Reaction: Supernatural 4.03 - Episode Reaction, Meta and Spec

[caffienekitty]

Spoiler (and inferred spoiler) Timeline

-Sep 20:
I need to stop checking the TV schedule, the Canadian station that supposedly plays it up here now is not available to me. I know this. Why do I keep checking. Sigh. Title of 4.03 "In the Beginning." Man are they going biblical! This is going to be the one where we find out what is up with Mary, right? 'Bout time. Now, is this the one playing October 2nd? or is it the one being swapped because of the US debate thing? We'll see.


-Sep 23-24 Notes from several directions regarding Misha Collins still being on set. Okay then. So Castiel's not body-hopping anytime soon, and Castiel's going to be involved on a fairly regular basis. Since Sam's activities are pretty non-angelic, Castiel will probably avoid contact with him. Sort of Castiel:Sam::Oil:Water. If oil was holy and had wings and water was psychic, demonically influenced and yelled a lot. Which makes Dean... Hm. Maybe an emulsifier or detergent? Extra-shouty Shout? I dunno. AAAAAANYWAY, this indicates either Castiel will be talking to Dean where he won't need to interact with Sam, or Sam's going to get a lecture from the weird angel hanging out with his brother, or Sam's going to go back to what he was doing before Dean came back, and they'll seperate, right around when Dean figures out that the job he's supposed to do is stop Sam. *blinks* My head hurts now.


-Sep 25th:
PROMO PANIC! All I caught was a desaturated shot of Castiel. That with the title next week (unless it's been swapped) and some loud flailing in several corners about guest stars makes me pretty sure we're gonna get Mary's backstory in the flesh, and Castiel's gonna be involved in it. Ooo.

(If we get a 'Dean, I'm your father/Nooooooooooooooooooo!' thing? Or Dean has angel blood? Ooo. I really have no idea what kind of explosions that might cause. Because Sam still hasn't told Dean what he knows about Mary yet, has he?)


-Sept 21st:
On a forum I should know better than to be on, in a thread I should know better than to expect people not to be talking about the frigging promo, see "Next week, Dean and Castiel have a time-travelling road trip." GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! The promo ambushes me. There is no escape! Again, fuck you CW. So Dean's confirmed as a ride-along for the Mary Backstory, no doubt getting his nose rubbed in what Sam never told him, and the CW entire universe decided I had to know that before airtime. Okay. Jeez. Fine. Dammit!

The question now really being, 'are they going to go there?' with, well... things. They've got angels rooted back to pre-biblical times. The Bible is the 'tourist' version. It's... arg. Personally, I'm in no matter where this goes. I said it before, I'll say it again.

Dean being a normal human, having to do all this, is cool. Giving him angel blood, or... more? ...eh. Nothing is going to lose me, as I've said. But that would be a disappointing development. Maybe. Depends what they do with it... Arg.

Incidentally, show of hands, who is completely freaked by Kripke adding the possibility of time-travel? *raises hand* I mean, not that it's not potentially cool, but the vast panopoly of brain-screwage Kripke might do with time travel to play with? Eeeeeeeek...


-Oct 1:
See notes from several directions regarding beginnings of unrest and dispute in comment threads regarding 4.03, and some side media mention that fans will go berserk after 4.03, and likely not in a good way.

So. There's something about Mary. Let's see, what all might fit the description of 'fans go berserk' and 'pre-emptive wank storms':

A) Mary was in league with YED.
B) Mary was knocked up by God or an angel or a voice in her ear or something and Dean really is the second coming, or this will be strongly implied.
C) Mary was an unwitting pawn in whatever happened.
D) Mary was a willing pawn in whatever happened.
E) Dean's memory of Mary will bounce a very painful reality check.
F) All of the above
G) None of the above, but something more shocking that no one ever expected.

Now, combined with something no one sane or insane would ever consider a spoiler, (an observed change in fan behavior around the time the 4.03 spoilers started hitting the net)... Hm.

I think battening down the hatches, watching with an open mind, being prepared to have a whole lot of assumptions overturned (and fanfic go AU) and also being prepared to retcon like the wind will be advisable.

There's a storm coming, and the show's archetypal lost, sacrificed and much-idealized mother-figure is smack in the middle of it.


Are y'all ready to get massively Kripke'd? Let's do this.



Reactions and Bursts of Meta and Speculation to Supernatural 4.03 - "In the Beginning"

WHOA! O.O Like I said before, NO CAPSLOCK LARGE ENOUGH!!!! This episode required a whole hell of a lot of processing time to get even half a grip on the ramifications. In typing this up, instead of the single text entry window, I have five up. CANNOT. BRAIN. FAST. ENOUGH!!!

This review will likely contain a LOT of meta, (which may include armchair quantum physics), but the more incoherent rambly parts will be in a seperate post later. Reaction also may contain reference to fourth season Doctor Who, fair warning

Also, the thing about me having low self-confidence in writing and being a perfectionist and a procrastinator, is I've got all this stuff I have written that needs something or other so I haven't posted it, and when stuff you haven't posted yet gets Kripke'd in unbelievable detail, people think you're lying or nuts. Suffice it to say, a few long-suffering plotbunnies and scenes written in detail with scary similarities are now giving me tremendous bitchfaces of 'Told ya you should have posted me last summer' and I may do some flailing about them. Gah.

See that general disclaimer in the sidebar? *points* The one that says 'This show owns me?' Yeah. I just got reminded of that.


So. WOW. Time travel mind-warp! Here we go!


-I watched the previouslies this time, since I knew we were going back in time anyways. Hi Mary! Hi John! Hi... Colt... aw nuts. *facepalm* Dean's gonna try to shoot YED and it's going to go horribly wrong. Of course. Not that that wasn't an obvious possibility, but still. *smacks previouslies* That'll teach me to figure it's safe to watch you.

-Ooo. Morally grey lurking looks good on Sam. Buggering off and leaving your poor exhausted 'fell onto the bed and fell asleep under his own coat at the Willow Tree Motel because he was too tired to frig around with hotel bedding' brother alone to go hang out with Ruby and do morally grey things possibly involving coordinating a demon army of your own in order to take out Lilith and in the process becoming worse than her even though you never intended to because you don't see what you're doing as evil just as pragmatic and your moral compass is out of service because you're still all walled-up inside yourself and not sharing with Dean because you know he disproves of the psychic stuff and you've spent four months not sharing and being repressed like I said last week which is why you aren't talking to your brother about it, so he can't smack you in your moral compass and get it functional again- *passes out from run-on sentence induced oxygen starvation* Guh. Sorry. Yeah, all that... I'd be annoyed at you Sam, but you're fulfilling your part in my predictions for the show this season quite nicely. *cackles and rubs hands together in an evil plotty way*

-*mops up meta dribble* Sigh. Gonna need a bucket by the time this is done. :-P

-*snerk* Ruby's car. Heh. That kind of car has a reputation in my town as a drug-dealer mobile office or a rolling penis extention mid-life crisis purchase. Probably just a local thing. :-P It does suit the character of Ruby though, because it's yellow, and has stripes like a skunk. *nods in an entirely non-sarcastic way*

-Ooo, more flashback to Hell! Hi Castiel! 'What are you dreaming about?' Is it just me, or does Castiel seem like a major league dick bit of an ass, there. Not that that's a bad thing, just interesting. Makes me think I'm right on this little theory about Dean's rescue. From Castiel's perspective, it's gotta be annoying to lose immortal allies and friends to rescue a guy from Hell who does nothing but deny your boss's existence, disbelieves and/or disrespects you and constantly grinds your transcendental gears. *nods*

-*FLAILS* Heh. Look! Mary was right. Angels watch over you when you sleep, Dean. Hah! [On rewatch: O.O]

-"You have to stop it."/"Stop what?" Heh. Dude. Your lack of recognition that Sam being all shiny and normal right now means that he's decidedly not fine is about to get a serious collect call from the angelic clue phone network.

-Hee. The angel two-finger poke of 'I'm messing with your brai-ain'. Wonder if anything interesting happened inside Bobby's head in 4.01 *ponders*

-Jay Bird's Diner on the bus bench. Shouldn't that be Jayhawks? Maybe they couldn't get legal to agree to it? Incidentally, if you wake up in a weird place that is Kansas, what do you say instead of 'you're not in Kansas anymore'? *ponders deeply*

-YES! First thing you do when you wake up in a strange location with no real idea how you got there is take inventory! Very wise. It's why I used to always carry a jackknife, first-aid kit, string, paperclips, matches and gum in silver foil wrappers with me everywhere, in case I got abducted by aliens or sucked into an alternate dimension. What? I was 12. Ish. And a MacGyver fan. Oh, just, shut up. :-P

-OMG HI JOURNAL!!! You look newer than you did... Hm. Maybe the old cover wore out and they needed to replace it.

-Of course your cellphone doesn't work Dean. Do you think this is some weird town where everyone drives mint condition classic cars and... oh. Hey. Hee. I actually forgot a spoiler of sorts, because I didn't realize it was for this show! I vaguely remember a local mention about a call-out to classic car clubs for cars for some production around when this was being filmed, and it being mentioned it was weird because clubs in the area apparently get calls from things shooting in BC all the time looking for specific cars, but not a general call-out. One of those cars in the background might be from my hometown! \o/ Or I might be hallucinating! \o/ Whee! \o/

-Wow does that kid at the lunch counter look like Tom Welling. That worried me for a split second; I thought besides time travel we might be getting a crossover. o.O I also find it oddly disturbing that I recognize someone as looking like Tom Welling even though I don't regularly watch Smallville anymore. Kid has lots of lines so he'll be being significant in a bit here, perhaps. [Heh. On the re-watch I'm totally catching John's speech pacing and intonation from the guy. Well done!]

-Sonny and Cher.... Okay? Weird.

-Besides all the seventies hair, suits, clothes and table manners, the signage should be a tip-off. Cheeseburger and fries, $1.70, Steak $4.50...

-HA! April 30th, 1973, which... is... uh. Waaaay earlier than I thought it'd be. Which is cool! *tosses out several scenarios*

-Total Back to the Future thing here with the diner that's even a similar layout and colour which is fantastic and the guy that comes in with the mistaken identi- holy crap that's JOHN??? John used to look like a wiry version of Tom Welling with Lego snap-on hair? Whoa. o.O

-Dean looks fantastically freaked here. I think I'm seeing the John resemblance in the kid now. He's a bit on the slight side, but he's, what, 23? Maybe he had a late burst of broadening in the shoulders. Like Sam! Genetic continuity! \o/

-"Corporal" is a rank in the Army as well as the Marines in the US, I doubt the ranking system has changed significantly in the last thirty five years but I could be wrong. John is canonically a Marine though.

-A scream over the title card again, same one as last week, still not sure which scream it might be.

-Ooo. Fringed jackets and roller-skates! Hee. Wow I'm old.

-Was expecting John with a 'why are you following me' on Dean turning the corner so yay show for inverting expectations. Hi again Castiel! Man are you grumpy.

-You know, this episode could be utter crack except for how Ackles is playing it. This is beyond awesome.

-Deloreans! Just to make the Back to the Future reference nice and overt. :-D

-'Time is fluid, can bend.' Quantum Rock is gonna totally get Kripke'd in terms of temporal physics in this ep and I'm not even close to finished it. Sigh. HOWEVER. Angels can play with time on special occasions. Plot device on the wall for the show now, yes? Of the "nigh finale Deus Ex Machina" variety of plot device on the wall? Maaaaaybe? ;-)

-Allergic to straight answers. Heheheh. Enigmatic bastard isn't he?

-Car lot. OMG. We're getting a canon origin of Metallicar! *flails* Impending mass Kripke-ing in progress. I expect that'll happen a lot.

-Well, you know, really, for a nomadic family, a VW van would be more practical and easier on the stolen credit cards because it'd be easier to claim to be camping and spent nights parked in campgrounds. Also more storage space. Yes, I will smack myself in the head now for suggesting the VW van might be a good idea instead of Metallicar. *smack* Screw practicality.

-I'm gonna leave it to someone with a better pause function to play 'spot the anachronism. *eyes car in background suspiciously*

-EEEEE! Dean, car, OMG! *flail* It's a time loop! Okay, temporal mechanics. Or physics. Whatever. John got the car on Dean's suggestion, so Dean would grow up in it and be given it and it's now as tied into the mytharc as every other thing and YAY!!! It's a paradox, yeah, but if the timeline of the Supernatural universe is sufficiently elastic, John would have noticed the car and changed his mind whether Dean was there or not. Some things are just meant to be. *huggles the Impala*

-However and also, by that token and harkening back to "Dream a Little Dream" Alt!Dean's attack on Dean's sources of self-esteem and identity all being his Dad's? The car was not Dad's. The car always was Dean's, he picked it out and John was just being the custodian of it all along so HA! Take that, Dean's Self-Doubt! *is smug on Dean's behalf* If Dean gives John the leather coat and gets John into listening to mullet rock now, I may laugh myself sick. :-D

-*mops again* *gets bigger bucket* *debates bilge pump, or sand bags*

-Incidentally, VCR is liking young John, Lego snap-on hair and all.

-Trivia note: The sticker price for the Impala when John bought it was $2,204. That's an odd number for a car price... Does it mean anything?

-Damn straight she'll still be badass when she's forty. Aw, Dean and John bonding over the car... Heh. Dean's named after himself, isn't he? *facepalm*

-Dean Van Halen. *snerk*

-Not ragging on Kripke about the lack of SPOTLIGHTS because They weren't on the car in 1983, John added them at some point later. Also an extreme HA! on Co-Executive Producer Peter "It Could Have Been Any Car" Johnson passing by as John looks the Impala over. I do believe that might have been an apology. *is smug*

-WATCH! JOHN'S WATCH!! Is it that watch? The one the demons stole when YED possessed him back in first season? I do believe it might be! Or looks close enough to pass. I LOVE THE WARDROBE PEOPLE ON THIS SHOOOOW!!! \o/

-HA! Dean, King of Subtle Conversational Skillz, with the testing John to see if he knows about hunting at this point. Heh. It's like trying to find out if someone plays pen and paper RPG's by trying to work constitution checks and polyhedral dice into everyday conversations. Dude, your dad was not a hunter before your mom died. Cattle mutilations. Hee!

-Jeremy Carver wrote this which... hm. He was the new guy last year who did, among other things, "A Very Supernatural Christmas". Hm. Is he now the go-to guy for fleshing out backstory eps? In any case *braces for additional backstory weirdnesses*

-Directed by... Steve Boyum... HEY!! He's the guy that had the Impala's Spotlights removed! *glares in a kidney-melting fashion* Grr. You better hope this episode doesn't suck, man, or I'll... er... glare at you from the internet some more! Actually I probably will regardless. The combination of those two names is suddenly making me very nervous...

-*fangirls the Impala engine noise in passing* Heh. Is Dean driving a Gremlin??? Hee. Gremlins have special significance for me. A family member who lives in the Lower Mainland used to be obsessed with Gremlins and was rebuilding one for the longest time. He eventually switched to a different car since parts were so hard to get, but I still grin when I see a Gremlin. :-) Incidentally, trivia, the license plate is IT-53C4

-Young Mary is young! I was hoping to see Samantha Smith, and I'm certain she could pull off the, what, *calculates* twenty-something version of herself, but the actress they have is not physically too dissimilar.

-"Mom's a babe!" O.O EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! "I'm going to Hell." Um, well... "Again." Hee!

-Mary's dad is over-protective. "Mechanic from a family of mechanics." And just returned from a war, although given what I understand to be the cultural climate of the times regarding Vietnam, I'm not surprised it isn't being more overtly mentioned.

-Awwww. Let's see, what, high-school sweethearts, he went off to war came back and... aw. Ring. Aw.

-HOLY CRAP MARY KICKS ASS! O.O Where the- What the- You know, I really should not be this surprised, but I should definitely be this gleeful! \o/

-Charm bracelet! Lets see, we have crucifix, pentacle... some little guy who's too skinny to be Buddha... and something six pointed which isn't a star of David that was also on the barn in 4.01.... ha! A unicursal hexagram!

-MARY WAS A HUNTER!!! Hellooooo epic Kripke-ing! Also, hello several fics that I know are out there snapping into canon. MAN, this season has been firing off the canon big time so far! Ooo, hey. So, if Mary's are hunter, were 'all her friends' who died also hunters? Hmm...

-[Whoever bought the Sunday time block off the CW looks like they have some interesting things going on...]

-The Metallicar causality loop is still freaking me out. That's so frigging awesome.

-Mary's last name was Campbell! I know I've seen that used as her maiden name in a fic somewhere. :-)

-Loooooots of music this ep. Awesome. Even though it's kind of making it less likely that other eps will get much of a music budget, the music really helps set the scene for the era. *nods*

-Heee! Little John did a lip bite, after the kiss. Hee, cute.

-Practically family. Heheheh. "You've heard of him?"/"Clearly not enough." Bwah!!!

-OMG, THEIR GRANDPA WAS A.D. SKINNER!? Whoa. Cool! *flails a little* ... oh. Wait. Oh crap, I just remembered another spoiler. Mitch Pileggi mentioning playing a demon somewhere. Aw crap. Yeah. Grandma and Grandpa are toast aren't they?

-Grandpa knows how th kill a vampire... does he know Elkins, or are they not nearly as rare as they are in the future, since John had Sam and Dean thinking they didn't exist at the start?

-Awwww, Sam's named after his Grandpa.... Aaaand Dean's named after his Grandma? HEE! The look on his face! Well, it's better than being named after himself. Also less of a pain in the temporal physics. He is neeeeever telling Sam about that bit, I bet.

-Mega-awww. Dean gets to have a family dinner with his mom and grandparents, and sassing his Grandpa and getting a smirk. *flails and wibbles a little* They are so very very toast.

-"I saw that." Heh. For a second I thought Grandpa Samuel had pulled some minor sleight-of-hand to ditch some brussel sprouts from his plate or something.

-...Interesting. Mary with her family is reminding me of Jo here. Not exactly of course due to the vastly different maturity levels, but the whole 'daughter of hunters' thing is resonating. If Kripke had this 'Mary came from a family of Hunters' thing from the start (and I think he likely has been) there'd probably be some kind of subconscious familiarity with Jo based on things unknowingly observed from Mary when he was a baby and toddler. I don't know. Just an odd thought, I don't know where it was going and I don't think it does either.

-"John's a really nice... naive civilian." Dean: *subtle boggle check* Me: *snerk*

-"Wah? No, no. No." *headshake goofyface* BWAH! And aw.

-Hee! "Find anything on the web? ...of information that you have assembled?" Niiiiice cover there Dean. Really smooth. Smooth like pickle relish. *nods*

-Love the little details, like detailed weather graphs takes a few days to get there.

-...hang on. I just realized. April 30th... we're coming up on May 2nd. The date is significant all the way back here?? Holy crap. No wonder Kripke was so freaked about his son being born on Sam's birthday. It's more than just Sam's birthday.... Oh craaaaaaap.

-Oh. Family business. Oh. Wow. *flails*

-Hee! Impersonating the clergy has a long history in the family. Now, did Mary tell John about that trick, or is it a fairly common dodge for hunters looking for intel. *ponders*

-Duplicate priest costumes! HA! Family tradition! Kind of wonder how Dean acquired his, but hey, it's Dean. If anyone can acquire clerical vestments on short notice 35 years into their own past while driving a Gremlin, Dean can. Actually, he might even be able to use charge cards in the past, since MasterCard and Visa had been around since the 60's and they're just using the manual carbon paper swipey things to process them, so the lack of validity wouldn't even be noticed until two weeks later. *nods*

-Father Cheney. As in Dick? Or Chaney, as in Lon? Probably the latter since politics isn't Dean's usual fake name source. Also, so he can sass his Grandpa again. Aw.

-GRANDPA CAN DO A PERFECT SAM BITCHFACE!!! That pursed-lip-head-bob thing! Hee! It's genetic! \o/

-Aw. Dean questioning the guy with Mary. Awwwww. *flails* Family business! He's hunting with his Mom! Awwwwww!

-Ooo... there's another crossroads demon out wandering around making random unsummoned deals, like with the people at Lloyds and with Bela? Is this part of the cycle of things? Ten years before each psychic kid generation (since there's another one in progress with Rosie's age-mates, and that Lloyd's and Bela thing was approximately ten years prior), the crossroads demons can go freelancing so they can meet some increased soul quota? Or is this the demonic equivalent of a bottle drive? It bears pondering. *ponders*

-Kind of wonder how Kansas farmboy didn't notice kissing the guy the demon was wearing at the time of his Deal, but... it's the 70's. Different cultural climate. Plus, he probably wouldn't mention it in front of a pretty girl and a priest. *nods*

-OMG it's YED?! Whoa! Seriously? But it's ten years too early, doesn't he hibernate or something between cycles?? Or was John wrong about that? What the heck?

-(I love moments like that, where an unexpected reveal takes me by surprise, especially if it's something there were big obvious neon signs hints for, and something that makes subsequent events so much more complicated and ups the stakes and makes me think. Like the reveal of Max Miller's backstory in "Nightmare" I live for those "HOLY CRAP!! WOW!!" moments, and it's why I'm such an insane spoilerphobe. In case anyone was curious.)

-Hee! And Dean's freaking out.

-Banana chopping knife! Don't piss off Dean's Grandma (and namesake, hee) she will cut you!

-Pileggi is nailing the Sam and Dean stances and gestures, to the point where he's doing something, (like here where he's standing with his arms mostly crossed but with one arm free from the elbow and doing some pondery gesturing) until he does it, and seeing it on someone else makes me realize it was a Sam or Dean mannerism, even though I'd be hard pressed to point to an example.

-The Colt was Mary's bedtime story? O.O Did she tell it to Dean? Or was she hiding all that from Dean and John? Lurking meta there...

-Oh hell. Dean, you've seen the movies, don't try to change the past with knowledge from the future, it neeeeever turns out pretty.

-"Uh.... my dad could see the future." HAAAAAA!!! Oh and the face that went with that! Aaaand Libby Walsh's date is May 2nd. Greaaaaaat.

-Mary's music! \o/ Oh, if John got his 'his music' from her tastes... That means all that's left of Dean's Self-Doubt's identity slam that Dean's John's blunt little instrument and nothing more is the jacket! Ha! *flips the bird at Dean's Self-Doubt*

-... Actually no. Mary's listening to... disco music of some kind. *flips the bird at Dean's Self-Doubt anyway*

-Aw. Dean asking Mary for info on pre-hunting John. And Mary telling him he's pretty much exactly the opposite to the way Dean knows him. Ow. And that she wanted to escape hunting, and her worst nightmare is her kids being raised like she was... Ow. Oh, Dean. Oh that face, oh ow. Wow. Wow. These two are AWESOME. *flappy flailing hands*

-Reconsidering my evaluation the actress for Mary. She is a FANTASTIC casting choice. She has Mary's concerned motherly eye thing down cold. Wow. Go take a look at the expressions in the "Pilot", "Home", and "What Is and What Should Never Be" and then tell me she isn't nailing Samantha Smith's expressions perfectly here. The eyes. Absolutely awesome.

-Oh god, Dean. "On November the 2nd, 1983, don't get out of bed." OW. Owowowowowowowow. And poor doomed Mary thinks he's nuts as he walks out of the room crushed and weeping. Oh owwwwwwww. [*rewinds and watches again*]

-Hee! Gremlin! *waves like a dork*

-Hey, wow! Unexpected Castiel FTW! That was great! See? No special effects, just camera angles (totally typed camera angels there *facepalm*) and an actor who can hop into the passenger seat quickly while wearing a trenchcoat. That kicked so much ass, and got the job done very effectively *applauds show*

-"God's my co-pilot." Hee. They'll work their way through all the cheesy angel- and God-related snark eventually. Dean'll see to that. *nods*

-"Sam would have wanted in on this, why not bring him back?" Oh, Dean. Your blind-spot about your brother and what he's been up to since you went to Hell is, well, Sammy-sized. *pats Dean*

-"Sam's not looking for you." Wow, who violated your cream cheese bagel, dude? It's true, yeah, but OW, blunt much?. For an angel he's a miserable callous asshole sometimes. (Yay! I love it!)

-Oh my. Save your parents or save everyone you've saved. Gaaaaaahhhh.... Dean is not emotionally equipped to handle crap like that right now. Frankly, neither am I.

-[Ad: I do believe that Max Payne movie ad was excellently targeted. Although really, what's with all the apocalyptic angels and demons stuff in tv and movies lately? I can name two other shows off the top of my head, and I only regularly watch three current US series besides SPN. I'd say it's a weird writer's strike side effect of everyone chatting with each other on the pickets, except there's some definite stuff in UK series' as well... weird.]

-[Jack in the Box Ad: Um.... sooooo much wrong. Very very wrong. Not that I'm too keen on JiB anyway, we don't have them up here, and I still associate them with that big E. Coli thing back in the 90's. And Jack freaks me the hell out.]

-Hey! It's Elkins' place before it became a run-down shack! And everything is in roughly the same place, I think? Handy that Dean already knows the safe combination, except I think... wasn't 'Elkins letter' released in one of the companion books or something just to Kripke the version I wrote, with the combination being Mary's date of death, 'something John would remember'? In which case, the combination is something else because Elkins won't have had it changed yet, so Dean will just have to pick it in his sleep like he usually does. Such hardship for the poor boy, tsk.

-Hey, where's the gun case with the spare bullets? Ooooo, also, are we going to get a canon explanation for the hypothetically missing two bullets from the Colt bullet count in this ep too??? O.O *twitches and braces for more Kripke-ing*

-ELKINS!!! *waves like a freak* Ooooo. He was a redhead! He's looking quite... hmm... unweathered... *koff*

-Dean called the Colt 'she'. That's the first time he's done that, isn't it?

-GUNS AND KNIVES! Hee! The family that does weapon maintenance together stays together. Seriously, it's like a hunter family equivalent to a jigsaw puzzle or Monopoly night.

-Oh god I love the set design people. Horrid yellow seventies fridge in the background FTW!

-"She wants to hunt, she doesn't want to hunt, is this some female time of month thing?" HA!! Well, casual misogyny aside, and personally speaking there are certain cyclic occasions where having some nasty evil thingy to tear apart with my bare hands and teeth hunt down and force to mend its evil ways would be very cathartic, and I'm sure that several people in my daily life would be glad of it too. *nods* Grandpa is so very Dean. Casual misogyny and all. Also, Grandma Deanna rocks hardcore and can do an awesome face of disgust as well. Heh.

-Why hallo there YED! You're up early. I think? *swats at passing meta-ish half-thought that won't settle*

-"Nothing you'll miss." Yeah. Right.

-Ooo, the doctor!YED did a great Fred Lehne face right there as he's getting off the couch. Cool.

-KNIFE-WIELDING, BUTT-KICKING MARY!!!! \o/ Well, not so much with the butt-kicking because, y'know, demon and all, but still. Wow. Can we keep her? *thinks of the pretzel of causality the timeline already is* Somehow? Backstory? Flashbacks? Gaaah...

-Ha. YED recognizes the gun and smokes out. Chickeeeen YED! Haha- Oh crap. He recognized the gun so does that mean he knows it kills demons or that the legendary "gun that is the key to a gate of frigging Hell" exists now and THIS IS WHEN HE ADDS IT TO HIS WHOLE PLAN FOR WHATEVER HE'S PLANNING AND WHY- GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Ow. The causality loop, it burns. But it's awesome, possibly, if that's what just happened. Is it still Fate if you do it to yourself? *ponders*

-"Just that he liked me." OKAY. Before we go off with another causality loop, this girl was Mary's friend, right? And so Mary would have wanted to go on the hunt anyway... except she wouldn't have known until after her friend killed herself (per John's Journal entry and WHY EXACTLY does John have all this very specific info about this outbreak if it didn't come from Mary???? O.O) so she showed up early because DEAN was there and told them YED was gonna show up there, so, gnh! Arg! Okay, so, maybe in the original timeline and things where Dean didn't come back (except he did come back because HE'D ALWAYS BEEN BACK THERE. Back then, whatever *handwaves*) then Mary got re-invested in the hunt when she found out her friend had killed herself and there was a demon involved so YED would have run into her OR MAYBE HE WAS TRACKING HER FROM THE START and I have to stop this train of thought because it's not getting any more coherent and is going to devolve into over-excited capslocking and keymashing soon and that won't do any good. Gah.

-Good god, stick time travel and fate together in the same plot-arc and all hell breaks loose. Just ask the Doctor.

-*lines up meta-flood re-directing sandbags* Ahem. There will be a secondary meta and spec post. Later.

-Where are they, the house of Mary's friend, or the Campbell homestead? No, wait, okay, they conversed on the lawn, went to vehicles, then went back to the Campbell's. Okay.

-"We have to kill this thing now, or Mary dies." Ha! Okay, why not. Honesty. Let's see how open-minded Grandpa is. Hunters believe a lot of things, but sci-fi stuff seems to be a bit of an exception. Remember the UFO and the guy who slow-danced with the alien, Dean? That's what time-travel's probably gonna get filed under. In short, yes he's gonna think you're nuts.

-Mary running away.... so, they must have been at the Campbell house, or she got tired of waiting and drove home herself. Hm... And it's the 2nd of May. Oh frigging yay.

-And Grandpa Sam with another Sammy gesture, that thing with the eyes and hands at the side of the head with the fingers spread out, I know I've seen Sam do that. Awesome.

-But Grandpa Sam doesn't think you're nuts. Soooo he must be possessed, right? Or not. Or, OR! Faking to get the legendary weapon away from the dangerous nutbag hunter who is claiming to be his grandson. *nods* You're being played Dean. Either way.

-"Lemmee see it." Yep. Thought so. It's a trick, and- Ohhhh YED you bastard! When did he get in?? Uhhhh, okay, there was a brief moment where Grandpa Sam was off on his own in Mary's friends house while Dean was talking to Mary on the lawn. Aw. Grandpa's toast. :-/ That explains the friend's "suicide" too. YED took over Grandpa and offed her in a non-messy fashion. Oooooo. Waitaminute... Oh crap, YED now knows the future. DEAN JUST LAID OUT THE FUTURE FOR YED, VIA JOHN'S JOURNAL! OMG! *KEYMASH*

-Ooooo... Dean's pissed. *gleeeeee* Also, Mitch Pileggi is rocking the crap out of playing YED. Heh. This should be a unique take on the grandfather paradox.

-Psychic Kids! He called them Psychic Kids! And he does them in batches! That's confirmation of... something! I'm sure of it! \o/

-Oh, man, the sniffing. There is all kinds of wrong with the sniffing of Dean. Creep factor 90!

-"I just want their children." Okay. I cannot believe it took until a half second before that line for me to pick up on that. *facepalm* So, okay, Mary will make a deal tonight, on May 2nd, right on schedule... hm... Oh my. *LARGE FREE-ASSOCIATING META AND SPEC REDIRECTED TO FUTURE POST* Whoa. O.O Okay! let's get on with this. O.O

-Grandma to the rescue! Go Grandma Deanna! Hee! I love her. Too bad she's probably gonna die here.

-YED perving on Mary. O.O Creep factor 90 billion. Gyaaaaah!

-Needs permission to cross the threshold, to be invited, ooooo cool. I love that they use that bit of lore-ish-ness. But... for Andy and Webber, did their birth mom do the deal? Or the adoptive families in a massive weird coincidence? The implication is that the deal is for permission for YED to cross the threshold of a home on the ten year anniversary. Isn't it? And then YED takes a raincheck for 6 months and... sigh. *theory diverted* Hm. I wonder if YED had to work some loopholes to get that all to work for the twins.

-Oh hey! MAX MILLER'S DAD! What if he did a deal to save/win his future wife, and then her death happens in Max's room SO OF COURSE he blames poor Max because the guy knows the day Max was born was his ten year deal day so he's been watching him for...something ever since. And maybe the Uncle knew about it. Which definitely does not excuse either of them for being violent abusive assholes, but it casts some light on the situation maybe?

-Whoops, there's some leaks in the meta sandbag wall. *mops*

-Oooo. End game. YED did have a strategy. Hmm... Maybe it's- Oh... Oh wow. *Another small flood of free-associated meta redirected* Gaaaaaah! *pants* Good grief.

-"I'm the one that kills you." Oh, ACKLES. Oh man you rock! \o/ Even when you're giving your enemy info about the future so... he... Oh crap. *Additions to theory diverted*

-"I'll tell you one person you're not gonna save. Your grandpappy." *choff* OMG. I JUST GOT KRIPKED! Big time! The thing with the stab! I've had that exact maneuver enacted in very similar circumstances (by a different person though because holy crap, Grandpa??) in a scene in my fic notebook since August 2006. I am now getting a baleful glare from the plot bunny for not posting that scene last summer as I was planning to do with the scenes that were relatively coherent even though the larger thing it was part of is AU, half-Kripked and generally non-cohesive. Over ten thousand words. Gaaaah. DAMMIT KRIPKE! GET OUT OF MY BRAIN!

-Really, though, I'm surprised that didn't happen before. Demons tend to have a 'scorched earth' policy with regard to their occupation of human bodies, this is just the quick method. *glances over at fic notebook and sighs*

-Incidentally, anyone else get a big ol' all-caps, glow-in-the-dark, 200-point, bright red flashing "FORESHADOWING" feeling from that? Or is that just me and my thoroughly Kripke'd scene talking?

-Aw, Grandma Deanna.... Heeey... where's the Colt got to...? Did it go a wandering before Elkins got it back? Is that why he's a complete hermit in the future, he trusted one guy, once with the Colt and the damn thing went missing for a few years? Oh, Dean snagged it. Awesome.

-Trivia: Original Impala license plate is IC-45P4. Wait, is that first thing an I or a widget of some kind... maybe it's a widget. Yeah it's like a wheat stalk or something.

-OMG JOHN????? O.O Wow... that's a surefire way to get rid of the kid from the future who's just told you he permanently killed you, by killing the kid he says is his father. Heh. That totally wasn't what I expected when I said a unique take on the grandfather paradox. Go back in time, Grandpa gets possessed by a demon who you reveal a lot of future info to before he stabs himself then goes and kills your dad while he's proposing to your mom. (Er. Dad proposing, not YED. Ewwww.) Definitely unique, that one. After all, from YED's POV, he's interested in Mary as a future Psychic Kid parent, so he'd be indifferent to who she picked as a partner. Plus she already met the boy from the Wiltshire farm who he already has under contract with a similar expiry date, so wahey! Makes perfect sense for YED to off John here. Except IT TOTALLY NEEDS TO BE UNDONE RIGHT NOW and crap.

-Pileggi is doing an awesomely snarky and very very creepy YED.

-Oh. Oh. The deal was for John wasn't it. Oh. She... oh. Omg. Mary made a deal to save John and sacrificed Sammy without knowing, didn't she? And the Winchester Family Tradition of sacrificing begins, because Mary can't think that she's sacrificing a child she doesn't have yet, she has to be thinking she's sacrificing herself in some way. Also, a sign that you never get out of the Family Business. It finds you. Oh, Mary.

-STATION WAGON?! Okay, Kripke's deliberately taunting those of us who nitpicked that HUGE CANON ERROR in the Origins comic now, isn't he? AND in the same episode that cemented the Impala into the frigging mytharc/timeline. Ha! That's... bastardy but in an awesome kind of way. I can hear him giggling from here. *pats Kripke*

-"As long as I'm not interrupted, nobody gets hurt." Except Sammy, really, because his life gets forfeited at the age of 22 and a half and he either becomes Boy King of the Demons or fails to pass the audition and gets ganked by evil demonic little girls in South Dakota. So a little bit of hurt there, maybe. Of course it is, because demons lie.

-Gremlin to the rescue!! Bwah!

-EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Ew ew ew. Demon mackage was never creepier. Ewwwwww. *shudders*

-She sold Sam to save John. Holy crap. Oh wow. Oh Dean. Oh the faces, as Dean realizes Mary made a Deal, and Mary's face looking at Dean, (my god the guest cast is freaking awesome) and Dean as he realizes that the Deal that sacrificed Sam was to save John and it's, it's one of those character timeline moments of 'How long have we been walking this path?' that is so. damn. awesome! Gnah! *flails*

-And this explains why in 'Home' she said 'I'm sorry' to Sam, and just 'Dean' with instant recognition of her four-year-old as a grown man because she'd already seen him as a grown man! *flail*

-No wonder she named him Sam, and used her mother's name first for Dean. After... Oh wow. Mary isn't a willing or unwitting pawn, she's an unwilling pawn, who maybe fought back by... oh wow. Whoa. *MASSIVE THEORY REDIRECTED* Damn! O.O

-Eyeshot at Mary's dead dad over her shoulder by little John... even with the Lego snap-on hair and his Wellingishness, this guy is well cast too. That look was definite John. Wow has he ever been hiding a lot of crap from the boys. "Did I ever tell you about the day I proposed to your mother? Her Dad who didn't like me came, hauled her out of the car, I asked him to back off and the next thing I remember, he's on the ground dead from a knife wound." Um. Yeah. Doesn't look too good to the general public.

-Y'know, Dean's going to develop a fear of sleeping at this rate, Castiel.

-"I couldn't stop any of it." Of course you couldn't stop it, Dean, you half caused it. Time in your universe is so frigging looped on itself in terms of causality for you and your family, if you stopped it the universe would implode. *sighs and slaps a 'Kripke'd' post-it on the Quantum Rock plot-bunny* Plus, you are so totally fated. I've had it listed on a roughed out GURPS role-playing game character sheet for you since 'Faith' aired, dude. Sam has a Dark Fate, you have a Light Fate, maybe or something, and no man escapes his frigging Wyrd. But I can see how some fans might be bugged by that.

-"Destiny can't be changed, Dean." See, Castiel agrees with me... Holy crap, Castiel agrees with me? He said destiny!? *flails* I knew it! Seventh dimensional cruxpoint! *REDIRECTS INCOHERENT QUANTUM PHYSYCS/FATE/FREE WILL META* And dammit Kripke, get out of my fic notebook and research link files! *swats*

-*takes a moment to snicker* Hee. Is Jensen a lot taller than Misha Collins? Castiel's eyeline looks like he's looking up almost a foot above his own eye height to meet Dean's eyes.

-"What the hell are you talking about?" Did you miss that whole "I fed Sam my blood" thing from YED? Whoops, nope, nevermind. Sammy-sized blind spot. Mhmm... Denial is strong in this one, yes. *nods*

-Sam's unslept-in bed. Oh ow. Gee, Castiel likes rubbing Dean's nose in "There's something not right about Sam." And even though in that regard with Dean, seriously, Castiel needs the biggest frigging clue-bat he can muster, he seems to be (enigmatically) using the hurtier and more callous methods of empirical proof. Wonder if there's a reason for that. *glances at theory again*

-YED's Endgame. Theory? Maybe it's going to I'm thinking Sam's supposed to become a willing vessel for Big L. And... I don't know. Are they going to kill L. if he rises? And eee.... *REDIRECTS META*

-Oooo. 425 Waterman. Sam's up to ill-advised things. And I mean the ill-advised quite literally considering Ruby's his advisor. Hee. She wants to be his Grand Vizier. Like Jafar in Aladdin. Those are never good news. *shakes head*

-"Stop it or we will." O.O !!!!!! GAH! How very very much do I LOVE that the angel is adversarial? Or has declared ostensibly adversarial intent? Gaaaaaah! *flails* Castiel is awesome!

-"TO BE CONTINUED". KRIPKE YOU EVIL S.O.B.! Oh well, at least it wasn't a 'SOON' followed by a month-long hiatus and a reveal that turned out not to be a reveal, right? ;-P *knocks wood*



This episode has required the most mental processing time to date, not because it's hard to understand but because of all the mytharc ramifications going off all over the place. This episode is densely packed with plot bombs. I'm still processing.

See, I'm Dean-centric, and I'm a mytharc girl. Always have been. I've read Joseph Campbell, and I've known Dean had some kind of Hero's-Journey-like arc in progress too. But Mary being more than an unwitting victim? Mytharc just got ten jillion times more awesome.

*flails and goes off to try to wrangle the diverted meta/spec/theorizing into a readable format, will be up later. It needs translated from keymashing*

ETA: Meta catchment here


NO SPOILERS OR REFERENCES TO PROMO FOR ANY UNAIRED EPISODES IN COMMENTS PLEASE! THAT INCLUDES ICONS! :-)