SUPERNATURAL: I Believe the Children Are Our Future

First, let me apologize for missing the recap last week and I swear it had nothing to do with my irrational dislike of Paris Hilton. Long story short, I had no internet or television for FIVE DAYS because some workmen severed my line right before (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend, so I didn’t even get to watch it until earlier this week. I actually thought that P Hilt held her own well enough and made some good points about our culture’s out-of-control celebrity worship (even though you know that the real P Hilt is only who she is because of said worship – sigh, if only she listened to her lines more carefully). I especially loved Sam going all “off with her head” – highly satisfying. It was really nice to have an old-fashioned monster of the week type episode to ease us back into the S & D dynamic and take a breather from the heaviness of the big picture for a week. The big takeaway from the episode was the discussion that the brothers had at the end, where a) they discussed the fact that they each unknowingly had a hand in the Apocalypse and b) they acknowledged that they have to work together and move on from the past, and c) Dean let Sam drive the Impala! That can only mean good things people.

As for this week, another great episode title even though I had Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” stuck in my head all night. I loved the episode – there was a fantastic mix of humour, emotion and exploration of mythology. Once again the casting department scored with an amazing young actor to play Jesse, aka the Antichrist. He was so sweet, and so understated in his role – his little lip quiver made me melt. SPN has a history of finding the creepiest children on the planet for their show, but I loved that Jesse wasn’t creepy – he’s just a kid who finds himself an unwilling yet important factor in this very scary circumstance because of things that happened to his parents before he was born (sound familiar?).

The episode veered quite a bit between creepy, scary, funny and heartbreaking. The “scratching your brains out” girl and Tooth Fairy were totally disturbing, particularly the scary biker-dude TF with the gigantic wrench. I don’t often get genuinely scared watching movies or tv, but I was cringing and hiding my eyes during the tooth extraction scene. The way they shot the shadows of the characters, plus the bone-crunching noises, oh god. So disturbing. I think I must have a thing with teeth-pulling, because another SPN scene that still haunts me is Dean getting a tooth pulled in “It’s a Very Supernatural Christmas” (still one of my faves).

When we discover that all of these bizarre happenings are due to Jesse, a little boy who simply believes the stories behind the real life events (i.e. winding up in the hospital from mixing Coke and Pop Rocks, or getting electrocuted from a joke buzzer), the brothers are at a loss as to why this boy out of all of the children who believe these stories seems to be causing them to come to life. They eventually track down his birth mother (played by Ever Carradine after a serious makeunder – good job, makeup department!) and discover that the boy is half human, half demon. It seems she was possessed for nine months – just enough time to knock her up and have her deliver a baby, which she couldn’t bring herself to raise or kill, so she put him up for adoption.

Dean and Sam are at a loss – they have a half human, half demon child who is unwittingly causing serious harm to people just with his thoughts. Since they don’t know what to do, they call in Cas for a serious discussion. A serious discussion involving the longest, most hilarious, fake fart ever. I’m not normally a “laugh at whoopee cushion jokes” kind of girl, but oh my god that was funny. HOW did they get even one take of that without breaking? I’m convinced they had to piece shots together to get one scene where nobody cracked.

After Cas reveals that Jesse’s parentage essentially makes him the Antichrist, he tells the boys that they have no choice but to kill him. Oh sure, now he’s just inventing tooth fairies and candy-related ailments, but soon enough he will be found by the demons and used as a pawn in the fight against the angels. Not only that, but he has the power to do serious damage. In my favourite moment of the episode, Sam held his ground and refused to kill Jesse, arguing that there must be a way to control the situation and give Jesse the chance to make the right choice, Cas spat back “you didn’t” with just pure venom. Ouch. Do you think these two are going to come to blows at some point? I kinda really want to see that (just a fist fight – nothing serious). Since the boys refuse to kill little Jesse, Cas decides to take him out himself, but just as he’s about to stab the boy (horrifying image alert!!), Sam and Dean bust in only to find Action Figure Cas™ sitting harmlessly on the floor, complete with accessory trench coat and knife. Jesse is quite powerful indeed!

The scene where Jesse’s (now possessed) mother and Sam and Dean fight for the boy’s trust was intense, and we were reminded that Sam is under a major protection order due to his status as Lucifer’s vessel. He uses this opportunity to tell Jesse about his own predicament, trying to explain the importance of Jesse’s choice. Once again, poor Sam is forced to relive his own bad choices and feel the enormity of the damage he did as a result – he just wants to protect Jesse from a similar fate. Since Jesse is a good kid, he goes with the good guys. After he orders the demon out of his mother’s body (again – the power!), he agrees to go with the brothers to Bobby’s where they can protect him from the demons who are now hunting him down. Things don’t go according to plan though, because he ends up disappearing and now nobody knows where he is. He wants to protect his parents from harm and so he figures that disappearing (to Australia I figure, given the surfing posters he had plastered all over his room) will be the best for everyone. Oh, and before he took off, he fixed all of the people who he had hurt, save for those that had died. Even Cas is back to normal – but you can bet that there will be plenty of people begging for those action figures. Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Jesse – I just hope that the good guys find him first.

One more thing I have to mention from this episode – the return of Dean’s ungodly appetite!! It’s been a while since we’ve had a good “Dean eats inappropriately large quantities of food” episode, and we got a good one last night, with Dean consuming the better part of a ham over a 24 hour period. Even Sam couldn’t believe it – “Dean…seriously. Still with the ham?”. Love it!!

So next week, we don’t have a new episode – it’s a re-airing of the season premiere, so if you missed it, set your dvr. We’ll be back to new eps the week after, and we must discuss. Those of you who don’t want to know anything about upcoming eps, skip to the next paragraph. Don’t worry – I’m not discussing major spoilers; just things from the pretty spectacular promo that aired after last week’s episode, which shows scenes from the next two eps, entitled “The Curious Case of Dean Winchester” and “Changing Channels”. If you’ve seen this promo (embedded below), you know that “Changing Channels” involves the boys being trapped in various television shows, including a sitcom, a Japanese game show, a Grey’s Anatomy-style soap, and a CSI-ish show. And wow, does Jared Padalecki do a great David Caruso!! That scene alone has me dying to watch this ep – can’t believe it’s three weeks away. Before that, we get Dean as senior citizen in a Benjamin Buttons-type situation. I’m really excited for this one too, because I saw Hal Ozsan in the promo, who I miss so much – remember him as Todd in Dawson’s Creek??

So, how did you guys feel about last night’s episode? Did you love Jesse as much as I did? How do you think he’s going to fit into the big picture? And was the whoopee cushion scene the funniest thing ever or what? Post your comments, thoughts, theories, etc below and please feel free to address last week’s ep too. As promised, the spoiler-ish CW promo for the next two eps is below – check it out if you haven’t seen it yet!