Too many thoughts about last night's episode. First off, it was wonderful- brothers, creepiness, suspense, laughter, woobie- everything was in there. I must say, I was also loving the continuity of the whole thing. Word to Raelle Tucker. I think she and Kripke are coming to be my favorite writers on the show. This episode was also Kripke's directorial debut. He did a fantastic job. I loved how they worked in all the scenes and shots that paralleled those in the pilot. Also, bringing back the music from the pilot in the teaser was inspired. I watched this episode three times last night, it was that good.Let's start at the beginning. It's the little things that usually get me. First, the impala has new license plates. Ohio plate- a nice shout-out to Kripke's(and my) home state. The old plates (KAZ 2Y5) had significance, referencing the first year of the show and the boys' home state. The new plates (CNK 80Q3) are non-standard for Ohio (ie they would be vanity plates in real life). My sister supposed that 80 could be for 1980, and I wonder if K would be for Kripke (CN=canada? grasping at straws). For the rest I have no guesses. There were also new Kansas plates in the "bizzaro" world: RMD 5H2. Again, no clue. Next was Dean and Cameron's mail. The address on the envelopes is real. I'm guessing there is some significance to this as well. *note to self-look it up on google Earth with landmarks enabled. Third were the Bizzaro!Family pictures. I loved these. I loved how they used real old pictures for the boys this time. (I recognized some from fansites.) Some of the photoshopping could have used a little work (*raises hand to volunteer to help*) but most of them worked out fine. I really loved Dean being startled awake by seeing the family in matching Christmas sweaters. Also, were Sam's graduation pictures from Jared's actual graduation, or did they just superimpose his head? The Route 66 patch on Papa Winchester's softball uniform was a nice touch too.
On now to Dean's bizzaro dream world. I think it gives some insight to how Dean views Sam and himself. Before the episode aired, not knowing it would just be a dream in Dean's head, I wondered if Sam would still chose to go to Stanford and to go into law if he hadn't been raised with the mysterious loss of his mother and the inherent lawlessness hunting requires. Knowing it is only Dean's wish for Sam, it's logical that he would only be giving him back what hunting directly took away: their mother, his girlfriend, and his career. I don't think Sam's attitude says much about how Dean thinks being raised by their mother would affect Sam's personality. Dean has no concept of how he or Sam would be different had they been raised by their mother, so he keeps things essentially the same as in the real world. Bizzaro!Sam acts much as Sam did in the pilot. Pilot!Sam was completely estranged from his family, with no intention of ever contacting Dean or their father. (Once a gap is in place, it is just that much easier to let it continue than to try to work things out.) Bizzaro!Sam, while not estranged from his parents, is estranged from Dean because of their differing moral compasses. In the real world, however, Sam and Dean can get past those differences because as children they really only had each other and had developed a deep bond. Another parallel between Bizzaro!Sam and real Sam is their compassion. After catching Dean breaking into the house and getting a worrisome excuse, Bizzaro!Sam comes out to the car to go with him. Dean still sees his brother as a caring person who would be genuinely worried about him even though they are estranged. Again, this parallels the pilot where Dean is able to convince Sam fairly easily to go with him to hunt for their father.
I think Dean's main problem with his dream world is that he can't really imagine a different life for himself. He still sees himself as a schemer, actually flat out stealing his brother's ATM card, something I don't think real!Dean would ever do. He also sees himself holding the one legitimate job his father taught him the skills to pursue: being a mechanic. I think this is why he will never ditch the Impala no matter how many Feds are tailing them. The Impala is the one "normal life" connection he had with his father, and I see him holding onto that until his last shred of hope is gone. Saving people is another aspect of his real life that he can't imagine away. His inability to relinquish this ultimately leads him to being able to pull himself out of the dream. I liked that while still a horn dog (stealing your brother's prom date- for shame!), he did see himself settling down with a smart, respectable girl who really understands and cares about him. (About her bringing him his favorite beer: Is it his favorite beer just because she was in the ad, or is it really his favorite beer? I tend to believe it to be the former. I could totally see Dean looking at that ad and saying, "That is my favorite beer" without even having heard of it before. I can recollect no time that we've seen him with this particular type of beer in the past. I'd think he'd have gotten it at least once before if it were really his favorite.) It was nice to see that even some small things about Dean's habits stayed the same. Even though he no longer needs his charm necklace to keep him safe, he still wears a saint medal at all times.
I think my favorite part of the episode was the unreturned "Bitch... Jerk" line. My sister and I have tons of two part quotes that we say to each other all the time like that. I think it really exemplifies how close the two were growing up in the real world. Dean throwing Sam's cell phone out the car window was great. That was classic. I loved the turn around at the end of the episode with Dean trying to come to terms with how close he had come to giving up his life. Sam was there for him without dismissing his brother's struggles.
I'm excited for next week's episode. I've been voting for months that Ava is being used as bait. We're about to find out what the truth is. Questions raised in my mind by the preview: If Sam is the YED's favorite, why hasn't he been trying to influence Sam more to develop his powers? Where did these kids get their powers from? How were Jess and the mothers of some of the kids going to get in the way of the YED's plans? and How in the world are we going to wrap this up in two episodes? I'm loving the return of
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