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llywelaWell, this was a change of pace. After the slapstick of Tall Tales and the high-octane thrill ride that was Born Under a Bad Sign, here we have an entirely self-contained, contemplative and mellow offering. Say what you like about this show, it is never afraid to try something different and explore diverse styles of storytelling.
First, a few of the really cute moments:
When Molly says she and her husband only fight when they are stuck in the car together, Sam laughs and says he knows how that goes. Dean promptly shoots him a little look that's almost offended at the notion that being stuck in the car with him for hours on end might not always be a pleasant experience.
Dean running the Impala right into the ghost on the highway, and the ghost totally discorporating into a cloud of black dust on impact. Awesome.
Seeing Dean pop the hidden compartment in the trunk and wedge it open with a shotgun, in classic season one fashion. We don't see that often enough these days.
Sam rendered completely speechless by Dean's no-holds-barred frankness, and stuttering adorably before re-finding his tongue.
Dean's one-handed blasting of the ghost with his shotgun. "Whoops." Fabulous. And the fact that when Sam comes rushing over to see what happens, when you first watch it seems like he's saying it to Molly, but on closer examination the question is clearly aimed at Dean, who is the only one of the two who might actually have been in any mortal danger from a close encounter with Farmer Greeley.
"Follow the creepy brick road."
and
"Just once, I'd like to round the corner and see a nice house."
Dean trying to kick the little door open with his back to it, and failing the first time.
Dean nonchalantly tossing his shotgun to Sam when he finds the hidden door in Greeley's bedroom, Sam catching it equally casually, and smoothly handing it back later. Fabulous for how underplayed those kinds of fluid little gestures are - it's gorgeous, really emphasising the feel of the brothers in this episode as a well-oiled team, completely and utterly in sync with one another, and at the top of their game.
Sam mentioning John.
DEAN: "Oh, baby, it's been a long night." Dean talking to the Impala will never not be cute.
MOLLY: "Oh, thank God."
DEAN: "Call me Dean."
And every moment of the brother banter, because it is great to see the brothers bantering so casually and naturally among themselves again.
And now a wee bit of thought about the episode content:
I swear, the first time I saw this, completely unspoiled, the moment Molly woke up alone in the car I suspected she was already dead and a ghost. Everything that happened afterward only served to reinforce that suspicion, so it was reassuring to have my theory confirmed at the end.
Dean's attitude toward Molly throughout is perhaps the biggest clue of all that she isn't what she seems to be. Whether she knows it or not, she's a spirit and part of the case they are working, end of story, as far as he's concerned. And when you take into account just how much Dean loathes unnatural dead things, he actually treats her extremely well – he just doesn't go out of his way to be overly concerned about her or her feelings because, well, she's already dead, even if she doesn't know it. There's not all that much saving to be done here, so for Dean this is all about the practicalities of the matter, and thus his focus remains on the task at hand.
I always like it when we meet the brothers mid-job – they already know what they are looking for and what is going on. But we aren't given any insight into their knowledge at that early stage because the entire episode comes to us from Molly's point of view, observing the brothers from the outside and not making a whole amount of sense of them. I really enjoy a strong outsider perspective, and this one is done well.
If the haunting only happens on one night a year…how long have they known about it, then? When was the pattern put together? Have the details of this case been sitting in John's journal for years, waiting for an opportunity to be in the right place on the right day to do something about it? It can't be that Sam has only just put the pattern together now because there would have been nothing in recent papers to set alarm bells ringing, if the haunting only happens for one day a year – the pattern must have been identified at the very least a year ago, and a note made to come check it out at the appropriate date the year following, circumstances permitting.
I really like that, all the way through, not once do the brothers make any promises to Molly about helping her search for her missing husband out here – whenever she talks about needing to find David, they always sidestep the issue and twist things around so that it sounds like they are helping her search, but in reality are continuing their own hunt for clues and for Greeley while persuading her to stick with them. It's pretty cleverly done.
Most of Molly’s interaction is with Sam – if there’s any splitting up to be done, she sticks with him. Caretaker/shepherd mode is usually more Dean's style, but here the ghost-sitting is totally Sam's job, and there's no doubting that both Dean and Molly are much happier with it that way, Dean because he doesn't like interacting with a ghost, and Molly because Sam’s kindness is far preferable to Dean’s brusqueness. Sam the ghost whisperer – Dean’s little digs about that are another clue as to Molly’s real identity.
SAM: "Spirits like Greeley are, uh…like wounded animals. Lost and in so much pain they lash out."
MOLLY: "Why? Why are they here?"
SAM: "Well, there's some part of them that's keeping them here. Like their remains, or, um, unfinished business – could be revenge. Could be love. Or hate. Whatever it is, they just hold on too tight. Can't let go. So they're trapped, caught in the same loops, replaying the same tragedies over and over."
MOLLY: "You sound almost sorry for them."
SAM: "Well, they weren't evil people. A lot of them were good, just…something happened to them. Something they couldn't control."
But poor Sam really has drawn the short straw with this assignment. He's better at dealing sympathetically with people than Dean, as a general rule, and as a result finds himself in this difficult situation of having to explain angry spirits to a confused spirit without letting on that she's a spirit in case that pushes her over the edge. Spirits are unpredictable, and Molly only really differs from the norm inasmuch as she doesn't know what she is – mid-job, caution really is necessary, just in case. Not to mention the fact that they need to keep her where they can see her in order to deal with her later. And he really does feel for her, and although Molly believes that he's talking so sympathetically about Greeley with that little speech about how good people can become spirits, it is clear that he's mostly thinking about her with these words.
It is also pretty clear that, over and above any empathy he'd have felt for Molly's situation anyway, something external happening to turn good people bad against their will or control is something Sam feels strongly about for his own personal reasons, and this gentle speech is in many ways a thinly disguised commentary on his own situation.
So, Sam really connects with Molly throughout, empathising with her as a scared victim and viewing her as a person, able to imagine himself in similar circumstances. Dean, on the other hand, most of thte way through can't – or is unwilling to – move past the fact that she's a spirit, something dead and unnatural.
DEAN: "Sammy's always getting a little J. Love Hewitt when it comes to things like this. Me, I don't like 'em. And I sure as hell ain't making apologies for 'em."
It isn't as straightforward as simply saying that Dean views everything in black and white, as opposed to Sam's shades of grey. It's just as much about being the man in command of the operation, needing to retain full focus on the task at hand, while Sam, lacking the extra responsibility of being in charge, has the luxury of being able to get emotionally involved. Dean doesn't want to start seeing Molly as a person; that would be counter-productive in terms of getting the job done. It's not as if they can save her, other than to help her move on. But there's also no getting away from the fact that he just really, really doesn't like ghosts, or anything supernatural, no matter how much he might be inclined to sympathise with Molly's predicament if he allows himself to think about it. Dean knows and fully understands everything Sam told Molly about spirits being good people who got trapped – he was a whisker away from that kind of unlife himself, even if he doesn't remember it – but overriding all that is his deep-seated mistrust of the supernaturally unnatural undead.
When they find the body of Mrs Greeley still hanging in that concealed little room where she hung herself fifteen years ago, all I can think is how awful it is nobody checked up on her after her husband’s death, that there was no one who cared enough to ever venture out to the property to see if anything had happened when she disappeared, that she could kill herself out of grief for her husband and her body never be found for all these years since? This episode is all about the human tragedy behind the ghost story – that’s the overriding message I take out of it.
Sam is completely caught up in the whole human tragedy aspect and asks Dean to give him a hand cutting the old lady down, rather than just leave her there like that, while Dean, it seems, would be quite prepared to leave her in the final resting place she chose for herself. But when considering how hard-hearted Dean comes across here, it's as well to remember that they are operating on a very tight timescale here – so what he’s mostly being is intensely practical. The haunting here only happens for one night a year, so stopping to dig and then refill a grave will eat up very valuable time that they might not necessarily be able to afford. They take the time to bury Mrs Greeley, though, because Sam wants to, and we've seen many times that Dean always find it hard to say no to Sam.
MOLLY: "You hunt these things but you don't know what happens to them?"
It's that question, alongside the human tragedy aspect, that's pretty much the point of this episode.
DEAN: "Well, they never come back. That's all that matters."
For Dean, that really is all that matters – preventing evil things from hurting anyone ever again. Not knowing what becomes of them afterward is entirely beside the point, and not something he's by nature especially inclined to think about, being unknowable as it is. It's already been well established that pragmatic Dean tends to believe in what he can see and disregard what he can't. And besides, from his point of view, what's the point of wasting breath trying to explain the unexplainable to a spirit anyway, especially when that spirit will itself have to be laid to rest as well. They can't risk spooking her.
But Molly doesn't seem satisfied with that answer, and Sam, noticing, tries to soften it for her. The more thoughtful Sam is far more inclined by nature to mull over these kinds of issues than his brother is.
SAM: "After they let go of whatever's keeping them here, they just go. I hope some place better, but we don't know. No one does."
The argument Sam and Dean have about whether or not to tell Molly the truth is so very in character for them both – and makes so much more sense when you watch a second time knowing the truth. Sam is feeling very uncomfortable with the whole situation, and quietly tells Dean that he thinks they should tell Molly about her husband. Dean promptly counters that they can't. Sam argues that it is cruel to let her pine for him like this, that he doesn't like keeping her in the dark, but Dean firmly insists that it's for her own good – the one emotionally involved with Molly as a person, the other retaining a stronger sense of the big picture. Sam empathises with Molly very much, her situation resonating with him strongly, but Dean is in full blown general mode, keeping himself detached in order to remain fully focused on getting the job resolved safely and successfully. He can't afford to get emotionally involved, even if his natural antipathy toward spirits didn't automatically prejudice him against it anyway.
Once Molly is snatched by Greeley, the different outlooks of the brothers regarding this case come into sharp relief.
"We've got to find Molly," says Sam, allowing emotion to cloud his judgement just a little.
"We've got to find Greeley's bones," Dean counters, and for anyone watching who hasn't figured out yet that Molly is a spirit herself, that sounds tremendously uncaring, since on the surface she seems like nothing more than an innocent victim now in terrible danger. But once you know the truth, this is simply Dean's pragmatism rising to the fore. It isn't as if they can save her life or anything. Of the two spirits, Greeley is the most dangerous; therefore eliminating him as a threat is the priority, and will also release Molly anyway.
DEAN: "And, uh, no pressure or anything but we've got less than two hours before sunrise."
See how taking an hour or so, or however long it took, to dig and refill a grave has lost them valuable time? If they didn't manage to resolve the case in the narrow timeframe open to them, what then? Would they just have to chalk it up to experience and make a note to return again next year, always supposing they were free to do so on the date in question? Presumably so.
DEAN: "You're like a walking encyclopaedia of weirdness."
SAM: "Yeah, I know." Hee.
When they find Molly being tortured by Greeley, Sam tells Dean to go get her while he starts digging for Greeley's bones beneath the tree, which means that Dean is heading into danger, as usual, while Sam has the safer task, as usual. But on this occasion it was Sam who suggested this particular division of labour, probably out of habit more than anything else, rather than Dean making the overt decision to put himself in harm's way rather than Sam. It also means that Sam is the one doing the salting and burning, for once, which rarely if ever happens.
So then Dean gets into trouble with the very mean spirit, who doesn’t even have to touch him to hurt him, and if Sam hadn't wanted him to go rescue the dead chick, he wouldn't be in such danger. They could have salted and burned Greeley's bones without the old man ever knowing what they were doing, his attention being focused on Molly. But, on the other hand, if Greeley 'killed' Molly, or she believed that he had because she thinks she's still alive and therefore able to die, her spirit might have vanished for another year, preventing the brothers from helping her to move on, so maybe she did need rescuing after all.
The events of this episode take place over just one night: February 22nd 2007– I love it when we are given a definite on-screen date for an episode!
DEAN: "You think she's really going to a better place?"
He's eyeing Sam closely as he asks that, and it kinda seems like he's mostly asking because he wants to know what Sam's thinking, especially after that devastating loss of faith Sam suffered in Houses of the Holy. But maybe Dean too would like to believe in a better place in the hereafter, whether he'd ever admit it or not.
SAM: "I hope so."
DEAN: "Well, I guess we'll never know. Not until we take the plunge ourselves, huh."
SAM: "It doesn't really matter, Dean. Hope's kinda the whole point."
And that kinda sounds like Sam is starting to recover a little of his lost faith, or is at least trying to, which is a positive sign, even if it does also seem like he's not finding it all that easy, with so much weighing on him.
What I really like about this episode is the sheer ordinariness of it. There's no mytharc complication or angst, nothing goes wrong – it's pretty much textbook stuff, and both brothers are shown to be pretty much on top of their game, working like a well-oiled team. The case is resolved totally satisfactorily and safely – apart from the requisite Dean-whumping, of course, but minor battery seems to fall under the heading of 'normal state of health' for Dean! It's just a bog-standard ghost story, plain and simple: identify the spirit, locate the remains, and salt 'n' burn. On the surface, at least. But beneath that this is a story about where those spirits came from, who those spirits came from, and about the fine line that can exist between good and evil. About how every bog-standard salt 'n' burn haunting has personal tragedy at its core. Scratch the surface of the ordinariness, and this is a fascinating little tale.
Full recap will be up one day in the week.
First, a few of the really cute moments:
When Molly says she and her husband only fight when they are stuck in the car together, Sam laughs and says he knows how that goes. Dean promptly shoots him a little look that's almost offended at the notion that being stuck in the car with him for hours on end might not always be a pleasant experience.
Dean running the Impala right into the ghost on the highway, and the ghost totally discorporating into a cloud of black dust on impact. Awesome.
Seeing Dean pop the hidden compartment in the trunk and wedge it open with a shotgun, in classic season one fashion. We don't see that often enough these days.
Sam rendered completely speechless by Dean's no-holds-barred frankness, and stuttering adorably before re-finding his tongue.
Dean's one-handed blasting of the ghost with his shotgun. "Whoops." Fabulous. And the fact that when Sam comes rushing over to see what happens, when you first watch it seems like he's saying it to Molly, but on closer examination the question is clearly aimed at Dean, who is the only one of the two who might actually have been in any mortal danger from a close encounter with Farmer Greeley.
"Follow the creepy brick road."
and
"Just once, I'd like to round the corner and see a nice house."
Dean trying to kick the little door open with his back to it, and failing the first time.
Dean nonchalantly tossing his shotgun to Sam when he finds the hidden door in Greeley's bedroom, Sam catching it equally casually, and smoothly handing it back later. Fabulous for how underplayed those kinds of fluid little gestures are - it's gorgeous, really emphasising the feel of the brothers in this episode as a well-oiled team, completely and utterly in sync with one another, and at the top of their game.
Sam mentioning John.
DEAN: "Oh, baby, it's been a long night." Dean talking to the Impala will never not be cute.
MOLLY: "Oh, thank God."
DEAN: "Call me Dean."
And every moment of the brother banter, because it is great to see the brothers bantering so casually and naturally among themselves again.
And now a wee bit of thought about the episode content:
I swear, the first time I saw this, completely unspoiled, the moment Molly woke up alone in the car I suspected she was already dead and a ghost. Everything that happened afterward only served to reinforce that suspicion, so it was reassuring to have my theory confirmed at the end.
Dean's attitude toward Molly throughout is perhaps the biggest clue of all that she isn't what she seems to be. Whether she knows it or not, she's a spirit and part of the case they are working, end of story, as far as he's concerned. And when you take into account just how much Dean loathes unnatural dead things, he actually treats her extremely well – he just doesn't go out of his way to be overly concerned about her or her feelings because, well, she's already dead, even if she doesn't know it. There's not all that much saving to be done here, so for Dean this is all about the practicalities of the matter, and thus his focus remains on the task at hand.
I always like it when we meet the brothers mid-job – they already know what they are looking for and what is going on. But we aren't given any insight into their knowledge at that early stage because the entire episode comes to us from Molly's point of view, observing the brothers from the outside and not making a whole amount of sense of them. I really enjoy a strong outsider perspective, and this one is done well.
If the haunting only happens on one night a year…how long have they known about it, then? When was the pattern put together? Have the details of this case been sitting in John's journal for years, waiting for an opportunity to be in the right place on the right day to do something about it? It can't be that Sam has only just put the pattern together now because there would have been nothing in recent papers to set alarm bells ringing, if the haunting only happens for one day a year – the pattern must have been identified at the very least a year ago, and a note made to come check it out at the appropriate date the year following, circumstances permitting.
I really like that, all the way through, not once do the brothers make any promises to Molly about helping her search for her missing husband out here – whenever she talks about needing to find David, they always sidestep the issue and twist things around so that it sounds like they are helping her search, but in reality are continuing their own hunt for clues and for Greeley while persuading her to stick with them. It's pretty cleverly done.
Most of Molly’s interaction is with Sam – if there’s any splitting up to be done, she sticks with him. Caretaker/shepherd mode is usually more Dean's style, but here the ghost-sitting is totally Sam's job, and there's no doubting that both Dean and Molly are much happier with it that way, Dean because he doesn't like interacting with a ghost, and Molly because Sam’s kindness is far preferable to Dean’s brusqueness. Sam the ghost whisperer – Dean’s little digs about that are another clue as to Molly’s real identity.
SAM: "Spirits like Greeley are, uh…like wounded animals. Lost and in so much pain they lash out."
MOLLY: "Why? Why are they here?"
SAM: "Well, there's some part of them that's keeping them here. Like their remains, or, um, unfinished business – could be revenge. Could be love. Or hate. Whatever it is, they just hold on too tight. Can't let go. So they're trapped, caught in the same loops, replaying the same tragedies over and over."
MOLLY: "You sound almost sorry for them."
SAM: "Well, they weren't evil people. A lot of them were good, just…something happened to them. Something they couldn't control."
But poor Sam really has drawn the short straw with this assignment. He's better at dealing sympathetically with people than Dean, as a general rule, and as a result finds himself in this difficult situation of having to explain angry spirits to a confused spirit without letting on that she's a spirit in case that pushes her over the edge. Spirits are unpredictable, and Molly only really differs from the norm inasmuch as she doesn't know what she is – mid-job, caution really is necessary, just in case. Not to mention the fact that they need to keep her where they can see her in order to deal with her later. And he really does feel for her, and although Molly believes that he's talking so sympathetically about Greeley with that little speech about how good people can become spirits, it is clear that he's mostly thinking about her with these words.
It is also pretty clear that, over and above any empathy he'd have felt for Molly's situation anyway, something external happening to turn good people bad against their will or control is something Sam feels strongly about for his own personal reasons, and this gentle speech is in many ways a thinly disguised commentary on his own situation.
So, Sam really connects with Molly throughout, empathising with her as a scared victim and viewing her as a person, able to imagine himself in similar circumstances. Dean, on the other hand, most of thte way through can't – or is unwilling to – move past the fact that she's a spirit, something dead and unnatural.
DEAN: "Sammy's always getting a little J. Love Hewitt when it comes to things like this. Me, I don't like 'em. And I sure as hell ain't making apologies for 'em."
It isn't as straightforward as simply saying that Dean views everything in black and white, as opposed to Sam's shades of grey. It's just as much about being the man in command of the operation, needing to retain full focus on the task at hand, while Sam, lacking the extra responsibility of being in charge, has the luxury of being able to get emotionally involved. Dean doesn't want to start seeing Molly as a person; that would be counter-productive in terms of getting the job done. It's not as if they can save her, other than to help her move on. But there's also no getting away from the fact that he just really, really doesn't like ghosts, or anything supernatural, no matter how much he might be inclined to sympathise with Molly's predicament if he allows himself to think about it. Dean knows and fully understands everything Sam told Molly about spirits being good people who got trapped – he was a whisker away from that kind of unlife himself, even if he doesn't remember it – but overriding all that is his deep-seated mistrust of the supernaturally unnatural undead.
When they find the body of Mrs Greeley still hanging in that concealed little room where she hung herself fifteen years ago, all I can think is how awful it is nobody checked up on her after her husband’s death, that there was no one who cared enough to ever venture out to the property to see if anything had happened when she disappeared, that she could kill herself out of grief for her husband and her body never be found for all these years since? This episode is all about the human tragedy behind the ghost story – that’s the overriding message I take out of it.
Sam is completely caught up in the whole human tragedy aspect and asks Dean to give him a hand cutting the old lady down, rather than just leave her there like that, while Dean, it seems, would be quite prepared to leave her in the final resting place she chose for herself. But when considering how hard-hearted Dean comes across here, it's as well to remember that they are operating on a very tight timescale here – so what he’s mostly being is intensely practical. The haunting here only happens for one night a year, so stopping to dig and then refill a grave will eat up very valuable time that they might not necessarily be able to afford. They take the time to bury Mrs Greeley, though, because Sam wants to, and we've seen many times that Dean always find it hard to say no to Sam.
MOLLY: "You hunt these things but you don't know what happens to them?"
It's that question, alongside the human tragedy aspect, that's pretty much the point of this episode.
DEAN: "Well, they never come back. That's all that matters."
For Dean, that really is all that matters – preventing evil things from hurting anyone ever again. Not knowing what becomes of them afterward is entirely beside the point, and not something he's by nature especially inclined to think about, being unknowable as it is. It's already been well established that pragmatic Dean tends to believe in what he can see and disregard what he can't. And besides, from his point of view, what's the point of wasting breath trying to explain the unexplainable to a spirit anyway, especially when that spirit will itself have to be laid to rest as well. They can't risk spooking her.
But Molly doesn't seem satisfied with that answer, and Sam, noticing, tries to soften it for her. The more thoughtful Sam is far more inclined by nature to mull over these kinds of issues than his brother is.
SAM: "After they let go of whatever's keeping them here, they just go. I hope some place better, but we don't know. No one does."
The argument Sam and Dean have about whether or not to tell Molly the truth is so very in character for them both – and makes so much more sense when you watch a second time knowing the truth. Sam is feeling very uncomfortable with the whole situation, and quietly tells Dean that he thinks they should tell Molly about her husband. Dean promptly counters that they can't. Sam argues that it is cruel to let her pine for him like this, that he doesn't like keeping her in the dark, but Dean firmly insists that it's for her own good – the one emotionally involved with Molly as a person, the other retaining a stronger sense of the big picture. Sam empathises with Molly very much, her situation resonating with him strongly, but Dean is in full blown general mode, keeping himself detached in order to remain fully focused on getting the job resolved safely and successfully. He can't afford to get emotionally involved, even if his natural antipathy toward spirits didn't automatically prejudice him against it anyway.
Once Molly is snatched by Greeley, the different outlooks of the brothers regarding this case come into sharp relief.
"We've got to find Molly," says Sam, allowing emotion to cloud his judgement just a little.
"We've got to find Greeley's bones," Dean counters, and for anyone watching who hasn't figured out yet that Molly is a spirit herself, that sounds tremendously uncaring, since on the surface she seems like nothing more than an innocent victim now in terrible danger. But once you know the truth, this is simply Dean's pragmatism rising to the fore. It isn't as if they can save her life or anything. Of the two spirits, Greeley is the most dangerous; therefore eliminating him as a threat is the priority, and will also release Molly anyway.
DEAN: "And, uh, no pressure or anything but we've got less than two hours before sunrise."
See how taking an hour or so, or however long it took, to dig and refill a grave has lost them valuable time? If they didn't manage to resolve the case in the narrow timeframe open to them, what then? Would they just have to chalk it up to experience and make a note to return again next year, always supposing they were free to do so on the date in question? Presumably so.
DEAN: "You're like a walking encyclopaedia of weirdness."
SAM: "Yeah, I know." Hee.
When they find Molly being tortured by Greeley, Sam tells Dean to go get her while he starts digging for Greeley's bones beneath the tree, which means that Dean is heading into danger, as usual, while Sam has the safer task, as usual. But on this occasion it was Sam who suggested this particular division of labour, probably out of habit more than anything else, rather than Dean making the overt decision to put himself in harm's way rather than Sam. It also means that Sam is the one doing the salting and burning, for once, which rarely if ever happens.
So then Dean gets into trouble with the very mean spirit, who doesn’t even have to touch him to hurt him, and if Sam hadn't wanted him to go rescue the dead chick, he wouldn't be in such danger. They could have salted and burned Greeley's bones without the old man ever knowing what they were doing, his attention being focused on Molly. But, on the other hand, if Greeley 'killed' Molly, or she believed that he had because she thinks she's still alive and therefore able to die, her spirit might have vanished for another year, preventing the brothers from helping her to move on, so maybe she did need rescuing after all.
The events of this episode take place over just one night: February 22nd 2007– I love it when we are given a definite on-screen date for an episode!
DEAN: "You think she's really going to a better place?"
He's eyeing Sam closely as he asks that, and it kinda seems like he's mostly asking because he wants to know what Sam's thinking, especially after that devastating loss of faith Sam suffered in Houses of the Holy. But maybe Dean too would like to believe in a better place in the hereafter, whether he'd ever admit it or not.
SAM: "I hope so."
DEAN: "Well, I guess we'll never know. Not until we take the plunge ourselves, huh."
SAM: "It doesn't really matter, Dean. Hope's kinda the whole point."
And that kinda sounds like Sam is starting to recover a little of his lost faith, or is at least trying to, which is a positive sign, even if it does also seem like he's not finding it all that easy, with so much weighing on him.
What I really like about this episode is the sheer ordinariness of it. There's no mytharc complication or angst, nothing goes wrong – it's pretty much textbook stuff, and both brothers are shown to be pretty much on top of their game, working like a well-oiled team. The case is resolved totally satisfactorily and safely – apart from the requisite Dean-whumping, of course, but minor battery seems to fall under the heading of 'normal state of health' for Dean! It's just a bog-standard ghost story, plain and simple: identify the spirit, locate the remains, and salt 'n' burn. On the surface, at least. But beneath that this is a story about where those spirits came from, who those spirits came from, and about the fine line that can exist between good and evil. About how every bog-standard salt 'n' burn haunting has personal tragedy at its core. Scratch the surface of the ordinariness, and this is a fascinating little tale.
Full recap will be up one day in the week.
