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In the Beginning |
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NotesWriterJeremy CarverDirectorSteve BoyumGuest Stars:Mitch PileggiMisha Collins Genevieve Cortese Matthew Cohen Amy Gumenick Allison Hossack Other Guests:Christopher MacCabeKen Camroux-Taylor Troy Anthony Young Andy Nez Mark McConchie Nadine Wright Max Lloyd-Jones Viviana Dal Cengio Robert Dayton Filming Locations:Delta Museum and ArchivesLadner Lulu Island Trestle Bridge Completely Useless Trivia: |
ReviewI have to say, I love this spoiler-free idea! I've been so good (so far) and I really enjoyed the emotional yo-yo I experienced tonight! Half of the events were predictable, but one or two really threw me for a loop.Sam sneaking out again, I'm really surprised that Dean hasn't called him on it yet. There's no way Dean hasn't noticed. Then again, he has a lot of worries of his own dominating his thoughts. Like angels appearing on his bed waking him from a nice nap. Like sitting on a nice comfy motel room bed one minute, and waking up on a wooden bus bench the next. I guess that would push the Sammy-sneakage a little lower down on the priority list. It's not a coincidence that John Winchester is the first person Dean has any real contact with. And I have to say that they did a really good job on the casting of young John! He has the same cleft in his chin as Dean, and with his deeper hair and eye colour, it makes it totally believable that he and blonde & blue-eyed Mary could produce sons with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. It sure is weird seeing John as a happy-go-lucky grease monkey though! Lucky for Sam that this isn't the same man that raised him. I know hunter John was hard on Sammy, but this John would have raised him gay for sure! And as shocked as I was to see Dean's baby sitting in a used car lot, it was really sweet to see him talk his father into buying the car he will one day inherit. And you're right Dean. Metallicar is 41 now and still badass as ever. I don't think they did quite as good a job with casting Mary Winchester, or in this case, Mary Campbell. Sure she's blonde, but that's where the similarity ends. She turns out to be a good fighter though so we can let it slide. And Dean thinks she's a babe, so she must be ok. (Poor Dean, ever the slave to his hormones.) How much fun is it to watch Dean trying not to punch his mother? She's going all out trying to get answers, and he spends his time ducking and being impressed with her skills. What a fun scene! Her bracelet is cool, too. Sure hope it's available in the Warner store one of these days. It makes me wonder what happened to it in the future. It seems like the kind of think John would have kept, unless it was lost in the fire. Did she get rid of it when she married him, the same way she put her hunter's life behind her? So the speculation was correct, Mary was a hunter before she married John. I'm glad to hear it, because it means she went to her death with her eyes open, not just as some innocent and helpless victim like Jessica. (Hmmm. note to self - explore the possibility that Jessica may also have been a hunter.) It's wonderful to see Mitch Pileggi as a guest hunter on the show, and as Dean's grandfather! What a great legacy for the Winchester boys! Mitch was wonderful on the X-Files and it feels right somehow to have him on the show. Still as grumpy and secretive as ever, too. Dean is enough like his grandfather to be able to hold his own, and it makes me sad that he was never really able to talk this freely with his own father. Interesting though, how much alike Samuel Campbell and John Winchester ended up, considering that Samuel doesn't much like John. I'm thrilled to see Dean getting to know his mother a little! His whole life he's gotten the short end of the stick, and this season so far has been like the refreshing winds of change. After a lifetime of unwavering service, this little respite into the past feels like a reward. He gets to see what life could have been like if his mother had never died. He gets to see his father as a carefree youth instead of the driven and obsessed tyrant he became. He gets to hear someone in his own family tell him he did a good job for once in his life, and to top it all off he gets to meet his grandparents and to sit and visit with them as respected equals. As the cherry on an already bountiful sundae, he gets to do what he can to stop the tragedy that affects the lives of everyone he loves. Sure, it doesn't turn out the way he expected, but he was still given the opportunity to try. I really appreciate Dean's brazen honesty when talking about changing the future. He admits to Castiel that he cares deeply that any changes will result in the Winchester family not becoming hunters and all the people they saved will die as a result. But he is equally honest when he says it doesn't matter enough to stop him - that nothing is more important to him than the health and happiness of his own family. I find it interesting that in What Is and What Shall Never Be he was basically given this same choice, but when it came down to it, staying in that fantasy world would only have increased his own happiness, and would only have affected him. That wasn't enough to keep him there. Here on the other hand, is the chance to unravel the future events and rewrite his family history from this point on. It would affect everyone he loves and would keep them all in his life. Since we know he would literally sell his soul for the safety of his family, we can see how adamantly he feels about stopping these events at the source. I can't believe that Dean steals the Colt from Daniel Elkins! How dangerous a choice that is! Sure, there's a chance he can kill Azaziel with it now, but if he misses and others find out about the Colt, it will go missing long before they can get their hands on it in 2005. Sure, most hunters believe it's a myth, but chances are word would get out that it was seen in action in 1973. Elkins is a good man though, and recognizes Dean's need. He voluntarily lets it go, at least for the moment. My one regret in this scene is that we don't see how many bullets are in the gun. I have often wondered how many, if any, Elkins used himself. Also, how strange is it that John Winchester and the Colt were in the same town, and technically even in the same house, yet he never knew it. The first showdown with Azaziel goes badly, but it's the only time we see Samuel Campbell in action. It's fun to watch him run in with guns blazing with no chance of doing any damage to this demon. It's almost exactly what Dean would have done a year or two ago. It kind of brings to mind the whole "nature vs. nurture" argument. From where did Dean really get his hunting skills? Because he sure seems to fight a lot more like his grandpa than his dad! Mary is great though. She is the one doing all the work while her dad and Dean look on, and it's impressive. It's also ironic that without Dean there to push them into attacking the demon, he may never have met Mary and become fixated on her. The second I saw Samuel coming out the door so long after Dean and Mary, I was suspicious. Sure, it's easy for me to say that now that I've seen how things end, but nevertheless it's true. The cardinal rule of dealing with disembodied demons is that you NEVER go anywhere alone, particularly if it's off-camera! Really, it should have been Mary inside consoling her friend, but that just wouldn't work for the plot line. Samuel is a better choice because this maintains the integrity of this universal truth: that demons WILL screw with Dean, and the closer they can get, the deeper he will be hurt. And since Azaziel has already posed as Daddy Winchester and stabbed Dean through the heart a few times, (figuratively) why not also pose as newly discovered grandpa and continue the trend? The sad part is that Dean is the one who gives the demon all his pertinent information. Name, date of birth, date of his mothers death, that he has a brother, even that he's the one who kills Azaziel in the future. Happily though, Dean hears the same alarm bells we do when Samuel asks to see the Colt. Not that it does him much good though. He still gets pinned against the wall with the Colt well out of reach. Maybe in the future (if he ever gets it back from whomever Bela sold it to) he will think to put a wristband on it, or a chain that secures it to his belt. Or maybe he'll just practice how to keep his grip whilst flying across a room? I am glad though that Dean didn't have to kill Samuel then explain it to Mary and Deanna. Thankfully, both women know before the end that this isn't Samuel anymore. Moving from killing Deanna Campbell on to tormenting Mary and John in the middle of his marriage proposal, I had to admit that this is one scene I did not see coming. Azaziel snaps John's neck without a second thought, and as John falls to the ground my jaw falls with him. Up until this point I had no doubt at all that nothing Dean did would actually affect the future. Now, all of a sudden his father is gone and all I can think is how can this possibly be true? Dean and Sam will never have existed. End of story, end of show, end of life as we know it. But of course, this is the Supernatural universe and that means there's always a catch. Much like Dean's painful choices in the future, John's death is the one thing, the ONE THING that would force Mary to make a deal with a demon. Much like both future Dean and John, she assumes that this choice will only affect her life, and that no-one else will know about it. Little does she know that this moment sets her destiny in stone, that no amount of work on Dean's part will ever allow her to live past 1983. Like a master reset key, this moment removes everything Dean worked towards in this timeline. We know now that she will ignore his warnings not to get out of bed on that fateful night. We know that she will look into these yellow eyes once again and realize that she has not sold her own soul, but rather the soul of her son who will never again live without the shadow of the demon hanging over her head. We also know that her biggest hope for her family - that they will not be brought up as hunters as she was - has just been shattered. And although John and Mary will have ten happy years together, Sam will be set on a dark path that will take season 4 back to the worry of the second season; that Dean may have to stop his brother, one way or another. |