Supernatural: After School Special

Yes, I’m Addicted to Flashbacks.
by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review – Season 4, Episode 13
“After School Special”

This was an episode that I waited for with more anticipation than I normally do, seeing as it was to contain flashbacks. I have a thing for them, you see, a rather whorish, desperate addiction for getting a peek into someone’s past, seeing them as they were, not quite molded, not quite there, not quite aware, young, innocent, and all done up in the sepia tones that TV shows reserve for flashbacks. Show came through for me in most respects, I’d say, giving it the old college try, or, to quote Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, the old community college try.

I like the idea of the plot, which in light of how often the boys have criss-crossed the country, only makes sense. You’d have to figure that eventually, one of their gigs would take them back to a place they’d actually been before, where they would have to do a quick-step march to avoid those sepia-toned memories, which, thanks to the story, they can’t. Anyway, the boys hear of some dark doings at their old high school, or, rather, should say, one of their old high schools. In this case, it’s Truman High School, where some entity, probably a ghost, is possessing people and making them do naughty things. To be more clear, the entity is possessing those very low on the school’s totem pole, the dweebs, the geeks, those unloved kids who, oddly, get pissed off at being treated badly and long to strike back at their tormentors.

The ghost gives them a way to do that, and appears to pick his victims because he must figure they’re halfway there already. Now, I do not approve of violence as a way of solving problems, I’ll just say that up front. And naturally, a ghost possessing kids is just wrong. But. Having been one of those kids, I recognized the situation and the anger, and couldn’t feel all that much sympathy for the poppy kids who bought it. Sorry, it just true. Not that the poppies deserved to die such horrible deaths; there’s nothing right about killing fellow students (or anyone) just because you can, yet, at the same time, I was glad and not sad. Not really.

The first death involves a cheerleader suffering Death by Swirly. That’s our opener. Nice, huh? (Having developed a rather effective Toilet Cam, Show takes the opportunity to use it as often as possible, I see.) It does allow, however, for a nice psycho ward scene, with Sam dressed in his Good Humor Man white outfit. Show has been saving it for just such an occasion, and I think it’s nice of Show to remember how damn god Sam looks in white. Especially this shade, which shows off his lovely, dusky skin and dark, tumbling locks of hair to their best advantage. As a Samhair episode, this one did pretty good, and I had that familiar urge to run my fingers through that inky mess.

Anyway, Sam gives the first possessee a chat in the ward, and she can’t tell him anything that’s helpful, so off the boys go back to Truman High School. Which made me wonder for a long minute, why on earth Dean doesn’t own a Good Humor Man white outfit, too, and how come he never gets to interview people in the psych ward? Wow. Talk about unfair; both boys need to have that opportunity. Just as I really, really need the opportunity to see both Dean and Sam wearing white from head to toe.

I’m just going to tell you my first gripe right up front, because why be coy, right? The next scene, the very next scene is a shot of the Impala driving up to the school. I think the shot was very well done because for a minute you don’t realize that it’s a flashback. But then, when WeeDean and WeeSam jump out of the vehicle (which has barely come to a stop), you realize it is. And kaloo kalay, right? Because it’s the good old days and You Know Who is driving the Impala. But no. You do not get to see the driver; there is no interaction between The Dad and his sons. There is no Joy. None. None. None.

And it’s not just me wanting to see The Dad in the flashback, though I’ll get to that in a minute. But I don’t know a single Dad in this huge and great country of ours who, when dropping off children, doesn’t roll down the window and sling out his elbow to bark out last-minute instructions. And personally? Not having The Dad actually in the episode is a big, FAT gyp. Because frankly, having The Dad there, seeing him interact with WeeDean, and especially WeeSam would have added SO much to the episode. So much texture, so much back-story, would have added oomph and reality and depth. Especially considering the Then montage, which was filled to the brim with images and ideas about Sam and his relationship with The Dad.

Would it have killed Show to accommodate me and all the other fans of The Dad? Seriously. There are two measly little scenes here, one where The Dad drops the boys off and one where The Dad picks them up. There’s also one tiny, little, teeny, weeny phone call. Show could have flown Jeffrey Dean Morgan up for one stinking morning, and filmed these two scenes and this one little voice clip and sent him on his merry way with nary a bobble in his routine. From the way Mr. Morgan talks about having enjoyed working on Show, I’ll wager he would have done it for free. Or, if not, fangirls would have raised the money. What a huge missed opportunity. Huge.

Not to mention that the WeeBrothers are at this locale for approximately three weeks.. And, according to the dialog, the boys are on their own at some dive motel. Which we never see. Another gyp. It would have been Very Cool to see the boys managing on their own at the motel. Dealing with groceries and laundry, eating chili spaghetti and drinking only soda and no milk, trying to avoid any authorities who have noticed the boys are without parental supervision, even just the simple idea of trying to get along with each other as their personal struggles at the school start to increase. Plot, schmot, who cares about that, THIS is what True Fans want. Trust me.

Next up, WeeDean. Not so wee, of course, not as a senior in high school, but still considered WeeDean since he’s That Dean rather than This Dean. Anyway, as to casting, I realize the difficulty in trying to duplicate a 18-year old Jensen Ackles, and my hat goes off to anyone for trying. Brock Kelly had the long-lashed bedroom eyes (check), the lush mouth (check), the bristle brush hair that sticks up a bit (check), noble brow (check), aquiline nose (check), and the fair, freckled skin (check); however, the ensemble of the whole was a millimeter off here and there, and I had a hard time going with him as WeeDean. What was wrong with using Ridge Canipe again, seeing as he’s done it before, and is already familiar to fans as WeeDean? Maybe he wasn’t available or, my better guess, maybe he wasn’t tall enough to make a big enough contrast in height between the WeeBrothers. At any rate, I made myself go along with this version of WeeDean, but seeing as I had already been stymied out of seeing a sepia-toned version of The Dad, I’ll admit that I was less than gracious about it.

Although, once WeeDean got moving, there was lots he did right. He had the wide-armed gestures down, and the head tilts and the smirks, wearing The Dad’s old leather jacket like amour, walking into each scene like he owned it. One of my favorite scenes of his is where they are just entering the school for the first time. WeeSam is complaining about being at a new school. WeeDean completely misunderstands that what WeeSam wants is not to move, and tries to convince his WeeBrother that they won’t have to suffer for very long because The Dad will soon come for them. As WeeSam walks off, WeeDean stands there, looking at his WeeBrother’s departing back, and heaves this huge sigh. It’s a perfect mixture of the protective devotion WeeDean has about WeeSam, mixed with a long-suffering irritation at not being able to understand how his WeeBrother’s mind works. Once inside, I enjoyed WeeDean towering over his new History teacher and moving around the room like a panther on the prowl, but I do not think he would have, in any universe or timeline, called his teacher “sweetheart” or “sugar.” That’s too high profile, too brash, even for Dean.

I did like, however, WeeDean’s wild diatribe about hurting the jerk who hurt WeeSam. The WeeBrothers are sharing a moment on the bleachers, because, you know, they have no other friends and not enough time to make them, and they are at loggerheads (dithering, no less) as to how to handle conflict. WeeDean’s all for killing and maiming, WeeSam just wants to let it go. WeeDean paces and spouts off at the mouth, but comes across as slightly ineffectual, which, given that he’s only 18, makes sense. Even though now he’s a fantastic hunter and fully competent human being (well, except for his constant inner turmoil, his guilt about what he did in the Pit, not to mention his lack of self-worth), back then, he was still forming. Still molding his world and being molded by it. I like that he was a little bit bluff and bluster.

I also liked WeeDean being constantly in the janitor’s closet, macking on the female hotties, and making that his Focus du Jour, rather than school. And I do mean more than one hottie, typical of WeeDean, he gets it while he can. I’m sure it started this early, perhaps even earlier. So no problems there. In keeping with the hotties in the closet, it naturally follows that WeeDean gets caught between a blonde and a brunette. I both liked and disliked the conversation that follows. Here’s what I didn’t like. The blonde chick says something along the lines of, “I know that somewhere inside of you is a human being. I’ve seen you with your brother.” So, yeah, okay, she sees that there’s something more to WeeDean, some hidden depth, but when on earth did she ever see the WeeBrothers together? If there’s some off-screen interaction she’s referring to, no one else knows about it, and I think it’s LAME that we didn’t get to see the WeeBrothers interacting more.

At the same time, what was fun to watch was, again, how green WeeDean was at this point in his life. When the blonde chick starts throwing words at him, instead of calmly shrugging her off, WeeDean goes into defensive mode. He actually opens his mouth and starts to explain himself, how he’s a HERO and how he saves lives. I have always felt that Dean is proud of how many lives he saves, and that he has this private idea of himself as The Hero Who Does Good Things, but he doesn’t go around saying it. Back then, though? Yeah, WeeDean wanted people to know, not yet having arrived at the “We do what we do and never talk about it,” stage of his life. I get the feeling that some fans think Dean was never like that, but I strongly believe that at 18, he was more like the gangly youth we see here than the fully grown man we are familiar with.

Grown Dean was spot on the money as always (and Ackles as handsome and glowy as ever), my favorite bit being where Dean makes fun of Sam for wanting to go talk to his old English teacher, Mr. Wyatt. He makes mocking remarks about Robin Williams and the Dead Poet’s Society; but you can see he really wants his Sammy to get what he needs. Also hot, literally, was the scene where the boys salt and burn the corpse of Sam’s old pal, Barry, who they assumed (wrongly) was the source of the ghost. Any time the boys get to digging, and get all sweaty and manful, I am totally there. We even get a little bit of Pyro Dean, classic, old school Supernatural that will never grow old.

But, oh, boy. Dean as a gym teacher? That totally didn’t work. You see, in order to gain access to the school, the boys must pose as members of it. Sam wisely chooses a janitor disguise, and Dean, well, he goes for the gym teacher. First off, whatever happened to the Dean who said “I don’t do shorts, sweetheart?” Did the writers just simply forget how strongly we were made to believe Dean felt about this? Where’s the Continuity Guy who’s supposed to keep up on this kind of thing? It was totally wrong, and this in spite of my enjoyment in seeing some bare skin.

Second, while my jury is still out on whether or not Dodge Ball is a nice game, I simply could not buy the vision of Dean as Gym Teacher that was presented here. He was cruel and insensitive and totally not in character. The Dean I know likes kids and connects with them and empathizes with them, and that’s because he’s a Big Kid himself. During this one scene, where he barks out sadistic orders and then throws a ball at one kid’s stomach, I swear I saw fins swimming around; even Ackles couldn’t sell this one to me. And maybe that’s because he didn’t believe in it himself.

Now for WeeSam. Colin Ford rocks. What a great actor this kid is, knowing enough about his craft and having enough skill to act like a kid, bashful and isolated and just plain uncomfortable with the process of growing up. Some kid actors, you know, they make their young characters too sophisticated, even if the dialog and direction would have it otherwise. But not this kid; he’s absorbed Sam’s character and movements and made them his own, right down to the dewy eyes and the half-sided smile; it’s not just for my love and addiction to flashbacks that I hope to see more of him in this role. He’s got the hopeful, watchful expression of the older Sam, and then when his ire rises to the surface, he’s got that narrow eyed “don’t mess with me because I just might be the son of the devil” look going on, too.

Then there’s his backpack, the big, huge green thing that he carries everywhere, like earlier echoes of older Sam’s leather satchel that he carries his laptop in. Ever notice that Sam likes to carry things around? But instead of carrying a worn blanket, Sam’s got these, as if the backpack and the satchel are his “woobies.” The huge, white-edged canvas sneakers he wears just killed me, as well, looking like either hand-me-downs (would WeeDean have been caught dead in them?) or, more likely, a bargain pair had for a dollar at the local ARC store. And WeeSam’s hair hangs perfectly in his glittery green eyes. Not to mention the WeeMoles that speckle WeeSam’s face in just the right places where they will grow up to be Real Moles on older Sam’s adorable face one day. Such attention to detail makes me want to give the Costume Team and the Makeup Lady a big, fat smooch!

Watching WeeSam gave me some great insights into older Sam’s character, demonstrated best in scenes with Original Characters, namely Barry (the picked-upon kid that WeeSam befriends), Dirk (the bully; every flashback school of any repute has one), and Mr. Wyatt (the teacher who sees and cares). While none of what I saw was a surprise to me (having read umpteen fan fiction versions of all of the above), I enjoyed seeing it being demonstrated in canon. So everything we always thought was probable is now true: Sam was independent from the get go, he was the Defender of the Weak, and, perhaps most critical, somewhere along the line, someone, most likely a teacher, planted the idea in WeeSam’s head that hunting was not all there was to life. Which then sent Sam on the road to finding something better, namely college.

When Mr. Wyatt is confronting WeeSam about his paper about the family hunting werewolves (it was supposed to be a true story, and of course werewolves aren’t real), instead of focusing on the werewolf aspect, the teacher wants to know if WeeSam’s family is really like that. Which is very clever, because it not only points to the real issue (what WeeSam really thinks about his family), but the fact that the teacher, who has only known WeeSam for a very short time, is sharp-eyed enough to spot the truth. That regardless of the subject of the paper, or WeeSam’s lies about what his family does (he says that they are mechanics), Mr. Wyatt can see that WeeSam is desperately unhappy. Ever have a teacher like that, who could see right through your personal duck blind and tell you something about you that you didn’t already know and that changed your life forever? I did; I was lucky.

Just as emotionally satisfying was watching WeeSam rise above his own troubles to try and help Barry, who gets picked on A Lot. Isn’t that just like Sam? He makes his own life more complicated, sure, but he almost can’t help himself. Though, even at this age, and unlike WeeDean, WeeSam doesn’t need to brag about it. In fact, he fights it, coming up against the bullying of his new friend only to turn away from the fight more than once, and even turning Dirk away from tormenting Barry at one point, and this with a WeeSammy palm to Dirk’s chest; such a perfect Sam gesture, that. But I’ll admit to standing up to cheer when WeeSam finally Hulked out and took Dirk out with a few, well-placed chops and kicks that he no doubt learned from The Dad. Sock! Boom! Bam! Down this bully goes, and he at least twice as heavy and twice as tall as WeeSam, who has yet to hit his growth spurt. And then, as WeeSam watches Dirk walk away, you can tell that he’s struggling with the balance of power that lies within him, and that the awareness of what he’s capable of, both good and bad, starts to grow. I like how that’s in keeping with the Sam we know now, who is still struggling with it.

What makes this ep work so well for me is how, at one point, the events in the past catch up to the present and are woven together to make a nice, tight story. Dean and Sam discover that the ghost is not Barry (who, sadly, committed suicide), but Dirk, who struggled with his grief over the death of his cancer-stricken mother until he too took his own life. The fact that it was WeeSam who gave Dirk the nickname of “Dirk the Jerk,” which stuck with him for ages, only adds too the current Sam’s pain; he was unable to save Barry (he felt like he left him behind), and now he feels responsible for what happened to Dirk. It’s no use telling Sam that he just can’t save everyone, and while I enjoyed seeing the different sides of Dirk (he looked after his mother till she died when he was 13), I felt like the reasons behind why Dirk was so mean were too easy. There are so many kids who probably went through the same things Dirk did, and they didn’t turn into bullies. But Sam, you know him, he’s going to wear his guilt like a dark cape. Forever.

In addition, the connection between WeeSam and older Sam is strong, created by filming techniques that flicker between the past and the present, smooth segues between the flashbacks and the present day. The editing was seamless, going from the profile of WeeSam to the profile of older Sam, and, most pointedly, in the scene that flips from WeeSam pushing his bangs of his forehead to the scene where older Sam is doing the same, as the camera circles around, weaving the two storylines together. It’s not just the parallel of what both versions of Sam are doing, both pushing at their bangs, but the fact that they are doing it at all. Bangs have long been an indicator of Sam’s innocent state; in the early days of Season One and parts of Season Two, Sam had bangs. As his character grew, his bangs started to disappear. So the fact that both of them are pushing the bangs away is pretty cool; it shows WeeSam making the steps towards manhood, and older Sam as he reasserts himself in the present.

Another good parallel scene is the one with older Sam and his ex-teacher Mr. Wyatt. After the fracas on the school bus where the boys take down the ghost of Dirk the Jerk, Sam goes to visit his one-time mentor. Mr. Wyatt has enough backbone not to be intimidated by the 6 foot 4 broad shouldered man that Sam has grown into. Nor his he put off by Sam’s rough state (although I do think that after the 22 times that Dirk’s ghostly fist hit Sam’s beautiful face, he would have been a bit more rough than we see him here), no, instead, he walks right up to Sam to shake his hand. And their conversation mirrors the one from years ago: How are you Sam? Are you happy? That’s all Mr. Wyatt wants to know, and the only thing he cares about here is Sam. And the look on Sam’s face say, of course, the answer is no. Just as was with WeeSam, older Sam is miserably unhappy.

The focus of this ep on Sam pleases me to no end. It’s not just the flashbacks (though my monkey is sated for the time being, thank you), but the fact that a perfectly nice set of guest towels has finally been put into play. When last we saw him, Sam had gone off with that Skank Ruby, drove off in the night with her to do some dark deed along the lines of taking care of Lilith. The fact that we see him here as if nothing had happened doesn’t mean nothing did; it just means that whatever they did that night, Sam was able to wash his hands and come home to Dean for a while. To give us the gift of his past.

Long ere this, True Fans have speculated what the boys’ early lives were like, being dragged pillar to post, living in dive motels, and here, like I said, we get a fairly good taste of that. Needless to say, the brother with the most dissatisfaction about this is Sam so the ep is about him. Dean, however much he loves and likes his brother (and they seem to mostly get along, whatever their ages), has never understood the constant discontent in Sam’s heart. But what I like here is the fact that we finally get to see that discontent in full bloom, and that Padalecki FINALLY gets to do some acting that takes him longer than five minutes to prepare for.

He gets to do a little Comedy Sam (rolling his eyes at Dean’s panting after barely-legal cheerleaders), a little Concerned Puppy Eyed Sam (when talking to folks around town), and he gets to do Brooding Sam (as he and Dean drive along in the rain-speckled Impala), which I’ll say honestly is my personal favorite. I’m here to tell you that Padalecki does what he does very well. He slips between the aspects of his character like there were no boundaries between them, like a walker between worlds. And then he pushes those boundaries, especially in the last scene, holding every part of Sam’s emo tight to his chest as if he’s fearful that it might explode. He does all of this so well, I shake my head as I wonder why in the hell Show doesn’t do more of this kind of scene with Sam? And then right on the heels of that, I ask myself when in the world Padalecki got so goshdarn handsome. He’s always been good looking, but. Seriously. Dude.

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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