Rewatch S5: I Believe The Children Are Our Future (5x06)

[hells_half_acre]

 
I was going to be far more productive yesterday, but my brain broke and I ended up being too depressed to do much of anything. Thankfully, I started feeling better sometime in the evening and decided that doing another rewatch would probably help, not hurt, my predicament. And I was correct! Yay!

Who's looking forward to tonight, btw? *raises hand* I'm going to a friends house to watch it!! Woo! SPN PARTY! That means that my usual "Quick Reaction" will be a couple of hours later than usual...and not so quick, I guess.

Anyway...on with the show....

I BELIEVE THE CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE

Who takes their hairbrush to a babysitting gig?

Page and Plant - classic false identities. The boys wear suits for a LOT of this episode.

"You didn't read the autopsy report that I emailed out this morning?"
"We had server issues."
-Brilliant. I love the way Jared delivers that line...I can't put my finger on it, but it's brilliant. Also, it reminds me of a quote that I've forgotten about how we are so accepting of computer problems, and how the equivalent would be if you went to tie your shoes one morning and your shoelaces exploded and you weren't concerned at all. 

And the hairbrush is still on the TV. Follow up question to my first question: Who doesn't put away their dead babysitter's hairbrush?

The kid who plays Jimmy is good. I like the way he is nervously lying.

Jared is very attractive in this episode - still doesn't quite look like he does in person, but getting closer than usual.

"What the hell? That crap isn't supposed to work?"
-Again, I just like the way Jared delivers this line. Don't know why.

Also, in this scene (over the roasted pig), you get a great shot of Jared's forearm. Mmm....

Dean's enthusiasm for the whoopie cushion is adorable.

"These days all they care about are iPhones and those kissing vampire movies"
-Supernatural really likes to take digs at Twilight (not that I blame them...sorry to those who are fans, but that series is the most horrible thing. Simply GodAwful)

"Some freak is going to come into my room and take my tooth..."
-Awww, the little girl is ME.

God, teeth pulling scene is so horrible! Also...awww, the dude is a single parent!! THIS IS A HORRIBLE THING TO HAPPEN TO A SINGLE PARENT! He's got enough troubles as it is!

I love Sam's face when Dean makes the face! Hahaha...that sentence doesn't make sense if you haven't seen the episode.

"I thought sea monkeys were real [...] like in the ads. The sea monkey wife cooks the pot roast for the sea monkey husband and the sea monkey kids play with the dog in the sea monkey castle. I mean, I was six, but I believed it."
-Awwww, why isn't there more fanfic about six-year-old Dean's imagined domestic life of sea monkeys?! That is both adorable, and heartbreaking given how six-year-old lived.

"...has the power of a god...or a trickster."
"And the sense of humour of a nine year old"
"Or you"
-I know this is a jokey line, but it totally reminds me of the great meta about Dean's stunted emotional growth...ah Dean, you are so heartbreaking.

"Dude, seriously? Still with the ham?"
"We don't have a fridge!"
-You know what I love about this: Dean isn't wasting food. They could have bought that ham SOLELY for the experiment and tossed the whole thing. Instead, Dean tries his best to eat it all - even though at this point it's already a day old, so unless he had it in a bucket of ice, I wouldn't touch it. Anyway, I just like it because food-waste is a pet-peeve of mine. We throw out so much food in North America it's really insulting to those in the rest of the world who don't have any...or, you know, people like me who can't really afford to eat right now.

Then we get the hairy palm....oh man, so gross. Jared does the disgusted little brother face so well!

"I got bored. That nurse was hot."
-*comment censored*

"Hey, do not use my razor!"
-Again, Jared is just hitting his line deliveries out of the park this episode. Also: who wants to bet that Dean totally used his razor?

I love how the kid asks to see their badges up close....that he's less trusting than most adults they meet. Don't underestimate kids, people!!

So, Dean convinces the kids that joy buzzers are harmless, waits until he's sure the kid is convinced they are harmless, then uses it on Sam. Sam, of course, hasn't fully clued in yet and has an AWESOME reaction. Haha...I love his super annoyed look he gives Dean.

"Dude what the hell?"
"I had a hunch and I went with it."
"You risked my ass on a hunch?"
"You're fine...."
-I understand why Sam's annoyed...but this is actually a huge growing point for Dean. He actually momentarily put Sam at risk! Good job! Also, Sam, as I seem to recall, you once had your brother play chicken in a parked car with a racist truck because you had a hunch...

Anyway, small critique of the writing here: Sam and Dean then go on to explain in detail what just happened - about how Jesse believed the joy buzzer would kill and it did, then Dean convinced him otherwise and it didn't, etc....DUDES WE KNOW. You are OVER EXPLAINING. The audience isn't THAT stupid. We just saw what happened too, you know, it's not that hard to put two and two together.

There's a fly on the counter at Jesse's mum's place...that's a really cool touch. 

"Maybe the demon was tired or the pain helped me fight it."
-Another clue into the 'being able to fight off demons is key' thing. Personally, I think it probably had more to do with maternal instincts and whatnot...whether impregnated by a demon or not, new mother's have super-powers.

It is a really cool twist on "immaculate" conception. It's more like an instance of impregnation by rape. (Note: I view the whole possession thing on the show as a symbol of rape).

I like how Dean tells her about the kid though...he doesn't say "he has weird freaky powers, but otherwise he seems nice." He just says "he's a good kid" - which you know, is true, and also what someone who has probably been wrestling with their decision to keep the kid alive wants to hear.

Is this the first time Sam has seen Cas since the beginning of 5x02? I think so, eh? The Sam-Cas relationship is certainly strained at this point.

The whoopie cusion gag is so jarring that it WORKS. I can't imagine how many takes it must have taken them to get that right. 

"Who put that there?"
-Cas' glance at Dean after this line is priceless. 'We all know who put that there, Dean'

"Your bible gets more wrong than it does right."
-Yay! I'm so happy the writers decided that their universe was only going to be "loosely" based on the bible. It brings so much more freedom and SANITY and better story-telling.

"Lucifer will twist this boy to his purpose and with a word this child will destroy the host of heaven..."
-Jesse is really cool and all,  but WHY is he so powerful? I mean, a single black-eyed demon can't destroy the host of heaven. A human is less powerful than a demon...SAM can't destroy the host of heaven...why can Jesse?

"Wait, we're the good guys here. We don't just kill children!"
"A year ago you would have done whatever it took to win this war"
"Things change"
*Dean breaks up fight*
-Poor Sam, he was totally being used by both heaven and hell last year. Hell was deliberately leading him by the hand, and the angels were totally taking advantage of his single-mindedness.

"So we tell him the trust. You say Jesse's destined to go darkside, fine, but he hasn't yet. So if we lay it all out for him. What he is, the apocalypse, everything. He might make the right choice."
*Cas pauses, leans forward* "You didn't...and I can't take that chance."
-See, the slight pause is what makes that comment cruel. Secondly, it's UNFAIR, because Sam DIDN'T have the truth laid out for him...he didn't know he was starting the apocalypse. For all intents and purposes, he thought he was PREVENTING it. YOU and the host of heaven LED HIM TO BELIEVE that he was preventing it. 

What if John (or someone, if John didn't know) had told Sam the absolute truth - not these vague allusions about Dean needing to save him or kill him...but the whole matter of being Lucifer's vessel and how Lilith was the final seal and all sorts of things...do you think Sam would have made the same decisions? Probably not. I'll come back to this later.

Dean looks down all weakly...what do you do when your brother and your angel are fighting? You can't really take sides...

I like Sam's "damn it" - "damn it" is to Sam as "son of a bitch" is to Dean.

Castiel totally stole the demon knife.

When Cas says "I'm sorry" to Jesse - it's delivered with genuine emotion! My heart breaks a little for Castiel. He actually doesn't want to do this.

Then the boys arrive to save the day! Interesting to note: they totally took the time to change out of their suits and put on their regular clothes before they rushed over. Priorities?

"Was he your friend?" *angry face*
"No." - Haha, Dean...

I like Dean's superhero story - it's so DEAN. He relates everything to Superheroes. 

Now it's time for Horrible Way To Find Out You're Adopted #63!

Sam's speech to Jesse gives a lot away about what Sam's been feeling...like the fact that he's going to be haunted the rest of his life. Aww, Sam.

"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I have to believe someone can make the right choice. Even if I couldn't."
-Technically Sam, you weren't GIVEN a choice. You were tricked. Stop beating yourself up. It's not like people told Dean that he was the first seal either. Didn't you and Dean discuss this at the end of the last episode? NEITHER of you knew.

"Kid, you're awesome"
-Geez, Dean, way to be a bit of a hypocrite. It's ok for a half human half demon kid to exercise demons with his mind, but it's not ok for your demon-tainted brother to do the same? I mean, I get that the kid doesn't have to be hopped up on demon-drug to do it, but still. Sam KILLED the demon that tortured you! Did you ever thank him for that? No, probably you just freaked the heck out.

"Truth is, he's kind of a buddy of mine..."
"He tried to kill me."
"Right [...] He's a good guy. He was just confused.....it's been a long night, we can talk about it later."
-Haha, I like how Dean's like "well, let's try the honesty thing" and then he's like "ok...um...let's just...leave it."

"You're powerful. More powerful than anything we've ever seen. That makes you-"
"A freak?"
"To some people maybe, but not to us. See, we're kind of freaks ourselves."
-I LOVE how Sam is becoming more comfortable with his own freakishness....not really, but look closely at that, he INCLUDED DEAN in the category of freak! At least Sam isn't acting like he's the black-sheep freak of his family.

"Our dad, he would take us with him wherever he went."
"Where is he now?"
"Dead. A demon killed him."
-Technically not true. John killed himself, he just used a demon to do it.

I hope they returned Jesse's birth-mother to her house. Otherwise she's going to be in trouble if his parents wake up and discover that he's not there and there's a strange woman sleeping downstairs.

"You know, we destroyed that kid's life by telling him the truth."
"We didn't have a choice, Dean"
"Yeah, I'm starting to get why parents lie to their kids, you know. You want them to believe that the worst they get is mixing poprocks with coke. Protect them from the real evil. You want them going to bed feeling safe, if that means lying to them, so be it. The more I think about it, the more I wish Dad had lied to us."
"Yeah, me too"
-Ok, I get that this is Dean and Sam morning their lack of childhood ala Something Wicked (and hey, at least this time Dean is thinking of himself too)...but technically, John lying to them is what got them into this mess in the first place. Also, Dean and John DID lie to Sam until he was about 8 or 9 years old. Like I said earlier, if they had known EVERYTHING I'm sure they would have been able to avoid this mess. Whereas, if John had lied to them COMPLETELY they probably would have been far more easy to manipulate. If we assume John knew everything, than what he tried to do was strike a balance: tell them enough truth to arm them, but not enough truth to horrify them by their own destinies. That's my opinion anyway. 

I mean, I understand the boys wishing they had a regular childhood and weren't so messed up psychologically...but if they were actually wishingfor something that would prevent the apocalypse, they should be wishing that someone had told them everything, like they had just told Jesse.

.

Comments

[trystan830.livejournal.com]

another cool re-cap!

as for us seeing a series of events, and then Dean or Sam explaining it? i think this was overcompensation for the parts of the fandom that didn't "get" some of Eric's other references and stuff. maybe? there was a lot of showing then telling this season.

as for tonight, i have to work until 10. so i'll watch it a little later. =)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Stupid people are always ruining my things! :P

I'm very impatient for tonight. I had planned to spend the afternoon doing more S5 rewatch, but I was actually assigned work at the last minute. Which, you know, is all well and good, since I could use the money :P

Still...why isn't it 9pm yet! It's even more torturous because since I'm going to a friend's place for dinner and Supernatural, I have to resist the urge to watch the East Coast TV feed. SO TEMPTING!

[trystan830.livejournal.com]

i hear you there.

i watched (it was taped, but i watched.) i can has next week now??

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

This is my least favorite episode of all seasons.

First off, the kid still believes in the tooth fairy AND knows masturbation gives you a hairy palm? Nuh-uh, pick one end or the other. So that made it hard to believe.

But the worst part was Dean using the joy buzzer on Sam. You saw it a whole lot differently than I did. To me, it was the single most un-Dean-like thing of the whole season, to risk Sam on a joke!

Authoressnebula wrote a fic that I have put in my personal canon that Dean tested on himself first without Sam seeing it.

I just cannot believe Dean would have risked killing Sam no matter how sure he was of his hunch!

But I do appreciate you pointing out there were a few worthwhile moments in it.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Just while I'm being a sucky employee anyway, I figured I'd respond to your comment...

I had the same first reaction to the joy-buzzer. I was deeply conflicted about it - was it in character? were the writers losing their minds? After the previous episode's fiasco of a phone conversation, it was easy to say "DEAN WOULD NEVER DO THAT, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!"

But rewatching it...you can really see the thought process, the confirmation on the kids face that he now believes the thing to be harmless. Dean's rapid fire questions that basically confirms that THIS kid holds all the beliefs that are occurring in town, and it's THIS kid who is at the epicenter of everything...and the kid really does do a great job of showing us on this face that he has changed his mind about the joy buzzer. So, I don't think Dean saw it as much of a risk as we, or Sam, did. Now, you can go ahead and accuse me of grasping at straws, but I don't feel I am.

As for a kid believing in the tooth fairy and the hairy-palm thing....I blame television. Kid's left alone a lot, he hears a joke or two...we don't know how his powers work really. If he actually has to know in intimate detail what masturbation is or not...it could just be a matter of him hearing a joke, and associating "masturbation=hairy palms" in his head and that's enough to have it be so. He might not actually know what masturbation is.

Actually, when Susie was that age, we were watching an episode of Rosanne. And she heard a joke and turned to me and ASKED "What's masturbate mean?" Lord, I was not prepared to handle that question...I believe I said "ask Mum!" and we proceeded to get into a fight because she didn't understand why I couldn't just tell her...ugh, TV is the devil for creating really awkward kid questions.

We haven't gotten to my least favorite episode yet... :P

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

>>"Hey, do not use my razor!"
-Again, Jared is just hitting his line deliveries out of the park this episode. Also: who wants to bet that Dean totally used his razor?


Anyone who ever had a sibling.

>>Dean tries his best to eat it all - even though at this point it's already a day old, so unless he had it in a bucket of ice, I wouldn't touch it.

Have to disagree with you there a bit. It's ham. The whole point of them is that they don't go bad all that fast.

>>
-Yay! I'm so happy the writers decided that their universe was only going to be "loosely" based on the bible. It brings so much more freedom and SANITY and better story-telling.

I saw this more as a handwave- as they were already about as faithful to the bible + other judeo-christian apocrypha as they were to any other source materials. Which wasn't very much. Plus, as I remember a few people pointing out when this episode aired, none of what they had just assumed/were talking about is actually in the bible at all. It's like... christian fanon.

>>-Jesse is really cool and all, but WHY is he so powerful? I mean, a single black-eyed demon can't destroy the host of heaven. A human is less powerful than a demon...SAM can't destroy the host of heaven...why can Jesse?

No arguments there. It was kind of a little random. Also, too easy. It makes you wonder why the demons weren't turning out a legion of cutest little anti-christs ever.

>>"Because I have to believe someone can make the right choice. Even if I couldn't."
-Technically Sam, you weren't GIVEN a choice. You were tricked. Stop beating yourself up.

I think, in the Winchesters' brains, there's no de-tangling, say 'starting the apocalypse' and 'betraying my brother'(and in Dean's case, 'failing to be superhuman'). In their minds, they're associated, so there's no, "hey, you know, starting the apocalypse was something I did not expect to happen, so that was not something I can really beat myself up for. Completely unrelated to that, though, it was pretty awful of me to chose Ruby over you, and now I am remorseful. Sorry."

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Have to disagree with you there a bit. It's ham. The whole point of them is that they don't go bad all that fast.

I did not know this about ham!

Plus, as I remember a few people pointing out when this episode aired, none of what they had just assumed/were talking about is actually in the bible at all. It's like... christian fanon.

Haha, true true. Good point.

In their minds, they're associated, so there's no, "hey, you know, starting the apocalypse was something I did not expect to happen, so that was not something I can really beat myself up for. Completely unrelated to that, though, it was pretty awful of me to chose Ruby over you, and now I am remorseful. Sorry."

LOL Oh man, that would be the BEST EPISODE EVER.

On a serious note though, I see your point. The only thing greater than a Winchester's sense of a responsibility is a Winchester's sense of guilt.

[katsheswims.livejournal.com]

I always wondered why Jesse was so powerful as a half demon/half human. They say he's the anti-crist, right? So I guess maybe demons just can't impregnante/get pregnant easily, so when they do it's a special once a hundred(s) year anti-crist baby...?

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I guess so! We'll have to assume so anyway, otherwise there really would be a legion of adorable anti-christs.

[rokhal.livejournal.com]

I so totally agree with you on John's lies! I hate all those times in the show where they're all "we have to protect civilians from the truth" and "Dad ruined us by introducing us to this life." That's not what we do with real dangers in this society! It's all stranger danger and mountain lion education and gun safety and women's self-defense to deal with real world hazards, and society hasn't collapsed any worse than it already was.
I'd bet that the whole revenge quest thing was mostly a cover for Dean, because the alternative would be to tell the boys that something was after Sam.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I think John was more motivated to kill YED to prevent him from coming for Sam, rather than kill him to avenge his wife...except, that he should have told them the truth so that they were better prepared.

I think there's a line John could have walked. In the show it seems that they always work in extremes - either you know nothing and are a happy-go-lucky civilian, or you are a Hunter with a short life expectancy and a f*cked up psyche. What about something in between, when you know how to protect yourself from the Supernatural, but you don't necessarily actively hunt it? That could have been what John did...given the boys a more stable life, while keeping them INFORMED about everything. After all, at the end of it all it wasn't Sam's hunting skills that saved the world, it was his personality and love for his family...those could have been fostered in a more stable environment.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I understand the "Dad ruined us by raising us the way he did" belief of the boys...but I DON'T understand the "he should have lied to us" or "civilians should be protected from the truth." That just doesn't make any sense.