SUPERNATURAL: After School Special

I loved the episode Thursday night – it was a nice return to the brothers and their relationship to each other after a couple of episodes that were focused more on secondary characters. I knew I was going to love the episode once I saw the cold open; it was sooo Heathers, with the traumatizing chants and uber-violence. High school really is one of the most evil places, isn’t it? It totally makes sense that horrible supernatural things would go on there. At Truman High in Indiana, people have been committing horrible, violent crimes against their tormentors and then claiming to have been possessed after it’s over. And weren’t we all a little satisfied when the horrible bitchy girl got hers after the way she treated the girl who had just tried to reach out to her? Yes, I know that killing someone because they’re a bitch is wrong, but this is tv…c’mon; we’re allowed to enjoy things like that.

So we had two distinct storylines going on last night. In one, the boys are trying to deal with whatever is turning the kids at the high school into violent psychopaths (aside from teenage hormones), and in the other the boys are the students, because we’re seeing flashbacks to 1997 when they attended the very same school. I thought that the boys who played young Sam and Dean were fantastic. They looked too far apart in age, but it’s a minor point that I can live with (according to imdb, the actors are 11 years apart, which is about what it looked like).

In present time, Dean and Sam are undercover at the school to try to gather some intel: Sam as a janitor and Dean as the P.E. teacher. Well now – from the preview I thought I’d be rambling on about Dean’s red shorts and headband, but helloooo Sam the Janitor! If our custodial engineers had looked like that in a uniform we’d never have gotten any work done. While the boys are discussing the case, another incident occurs: a kid sick of getting picked on in home ec decides to shove his bully’s hand into a working food processor….disgusting! (In a good way). Sam and Dean notice a common thread with the psycho kids: a black liquid leaking out of their eyes and ears. Sam is convinced there’s a ghost about and when they find out about his old friend Barry…he’s convinced it’s him.

Barry Cook with his glasses and smile is adorable and I love his character immediately – he reminded me of Paul Pfeiffer from The Wonder Years crossed with Wes Bentley from American Beauty. He was the perpetual victim of a bully named Dirk when Sam showed up at school and took the heat off him by mixing it up with Dirk himself and standing up for Barry. They became friends quickly and you knew it was going to be really hard for Barry when Sam eventually had to leave with Dean and their dad. When it’s revealed that Barry killed himself a year after Sam left by slitting his wrists in the girls’ bathroom, the brothers are convinced he’s behind the current chaos. They burn his bones only to realize they still have a problem when a girl at the school attacks Sam (and addresses him by name) and then oozes more of the black liquid of death.

While in the principal’s office investigating the kids involved in the incidents (Heathers alert! Dean calls the first girl to go crazy “Martha Dumptruck” – love it!), Dean discovers that three of the cheerleaders are legal, which he is very excited about. I laughed but was glad they didn’t pursue that particular storyline beyond that joke. The brothers discover that each of the kids ride the same bus to school and then that the driver of the bus is Dirk the Bully’s father. Once they speak to him and find out that Dirk died at 18 after losing his mother to cancer and developing a problem with alcohol and drugs, the boys start to feel for the kid. They find out that Dirk was cremated but his dad keeps a lock of his hair in a bible on the bus, which obviously now must be burned.

Once they catch up with the bus, which is full of what appears to be the football team, they realize that the driver is possessed so they haul him outside. I loved Dean’s explanation when he was asked if he was the gym teacher: “I’m like 21 Jump Street – bus driver sells pot”. Lol!! Love me a 21 Jump Street reference, although the kids on the bus probably have no idea what he’s talking about. The brothers shoot the driver with rock salt and the ghost escapes to another kid on the bus who then tries to attack Dean, however Sam saves the day by finding the lock of hair and destroying it. I was a little distracted during this scene, wondering why nobody on the bus seemed to be freaking out that it looked like Sam and Dean were blowing the driver away with a shotgun.

In the flashbacks, we see that Sam had a teacher that had taken a particular liking to him and encouraged him in his writing. He also encouraged him not to follow into the family business (which he thought was fixing cars) if it wasn’t what he wanted for himself. Later, Sam visits the teacher and tells him how much his advice meant to him, even if he didn’t end up following it. The teacher asks him if he’s happy and we don’t really get an answer, but I think we know what it is. He isn’t happy and he’s come to that conclusion pretty recently, which is why he wants to hunt down Lillith and end things so that he can try to have a “normal” life.

There was a lot going on in Thursday’s episode: Sam had to deal with his guilt over leaving Barry alone, wondering if he made the right choices by joining Dean in the fight and ultimately, regretting the road-weary life he led growing up a Winchester. At the same time there were some valuable lessons for the kids in there too: high school sucks for most people, don’t be mean, people who are mean are probably trying to hide their pain and they need friends more than anyone, and finally, watch what you say around an angry kid and a running food processor.

This week had me wondering: will it ever be possible for Sam and Dean to have a normal existence again, and if so is it something they’d really be happy with? I don’t know that I can ever see that happening, but I hope I’m wrong. I’d love to hear what you guys think about that. Next week’s episode is called “Sex & Violence” and it looks pretty awesome. Also, it features the return of Bobby!! Please discuss your thoughts on the show below in the comments and I’ll see you back here next week!

Note: It was hard to sit down to watch the show on Thursday without thinking about the loss of Kim Manners and how it must be affecting everyone on the show. It’s got to be hard to continue to make the show with the same joy as before when one of their family members is gone, and I feel for them. Kath has posted a separate place to pay respects to Mr. Manners, so I thought it best to keep my review separate from that, but please do find your way over there and share your thoughts.

Nicole is a lawyer with an unhealthy t.v. obsession and many t.v. boyfriends. If she had a locker at her office it would be covered in photos of Zachary Levi, Jensen Ackles, Lee Pace and John Krasinski. She lives near Toronto and is spending the winter cursing that fact while trying to convince her friends to do a group move to a warmer climate. So far it’s not working.