Supernatural: In The Beginning

Back to a Wonderful Life
by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review – Season 4, Episode 3
“In the Beginning”

I’ve been criticized sometimes for being a bit of a Pollyanna, you know, the character who was so damned GLAD all the time that she annoyed everyone around her. If you’ve read the book (or seen the fabbo movie with Haley Mills), you’ll know that after Pollyanna finished annoying everyone with her gladness, she poisoned the entire town until its citizens discovered the million and one reasons to be glad all around them. It is not exactly my goal to spread the joy (some people are very resistant to being happy for some reason), however, when reviewing Show, I tend to find myself in the Pollyanna role while professional critics give episodes lackadaisical or indifferent reviews. Although I can sometimes understand their criticisms, I can never understand their lack of passion, and indeed their lack of joy in Show. Fie upon them, I say, FIE! Especially this week when I felt like I had a Horn of Amalthea in my hand, spreading reasons all around me to be Glad. 

There were only a few things that I did not like, and we’ll just get those out of the way, shall we? Yeah, Sammy boy went off with that skank Ruby, leaving Dean to slumber all alone. (That and the fact that it was too darkly filmed for me to see the beautiful color of Padalecki’s eyes.) He’s a naughty boy, that one, playing with hellfire, and this makes me very NOT glad. I have no idea what he’s up to, though I do anticipate that I shall find out in the not too distant future, and, at the same time, that it will prove to be a disastrous course of action for the boy. The fact that the conversation (not a dither) between him and Dean will be ever so full of dark angst and Hard Words is pretty much the only thing that keeps me from writing Show to complain. 

Also, I do not like Dean sleeping above the covers. If it’s nighttime, he needs to be under the covers, preferably without his boots, jeans, SHIRT, etc. That’s the way people sleep, you know. Even if he’s taking a quick nap, he should have taken off his boots, so I could see his dear, little sockfooted toes. And lastly, time travel paradoxes. They confuse me, but while I can’t explain them, I can’t rebuke them either because frankly, I LOVE time travel stories more than anyone I know. ANYONE. (And don’t argue with me. I’m the only person who took the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios TEN times in a row just for the thrill of being in the DeLorean. It was an exact replica, you know!)

The story this week is strong, perhaps one of the strongest I’ve seen since Season Two. Almost completely character driven, it tells the story of Dean going back to Lawrence, Kansas in 1973 to gather with the Campbells (his mother’s people) and to meet John Winchester, who has not yet, in that year, reached The Dad status. The only deus ex machina in sight is the soap angel, upon whose command Dean takes the journey. (I’ve been liking the mini-flashbacks to hell we’ve been seeing from Dean, but I’d be more GLAD if Dean would actually demonstrate some sort of PTSD that fangirls have been promised.) I don’t care why Dean goes or what he’s supposed to do, because frankly I had such a fun time watching him go there, and Show filled that Horn for me, filled it to the brim with all the best kinds of scenes, all the things a fangirl like me desperately wants until I was simply GLAD to be alive to be able to watch this ep. (Go away you naysayers, just GO away! Be angry and miserable somewhere else, would you please?)

To say that the opening sequence follows the tone of the movie “Back to the Future” with its clever set dressing (Sugar Free! TAB), brightly lit characters (oh, you Lighting Guys, so sweet), and right-on-target dialog, is not saying enough about how fun this was. In fact the scene in the Jay Bird Diner (the name of which is based on the local college football team), is right out of the movie, as a paean rather than a parody. Dean wanders obliviously into the place, fitting in somehow with his jacket that could be a throwback to Starsky and Hutch, but looking wonderfully fine as he searches for bars (the cell phone kind), and trying not to appear foolish as he susses out the situation. (Why couldn’t the angel just tell him what was going to happen? Jeeze.)

As Dean sits at the counter, it took me a minute to recognize the younger version of John Winchester because a) I was spoiler free and b) I am slow like that. But 10 years before The Tragedy, he is smooth and unmarked, hair in that sweet seventies “good boy” style, his eyes calm and serene, with no dangerous dark glitter, so it’s no wonder. The only thing that gave him away to me were the dimples, which Show cleverly arranged for there to be (by picking the right actor) in order for the character to have a semblance to The Dad of later years. Plus, there’s that unbelievably cute shtick where someone comes into the diner and says, “Winchester!” and both Dean and the dark-haired gentleman at his side turn to see who it is. Which leads Dean to appraise the man with new and totally confused eyes. (I’m delighted, I might add, to find out that John was a Trekkie, because who else would call the U.S.S. Enterprise by its full and proper name?) 

Of further delight to me is the scene where John is buying a car. He’s checking out a hippie love van of the VW variety (at Mary’s behest), and Dean, who just happened to be passing by (so contrived, and I simply don’t care), convinces him to buy the 1967 Chevy Impala instead. This scene does several things. First, it’s totally cute, and allows Dean and John to bond over cars, which they do with adorable, manly speed because naturally if a guy loves cars, he must be okay, right? Plus, there’re lots of close-ups of Dean, and who could be unhappy with that? Not me, that’s for sure. 

But second, it’s the nature of the close-ups, courtesy of the Man of a Thousand Expressions, who, to his credit, understands what a fangirl like me wants to see. Ackles typically plays Dean as a jaunty, cock-o-the-walk young man, hardened by Hunting, and marked by sorrow. And I love all that, right? Partly because it’s so darned hot, and partly because when some other, perhaps more gentle emotion comes along, it shines like a good deed in a naughty world. Like, when Dean is sneaking a look at John while John’s looking at the car’s engine, Ackles plays it like Dean’s a five-year-old on Christmas morning, with love streaming out of his eyes, the affection for his father plain as daylight. The purity of that really took my breath away and made me think that if Ackles can do that to me after four years of this character? Then there’s nothing he can’t achieve if he wants it. 

Then there’s the last thing about this scene that I would like to point out, and that’s the paradox. Was Dean the reason that John bought the Impala? If Dean hadn’t happened by, would John have bought the van? There’s really no way of knowing, and either Dean was part of the time stream originally and caused John to buy the Impala OR John was going to by the Impala eventually and Dean’s presence helped him make the decision a little sooner. Either way, I don’t like paradoxes because they make my brain hurt, so I’m just going to take this entire scene for what it was meant to be, a gift from Show, part of the spill of goodness out of the Horn. 

There’re plenty more reasons for joy abounding, like the scene when Dean sees Mary, his mother, when she was young and babe-a-licious. When Dean’s talking out loud to an imaginary Sam about how hot their mom is, and then says, “I’m going to hell. Again,” I started hooting and almost missed the beginning of the alleyway scuffle where Mary comes out to kick Dean’s ass for following her and John. Turns out, yeah, big Reveal, Mary is the Hunter, and comes from a Hunter’s family. It was a bit Buffy for me, but I went with it because the actress they picked to play Mary did it right. She was sort of fluffy and sweet (when not bashing Dean around) yet Hunter tough around the edges, with an appropriate, totally seventies pair of tight, low cut jeans, and a Farrah Fawcett hairdo that must have taken at least taken two hair dressers and an entire can of Aqua Net to get into place. Blast the ozone layer, and full speed ahead!

It gets even funner when Dean is invited in to meet Grandpa Sam and Grandma Deanna, who, it appears, Sam and Dean were named after. It’s sweet that Mary decided to name her kids after her folks, but Dean’s surprise to find this out made me wonder why The Dad never told him this. Was The Dad that tightfisted with memories that he kept this to himself? Perhaps it was too painful, and that made me sad to think of it, but I enjoyed this cute meet very much. Grandpa and Grandma were perfect, I’d say, because in spite of the fact I failed at biology (all those damn frog brains in formaldehyde), I could see that Show cast these characters with the idea of appropriate X and Y chromosomes in mind. Dean, for example, takes after Grandma, with streaked blonde hair, sculpted features, and large, watchful eyes. Sam, on the other hand, takes after Grandpa, who’s, like, nine feet tall, has strong bone structure, and is reading a book first time we see him. (It took me by surprise to figure out that Grandpa is played by the same actor who played Skinner in the X-Files. My sister, who is a fan, was totally freaked but I thought he did a great job.)

The conversation around the dinner table, complete with the Kansas-style, carbo-heavy supper of meat and two veg with brown gravy over everything, gives Show more opportunities to flesh out my favorite characters, display the family history, communication styles, expressions, and how (or from whom) Sam and Dean inherited bits of who they are. I love the part where Dean stumbles about what the “web” is and how Grandpa thinks John is a mere civilian. I mean, it makes my head spin to think of John as relatively innocent, considering his stint in Vietnam. But mostly, really, I enjoyed watching Dean get a seriously home-cooked meal, which he digs into with relish and abandon. (But I have yet to figure out from whom he got his adorable freckles.)

The MOW of the week intrudes upon my musings, but that’s okay, because I enjoyed Grandpa and Dean both utilizing the ole “Man of the Cloth” disguise to gain entrance into the Widow’s house to talk about why her husband was clawed to death by a thresher. (Which was, note, in a field without any crops, bum, bum, BUM!) That’s a pretty nasty image, but who cares about that when Dean and Grandpa look so fine in those collars? Mary further adds to this in her prim frock, and the three of them investigate why people are dying and wonder about the thing that’s supposed to happen in ten years. (And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one distracted by Dean’s eyelashes in this scene. Am I right, or am I right?)

I particularly loved the scene where Dean talks to Mary in the living room, where she’s going through her stack of LPs, and didn’t that bring back memories? (You kids, LPs were what we had before CDs, okay? The fragility of which imbued the music on the black vinyl with more meaning and value than a cold, technical CD ever could. And they sounded better. Ask anyone.) Dean wants to know what John is like, and I applaud Show for asking this question because while my fangirl brain could make stuff up, it was nice to get it from the source. And yeah, Nice is the word to use here, apparently John was sweet and kind and romantic and dreamy, and believed in the happily ever after. Mary’s face glows when she tells Dean this, and Dean’s look of shock and surprise is very good and amusing, because yeah, this is a 180 from The Dad that I know and love and bring up as often as I can. 

But more than that, this scene allows Ackles to do that thing he does with his face: the whole love-streaming-out-of-his-eyes thing as Dean looks at his mom, complete with a soft smile instead of a brash grin, his chin tucked down, head tilted to the side like he imagines he can keep what he’s feeling a secret. The way Ackles plays it was perfect, because I think of Dean as one of those people who imagine they are offering one face to the world when really they are an Open Book. Especially to Sam and me. 

What’s also excellent is what Mary says about being a Hunter, that she doesn’t want this life anymore, not for herself and especially not for the children she hopes to one day have. She is very Samlike when she says, “I want to be safe,” and while I could see this remark coming from a mile off and while I usually don’t like it when I can predict dialog, I had to nod my approval at this one. It was right, it was exactly right and added to my mental catalog of Sam’s qualities the fact that he didn’t get all of his characteristics from John. I want to marry Show at this point and have its babies. 

This cornucopia is followed by even more Deanish goodness, when he asks Mary to make him a promise, and that is, ten years on, on November 2, 1983, that she NOT get out of bed, no matter what. As a true fangirl, I know the significance of this date, and Dean does too, but Mary does not. Confused, she promises him that she will do what he asks but I wonder why he asks her this, because surely keeping Mary out of danger puts Sam squarely in it?

But what makes the scene even more than being just another tidbit of family history (which I enjoy rolling in like a Pig in Mud), is the seriousness of it. Dean is trying to change time, trying to offset the tragedy which will ravage the Winchesters beyond repair, change the course of the boys’ lives forever, and, perhaps the worst tragedy of all, turn John into The Dad. (I personally think the boys would have been less damaged by a Hunter’s life had Mary’s death not been John’s undoing.) Dean can’t change time, of course, but the fact that he wants to, that he tries, makes the scene even more poignant than it has any right to be. The whole of this wonderfulness is framed by the Mantear of Pain, which slithers down Dean’s face like an unwanted snake, and screams out at me the acid quality of Dean’s grief. They don’t make TV like this anymore, they just don’t, and reruns of Starsky and Hutch don’t count.

Dean decides that in order to save the next Victim, he’s going to drive to see Elkins, recently late the Keeper of the Colt, grab the weapon, and come back to save the day. Grandpa Sam doesn’t think much of this, but not being in Charge of Dean (I don’t think anyone but Sam can stop Dean, once his mind is made up), can’t stop him. I’m geeky like that, so I checked it out. According to Super-Wiki, the fictional town of Manning is located somewhere south of Leadville, so Mapquest projects at least a 10-hour drive each way for Dean. Usually I’d tack on another hour or so to that, because sometimes Mapquest doesn’t get it, but in spite of the mountainous terrain Dean’s driving through, based on Dean’s technique and speed, it’s possible that Dean could get back inside of a 24-hour period. Still, that’s a lot of driving for the boy, wouldn’t you say? 

Along the way, the soap angel pops into the passenger seat and interjects, blah, blah, blah, with some stuff about how Dean can’t change the past, that if he tries, then all the people he saved will die. I’m with Dean, who cares about them, if he can save mom and dad? The soap angel adds to the mess by telling Dean that Sam was not looking for him and I suspect that’s because either a) no time will have passed in the present or b) that Sam was so involved and busy with whatever he and that skank Ruby were up to that he didn’t care where Dean was. Oh, Sam, you are a BAD boy! 

I did love, however, the younger version of Daniel Elkins, the wordless connection he and Dean have, and the fact that Elkins believes Dean’s promise that the Colt will be left in good shape at the Campbells in Lawrence. This is a wonderful bit of back-story for Elkins, that he was a good, decent, and trusting man, in spite of the fact that we later see him ravaged by the sands of time, and driven crazy with his quest of destroying all vampires. (Plus this scene rather obviously puts Elkins in contact with the Campbells and thus with John, which might be from whom John gets his first taste of who Hunters are and what they do. Lovely!)

After a family gun cleaning scene (which is clearly where Dean gets it from), Mary and Grandpa Sam rush to save Libby. There’s a struggle, some Throwing of Mary, breaking glass, all the stuff that I love Show for. Dean comes in but fails to shoot the demon who’s trying to make a deal with Libby, but the fact that he distracts the demon long enough to save her creates another paradox. This is because The Dad’s journal clearly states that Libby was found gutted in her home, whereas apparently the intervention of the Winchesters saved her from that. Oh, my head, and who cares about that because everything goes from Okay to Crappy in about ten seconds flat, Winchester style. 

Back at the homestead, Grandpa and Dean dither (yes, dither!) about what to do, and I’m completely lulled into it, loving dithers as I do, and enjoying the idea of Dean connecting with his Grandpa like this. Then Dean pulls out The Dad’s journal and the Colt. He’s not showing off, he’s simply laying everything on the table, literally. Then Grandpa asks to see the Colt. Even though I loved the moment when Dean moves the Colt out of reach (it’s so Dean that he does this, because rather like Frodo with the Ring, only he can carry this particular burden), all at once a shiver went down my back, and Dean’s eyes went from those of a trusting grandson, round, wide, and young, to that of a suspicious Hunter, narrow, hard, and flinty. (Ackles so ROCKS at these shifts in expression!) He knows a second before I do that all is not right with Grandpa, and my wonderful ep full of family history, love, affection, and fun scenes with John suddenly turns Uber Dark. 

The YED traps Dean in a chair and tells what he’s going to do and what he wants from everyone in the county in ten year’s time. How he did not (thankfully) spawn the sidekick kids. Not to mention how he knows that demon blood will make Sam grow up big and strong. (No kidding? Have you seen Sam lately?) Wonder what Dean’s going to have to say to Sam about that. And what is the YED doing there, SNIFFING Dean to see if he’s a sidekick kid? That’s just creepy. Dean does his best not to be sucked into this, and he does a pretty good job, although I have to admit I rather liked the tension this scene created than the Reveal it revealed. There’s something provocative about the stern (but sweet) Grandpa Sam closing in on Dean’s personal space while he mutters sulfuric threats like he does. There’s something not right about the overly charged play of dominance and submission between them, though I’ll admit to being especially FOND of how beautiful Dean gets when he’s under pressure.

The spot in his soul from whence Ackles pulls this aspect of Dean’s character should be insured by Lloyds of London in case anything goes awry because it makes me very GLAD that it’s there. Maybe it’s the tension pulling at the tender skin beneath his eyes, or maybe it’s the long, yummy slope of his neck, or maybe it’s simply his mouth, the mouth that could launch a thousand ships without even trying. Or maybe it’s just in my fangirly nature to adore it like crazy when characters suffer emotionally. (Even more than when they suffer physically, if you can believe that.) Show’s Horn, in this scene, delivers more than I thought it ever could and takes me back to that pivotal scene in the cabin, when The Dad was possessed by the YED. Yeah, you remember the one. Just. Guh. (Also especially fine is the moment that Dean tells the YED he’ll die at Dean’s hand; the look in his eyes is brilliantly murderous.)

Just as the YED offs Grandpa with his handy dandy knife, Grandma tries to save the day with the Colt. She’s dead by virtue of broken neck, although I thought it was interesting that she figured out what was going on and was willing, apparently, to take down her own husband in order to destroy the YED. (Go Grandma!) 

Then, we are in Lover’s Lane, where sweet John is set to propose to his beloved Mary. Things happen fairly quickly as the YED shows up, shoves Mary around, and breaks John’s neck. Okay. That I was not expecting, not at all and it makes me very NOT glad because I suspect (and am quickly proven right) that Something Terrible is going to have to happen to save John so that he can produce two manly sons from his manly loins. Naturally, it does. (The image of Mary cradling John’s body reminded me, for some reason, of Michelangelo’s Pieta, making me wonder if it was a happy accident or on purpose.)

Mary makes a deal. Yeah, she makes a deal with the YED that if he will save John, then the YED has the right to pay her a visit in ten years and do anything he wants, and, provided he can do this without interruption, all will be well. It’s now that we learn why she apologized to Sam in “Home” (“Sam, I’m sorry.”), and it’s also where we get to see the circular aspect of this particular story arc: Mary sacrifices Sam to save John (albeit unknowingly), John sells his soul to save Dean, and Dean goes to hell to save Sam. But what about Sam? Is he breaking the cycle this season, or just making it worse?

I’m not sure if I should be looking too closely at the whole Eve-and-the-Apple-of-COURSE-the-woman’s-to-blame aspect of this, not when I’m totally squicked out at the incestuous kiss foisted upon Mary by the YED, but most especially when Dean arrives too late to save the day. His expression is pure and unrelenting sorrow, and I feel bad about being GLAD because the whole thing is just so darn cool I can hardly stand it, even as Dean comes apart because at LAST he understands how things were set in motion, how his and Sam’s lives were changed irrevocably from that moment on.

In the scene where Dean wakes up back in the motel room (still on top of the covers, tsk tsk), I think the part that creeped me out most was when the camera panned to the empty, unmarked bed and Dean goes “WHERE’s SAM?” Worse than that is the soap angel’s directive: that if Dean can’t take care of “it” (obviously Sam), then they (the gang of soap angels) will have to. Add that to the fact that The Dad once enjoined Dean that if he couldn’t save his brother he would have to kill him, and you have not only Show’s version of a Gordian Knot but Dean’s worst nightmare, like, ever.

Given that God and Lucifer are involved in this particular problem, Dean’s going to have to come up with more than Alexander’s solution to save the day, here. Plus, Dean’s protectiveness of Sam is obviously back in full force, and, as everyone knows, threats made to Dean against Sam’s person never end well for the other party. But endgame, schmendgame, as long as this doesn’t turn into one of those beautifully horrible deathfics that some fangirls enjoy so, as long as neither Sam nor Dean dies, well, I’ll be GLAD. Frankly, as long as Dean’s heart isn’t broken by grief and Dark!Sam learns to control his hellish impulses, I don’t care if every other character in Show dies a slow and lengthy death. So there.  

To conclude, if you didn’t get it by this point, yeah, I liked this ep. Not only that, but I LOVED it, including the time paradoxes, and the fact that there was no Dean and Sam togetherness. Actually, Sam being out of commission was part of the fun because I enjoyed myself thinking how Dean was going to, or whether he, in fact, would, tell Sam about what he’d learned; the Sam-ness of it all was sprinkled throughout the ep, even if he wasn’t actually present. And wondering how (or if) what Dean himself learned would change his perspective on what he does as a Hunter. 

I mean, once you’ve been to hell and back and then you learn that sometimes evil things happen to people because they bring it upon themselves, does that cause you change your personal zeitgeist? Dean being who he is, I think the “saving people, hunting things” is too engrained in his nature for that, though at the very least it’s bound to affect his intensity and direction. But seriously? As long as Show keeps making eps like this one, and as long as the characters of Sam and Dean stay true to themselves, and, yeah, as long as Show keeps giving me close-ups of the boys? I’ll be a happy and faithful fangirl forever. Oh, and if I could get some more Sam and Dean nekked chests and towel scenes, I’d be very GLAD, gladder than Pollyanna ever was. If that’s EVEN possible.

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.

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