcreem, which is totally unable to compete with the stern.  And it’s not just the height that makes him imposing, it’s his expression, which is grim and closed off and you just know there’s no messing around with this guy. He’s so into the role that he evidences no sympathy when the guy he’s interviewing is obviously upset about the person who died. Normally, Sam is all over everyone being nice about things, but not this time (It makes an interesting change, also, to see the brothers on opposite sides of the fence, for once, but it’s logical in this case, so it’s not jarring.)

Sam’s FBI-ness continues even as they go to Ronald Reznick’s house to get more information. I love the way Sam says Ronald’s name when they are at the door, like he’s tired of dealing with it already, but let’s talk about Ron for a minute. Ron is, obviously, everyman. He is you and me when we’re in the middle of living our very small lives but suspect something’s not right, and when thrown up against the strange, we want to understand it because, dangit, we’ve lost our jobs and there’s nothing more interesting and important than figuring it out. But, since we don’t have the training or the experience, we can’t put our finger on it, we can’t get anyone to believe us about the black helicopters, the fact that the moon is hollow, or discuss the clandestine activity at Dealy Plaza, and so on. Only in this case, Ron’s got the smarts to figure it out 99% of the way, except for the mandroid part, and he’s trying to do the right thing so I like him all the more.

He’s eager, he’s earnest, and he’s smart, plus he’s into the Terminator movies (and who isn’t?), so Dean takes to him right away, and this because I think he can see that Ron could be good, he’s got potential, he’s hunter material even though he’s never had the training. Sam, on the other hand, is not amused, and when the boys figure out that the information Ron has shown them is useful, Sam stands up, good and slow, and informs Ron that there is no man behind the curtain, that the FBI controls the vertical as well as the horizontal, and then he remands Ron’s tapes. It’s interesting to watch Dean’s face as Sam stands up and starts telling Ron the truth he wants him to hear. For a second, I think Dean feels that Sam is going to let Ron “in” on the whole saving people, hunting things deal, and when he doesn’t, Dean actually flinches. You can see it in his eyes that he realizes that what Sam is doing is necessary, but it’s cruel because Ron is trying to do the right thing, he wants to help, and he’s done a lot of work on this gig, and to Dean, that counts for something.

Back at the motel, we get some classic Winchester dither, with Dean connecting the dots with a big red marker on a piece of paper (adorably holding the pen against his middle finger, as usual), and Sam, resplendent in his hoodie and t-shirt, examines Ron’s tapes with a critical eye. At which point Dean points out how creepy it is how easily Sam fits into the role of an FBI agent, and Sam wants to know if Dean’s pissed at him. (I always get the feeling that Sam’s just itching for a fight during this scene, if Dean’ll give him one.) It’s also interesting their different opinions on how Ron should be (or should have been) handled. Sam wants to keep him in the dark, that is, safe, which is, frankly, where Sam would rather be. However, Dean’s of the mind that Ron should be told everything, because if you’re in the know, you can be safer that way, which is how Dean prefers to operate.

The motel room where they dither is excellent this time around, some old brick-walled place with iron bedsteads and a picture of a cow over one of the beds for some reason. (Maybe because Wisconsin is known for cheese products, fine, but it’s an awfully funny looking cow.) Dean drinks beer and draws, Sam watches the tape and bitches, and the two of them verbally circle around each other in a brotherly dance that bespeaks of years of close quarters, of packing and unpacking in the dark, where who gets the first shower is a long-established pattern, and there are no questions of “why are you doing that?” because the answer has long been known: I’m doing that because that’s what we do.

Sam and Dean go to the bank that they suspect is next on the shapeshifter’s list dressed like employees of some security service. It’s hard to imagine how those coveralls could look so good on them, hiding every inch of skin and toned muscle as they do, but they do, they do. Plus dark blue is such a nice color on both of them, not to mention the fact that I enjoy watching the ease at which they are able to get into the video camera booth. Sam’s all serious, as he is for the duration of this ep, but Dean is all smiles and getting along, and liking the fact that the security guard said “okey-dokey” when typically, he’s irritated by having to make nice with the locals. For some reason, while Sam’s glaring at the video screens, Dean’s having a good old time, looking for the popcorn, focusing one of the cameras on a female clerk’s backside, and not worrying about a thing. It’s nice to see him in such a relaxed mood for once, just as much as it is experiencing Sam in a stern mood.

While I’m still wondering how they are so readily able to operate equipment that they, mostly likely, have hitherto never before encountered, the boys determine that the bank manager is the shifter. At which point, Ron shows up, padlocks the only door in or out, and then the fun begins. The ep becomes one of those “trapped in a locked room” plots, where everything becomes intensified because you have to figure out who the killer is before you can even begin to think about getting out. Only in this case the room is an entire darkened bank with many hallways and grottos, and the killer is a shapeshifter, which only adds to the fun, because each time the boys think they know who it is, it’s someone else. I love how Dean and Sam run INTO the danger zone when the shooting starts, with Dean bitching at Sam because Sam said they shouldn’t bring guns. Which makes it even more interesting in that it was little brother who determined this, and not only that, big brother went along with it! (Show, in its typical classy style, is able to divulge that yes, sometimes Sam calls the shots without being obvious about it.)

The scene where Ron shoots feathers from the ceiling (yes, check it out, feathers are falling!), and then when he encounters Sam and Dean is particularly fun. And, yes, I’ll admit to enjoying seeing the boys on their knees and being patted down, and especially Dean’s explanation about not wanting to go in naked when his knife is discovered (because apparently being weaponless equates to being naked in Dean’s mind. Also, check out Dean’s thick socks, man, those things are wool. I’m sure they itch.) I especially enjoyed Dean’s push to relate to Ron. Yes, in Ron’s eyes, he’s a damn liar and he knows it, but with his eyes and his voice, he’s able to convince Ron to not shoot anyone and to take Dean with him to go looking for the bank manager. (Ackles really sparkles in this kind of lighting; you can see every single one of his adorable freckles!)

Dean doesn’t usually take this role, like I said before, he’s not the one to relate to civilians unless they’re mute children, in which case he reverts to being a child himself and then he and the kid get along famously. So it’s nice to see that he does have the mad skills to calm a jumpy, wet-behind-the-ears, hunter-wannabe and make the situation safe for everyone. At the same time, Sam, atypically, can’t even get any traction with Ron, and when he tries, Ron tells him to shut the hell up. You can just feel that at any second, Ron’s going to blow Sam’s head off. But it’s funny as HELL to watch Sam try to relate to Ron while at the same time loosing it when he says, “We’re not working for the MANDROID!” (Which always reminds me, of some reason, of the Roy Orbison song, “Working for the Man,” and then I can’t get the tune out of my head!)

The boys split up at this point and it’s almost okay (it’ll never be 100% okay, right, because Sam and Dean work better together, and the sooner Show figures that out and sticks to it, the happier I will be) because it kind of makes sense. Dean and Ron go off to find the bank manager, and Sam gets locked in the bank vault. And I’ll say this about Sam, as he’s suffering in that vault, he’s really suffering, and this is on account of the Bank Chick going on and On an ON about Dean. How wonderful, how handsome, how brave. (True, true, and…true.) Sam admits that Dean’s his brother, and while he’s about two seconds away from being pained by this, it’s the eyeroll that gets me. Oh, it’s a BRILLIANT eyeroll, done only the way Sam can do it, in the way you can imagine that he’s done for years, with his head turned from the person he’s talking to so that they can’t see, and with nary another muscle on his face moving. Just his eyes, rolling, and that almost silent sigh of exasperation. I get two things from this. First, that he’s withstood YEARS of people praising Dean to him, which must be the most annoying thing ever. And second, that he learned to do his eyerolls secretly because The Dad took exception to them and would make Sam run extra laps when he did it. (Yeah! The Dad gets a mention!)

Dean and Ron, meanwhile, make a surprisingly good team. Dean, of course, being Dean, has turned the I’m-your-willing-captive thing around so that Ron’s doing what Dean tells him to do. And then there’s Ron, who is not only appreciative about learning the truth from Dean, and from working with Dean (which, obviously is a kick in the pants), he is, in the ever-true words of Guy (a.k.a. “Crewman Number Seven”), just JAZZED about being on the show, man! I mean, wouldn’t you be? Dean meanwhile figures out, when the  police outside cut the lights, that things are not looking good. In spite of being severely fond of Ron, Dean’s still on the job, and at this point, as he hangs his head and studies his feet, you can tell he’s not got the vaguest idea what they should do next. So what does he do? He pulls Sam out of the vault so that he and Sam can have a quick dither in the dark.

The dither is one of those excellent ones, and I’m not sure if it’s the half-dark lighting, the fact that the situation is so charged you can see electric sparks, but mostly I think it’s because Sam is so freaking pissed off about the whole thing, the way he gets when they’re in over their heads (which they are), and he feels that Dean’s not taking it seriously enough. Which I think he is, and Sam must realize this, only Dean’s playing the fool a bit here so as to give little bro an opportunity to blow off some steam while there’s some down time, and if that’s not a perfect example of brotherly love, I don’t know what it is. Not to mention the fact that Sam’s beautiful when he’s pissed. Lightning flickers in his dark eyes as Dean prattles on about how he’s going to go looking for stragglers while Sam is to help Ron manage the situation. I put it to Padalecki’s skills that his one-word responses such as “Seriously,” and “Understatement!” and finally his wordless, wide-eyed stare at Dean to point out that Ron has now stupidly stepped INTO the light (Carol Ann), come across as powerfully and clearly as JFK during his inaugural address.

As Dean wanders the halls, looking sexy in the dark with his flashlight in his hand, Sam’s left alone with Ron. When he says, “Hi, Ronald,” there’s a whole bunch there that he’s not saying about how he and Ron now have to get along and work together even though they don’t care for each other very much. My opinion of Ron goes up a notch when he doesn’t fall for Sam’s charm like the rest of the world does. I mean, sure, he SHOULD fall for Sam’s charm because Sam is charming and it’s just silly not to, but I respect him standing by what he believes in, which in this case is Dean and not Sam.

While Dean finds a dead body in the ceiling, Sam’s got trouble with a capital T in dealing with Ron talking blithely and earnestly to the police (”No, I’m not killing anyone right now….”) as well as the troublesome crowd locked in the vault, one of which might be having a heart attack, and all of whom need fresh air. Sam’s polite enough to call heart attack guy “sir,” while at the same time leaving him in there to possibly die. Which just shows you how Sam is; when it comes down to it, he might just decide that you have to die, and too bad for you, but that’s just facts.

But in spite of getting a good dose of dark Sam (which, as you may or may not know, blows many a fangirl skirt up at the mere thought of it), it cracks me up to watch him act like a schoolteacher at his wit’s end. He’s dealing with the kids who want to go out to recess but who he’s determined have been too naughty for that particular privilege, while at the same time, he’s got to watch with the bad kid he’s sent out to stand in the hall. He’s got too much to do and as he scolds and glares, watch as his hands actually go on his hips! Next thing you know he’ll be assigning lines and sending Ron down to the principal’s office for six of the best. Sam, dear, I believe you have missed your calling.

Dean comes back and silently tells Sam that the tall dude hovering over the heart attack guy is the one they want. Watch them both as they stand face to face and almost don’t say a thing, but they’re on exactly the same wavelength when it comes to doing what must be done: get heart attack guy out of there and take down tall dude. Dean alas is not at his best here, maybe he didn’t realize that tall dude was on to them, but tall dude knocks Dean down and gets away into the dark grottos of the bank. As they make chase, Ron steps into the light, and gets shot.

It’s a beautifully filmed scene, in slow motion and in perfect silence as befits a hero. Sam’s screaming, but you can’t hear him, while Dean ducks down behind a slab of marble, and the whole thing is over in seconds, leaving Sam and Dean to mourn the only way they know how, given the fact that they don’t have any time at all whatsoever, with swearwords flitting behind their eyes. Sam goes off to find the shapeshifter, and I pity the fool who doesn’t run as far and as fast as he can with Sam Winchester on his heels, I pity the fool. As for Dean, I fall in love with him all over again as he gives his brief eulogy for Ron. It’s not what he says exactly, though it’s true Dean respects him for tracking the thing as well as he did, rather it’s the time Dean takes. Dean, who won’t even visit his own mother’s grave, takes the time to bend by Ron’s fast-cooling corpse and pay his respects, hunter style. Way to go, Dean, you ROCK! Ron rocks too and will be sadly missed.

Now Sam hunts, looking sexy in the dark with his flashlight in his hand, and Dean is left with the naughty kids in the vault. Bank chick doesn’t like him any more and again, surprisingly, Dean takes the time to relate to her, because you can see that it bothers him that she thinks he’s awful. Why it bothers him is another question, and I don’t think it’s because he wants to get into her pants. Obviously it has to do with the switch the brothers have made for this ep, but really, it beguiles me why his attitude towards civilians has gotten this soft. Typically one of Dean’s strengths is that he’s able to go into the crowd, his shoulders squared and firm for the task, a cold expression on his face, shooting whoever needs to be shot. I’m not thinking it’s a continuity error in Dean’s character, because he’s acting like himself in a happy mood, so I’ll just put it off to the fact that Dean got a good night’s sleep last night, had a full hot breakfast that morning, and leave it at that.

Anyway, Sam’s hunting, and Dean walks the heart attack guy out to the front, and here is where things come to a point. There’s at least half a dozen rifles focused on Dean and heart attack guy, and with his voice alone (and his frantic, wide eyes), Dean tells them to back the hell off as he lets the guy go. He takes in the gathered crowd of police, SWAT teams, AND the news and, as he goes back in and locks the door, he says to himself, “We are so screwed.” Which brings me back to my issue with Dean’s earlier happier mood, which I now realize was done to create a contrast. Dean, as you know, loves to hunt, he loves the excitement and the smell of napalm in the morning, but now? The stakes have gotten a whole lot higher, for you see, at this point, there doesn’t look to be any way out of their current mess. Sam was right, they’re in over their heads. Way over.

They’re so in over their heads that the FBI arrives, bringing with it one of my favorite guest characters, Special Agent Victor Hendrickson, who suffers no fools gladly, doesn’t care what you think of him, and, what’s more, knows ALL about the Winchesters. Here’s how it goes down. Hendrickson calls into the bank and Dean answers the phone. At first Dean is all glib and stuff, but Hendrickson prattles off what he knows, all the killings and desecrations and all the places they boys have been, that Sam is Bonnie to Dean’s Clyde, while Dean quietly goes into a frantic state of panic. And Hendrickson doesn’t know just a little, he knows a WHOLE lot. Couple of good things here. Dean’s eyelashes are about three-feet long in this scene, and if you don’t believe me, get out a ruler. Then there’s the close ups of Dean’s face in a panicked state that shows me his ginormous green eyes and that lush mouth. But mostly, yeah, you know where I’m going with this, I’m in love with Hendrickson because he brings up The Dad.

Hendrickson knows, man, he knows about how The Dad dragged those kids from pillar to post, raising them up in cheap motels and backwoods cabins, and just as I’m leaning forward for MORE delicious factoids like these, Hendrickson switches into opinion mode because he can’t figure out whether The Dad was a survivalist nut job, a Unabomber, or what. He rattles on to be insulting but simply doesn’t know and is just trying to get Dean’s goat. (Which he had, as they say, at hello.)  And Dean says, “You don’t know crap about my dad. He was a hero.” I love, love, love Dean in this scene, it might be my favorite scene in the whole ep  (besides Sam’s mandroid line), on account of Dean’s shoulders go back and his chin comes up and there’s a whole lot of love and pride running through him. Plus, yeah, I loved the factoids about where the boys lived when they were growing up. Show needs to give fangirls like me MORE like this, and right away, if not sooner. Otherwise I’ll just make stuff up and it’ll be a whole lot darker than what Show had planned.

Then, the boys encounter the body of the now-dead bank chick and pull the live bank chick out of the vault, thinking she must be the shapeshifter. When Sam grips her firmly to his well-muscled side and announces that she’ll never become anyone else, ever again, he’s just out-of-bounds scary, and again, reveals the darker side of him, which in spite of being creepy, is, somehow, at the same time, oddly attractive. (Hey. Don’t take my word for it, ask ANY fangirl.) There’s also some marvelous dark comedy here when the bank chick freaks out and then faints, leaving Dean and Sam to stare at the two bodies on the floor, which they do in classic double-take style, worthy of the best silent comedies. Dean, typical of him, shrugs and picks one, ready to stab her through her slimy heart when Sam stops him with a question, which shows so clearly how Sam is able to crawl inside the MOW’s mind and just for a minute, think like a MOW. (Which is also pretty freaky, how easily he does this.) It takes a flexible brain to be able to do that, so kudos to Sam.

Naturally, it’s a double blind, and the apparently dead bank chick is the MOW and she goes after Dean, while Sam hustles the real bank chick (now awake and hysterical) out of range of the grunting and fighting. It’s interesting to watch Dean fight a woman, and you’d think it’s be an uneven battle, but apparently shapeshifters have quite the reach, and the smarts to know when to kick Dean in the nether regions when he’s got his manly thighs apart like that, but except for a few flickers in his eyes as he realizes he’s not fighting an actual woman, Dean goes at it, hammer and tongs. Especially good is the moment where he stabs her, up close and personal, and looks into her eyes at the moment of death. Now there’s a guy who knows what death means; it’s never become commonplace for him, even as it happens so often, because yet again he takes the time to honor a death, even if it’s that of his enemy.

Sam gets his moment too, and really, this guy is a trained killer when you get down to it, trained by The Dad, and holding onto that training in spite of his protestations to the contrary, because he’s able to take down not one but TWO trained and armed SWAT guys with his bare hands. His BARE hands. Okey dokey. Definitely not the guy I’d want to meet anywhere or anytime if he had even the slightest inkling that I was not on his side. But he’s lovely and sexy to watch like that so as long as he’s on that side of the screen, I’m okay. And safe.

Things get confusing towards the end of the ep, with many figures running around in SWAT outfits, including the large-booted individual who comes upon Dean and the dead shapeshifter. Naturally this turns out to be Sam who has, single-handedly found a way for them to get out of the bank with their manly selves in one piece. I had to watch the next scene several times, and I might be slow about these things, but I don’t think I’m wrong. As Hendrickson marches in to a room, barking out orders, there’s a tall SWAT guy who pauses at the door and a shorter SWAT guy who slips out under his arm. The camera pauses on the tall SWAT guy and shows us his eyes. It doesn’t look like Sam but it obviously must be, and the other fellow is Dean, and isn’t it way cool that they slipped out right under Hendrickson’s nose like that? Their hearts must have been going double time, and they must have been coated in sweat by the time they made it out of there. (And kudos to the older, more experienced cop who stops Hendrickson from tearing the bank apart trying to find the boys.)

Which brings us to the last scene, the classic, oft-discussed scene with only one line of dialog and that way cool Styx song “Renegade.” Fangirls have a tendency to moan over this scene, being, like me, unable to quite articulate why it’s so sexy and cool and just dang GOOD, but I called my friend in Houston and made her tell me why. Why, why, why? She gave me another list, this one as long as Sam’s leg, and it rather repeated her first list, in that she talked about the MOW being cool, the realism, the boys in many costumes, the hair in Sam’s eyes. She’s right of course, this is a brilliant episode.

As to the reason why, it’s not just the list she gave me, but more, I think it’s the way that the elements come together, and the fact that what the boys do, however well and passionately, has consequences in the Real World. Where people don’t believe in mandroids, let alone shapeshifters, and when you dig up a grave (however good the reason), it’s kind of against the law, as is salting and burning the corpse. Where good people die, and the problem that you thought you were solving just morphed into something far bigger and badder than you ever thought possible. The boys are now wanted, and I, being a True Fangirl, moan with pleasure as they peel off their balaclavas and Dean says, “We are so screwed.” There’s nothing more that they can say to each other after that, except for the fact that I’d like to point out that in all his 22 years, The Dad was never on the FBI’s radar. Yet his boys, within a very short period of time, have messed up so badly that they each have their own wanted poster. Oh, boys.

Sylvia Bond is a ten-year technical writing veteran with too many degrees under her belt to count. She lives in Colorado, but does not ski, preferring instead to spend her money and time at the annual Great American Beer Festival, taking road trips across the United States, and reading historical fiction from the comfort of her fluffy green arm chair. She has been involved in fandom since 1993 and been writing fanfic since approximately 1993. What she finds most amazing about fandom (besides the open heartedness of fans and the sheer amount of creativity) is how visible fandom has become. “In my day,” she says, “we had to hide behind P.O. boxes to get fanfic. But nowadays, people wear t-shirts that shout their affiliation and share their shiny toys on the internet.” It’s a wonderful world.

Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS