"Okay, Weirdy McWeirdson."

[llywela]

Recap for 3.02 The Kids Are Alright was shockingly quick compared to the last one! Also rather shorter - about 21 pages as opposed to 32 for The Magnificent Seven. It's a much more straightforward episode, which means less waffling from me. But much more artable, or maybe that's just me.

Have decided that when Glossy Blonde is finally named on-screen, I will really miss calling her Glossy Blonde! It suits her. *G*


To read the recap, click the link:
"Don't you get it, Sam? It's all about you."

Screencaps come courtesy of Screencap Paradise and oxoniensis. My gratitude to the providers of screencaps is immense, as my computer hates capping avi files. I have to say, though, that I'm already looking forward to making DVD caps next year, all clear and crisp and without that annoying network logo!

Comments

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

Dean would have been a much better father to her son than the no-hoper who clearly hasn't stuck around since consenting to the blood test.

Why, yes. Yes, he would.

I'm not fond of the future-fic genre but I have to say that Daddy!Dean is for the win.

One thing I'm curious about, and you mentioned it in your earlier squee-post about the ep, and that's the contrast between wee!Dean in Something Wicked and Mini!Dean, and the implication that "the attitude came later." I'm not so sure about that. I think the attitude was definitely there - in how he interacted with wee!Sammy, even in his "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it before" assurances to John. It may have been subdued in the episode, because he was, at that moment, being thrust into a position of responsibility, and I think it *certainly* went into a bit of a repression for a while after the Shtriga incident, in the face of John's disappointment. But the kid who would sneak out against orders to play video games, and the anger with which he dumped out those Spaghetti-O's, to me, is indicative of his own Tween-aged 'tude.

As for his interest in girls, we have no idea how early that developed. But disturbingly, kids seem to be getting interested in "adult" things at an earlier and earlier age. This return to maturity is on an upswing, and while it's probably more like how it was before we developed the concept of an "adolescence," that's also completely immaterial to SPN, and thus a discussion for another time.

I do agree that Ben's resemblance is laid on WAY thick, and completely for the humour of it, but let's face it. Would Dean have picked up on any less anvil-sized hints? And you're so, so right that the remnants of doubt niggle at him throughout the episode and colour his every interaction with Ben.

This whole episode is just so made of yay.

Interestingly, I showed the ep to a friend last night who hadn't seen it, and who has been keeping herself spoiler-free, so she doesn't even know that Katie Cassidy is a regular. (On the plus side, she steered completely free of all the love-interest wank.) At any rate, my point was, she HATED Glossy Hair Chick. She didn't like her in 3x01, and in this arc, before the reveal, she said, "Okay, I don't like her AT ALL. I hope she dies quickly."

After the reveal, she said, "I hate that. It's such a cop out. It's been done!"

I couldn't even *explain* to her the relief everyone seems to be feeling that it's this and not the other.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

One thing I'm curious about, and you mentioned it in your earlier squee-post about the ep, and that's the contrast between wee!Dean in Something Wicked and Mini!Dean, and the implication that "the attitude came later." I'm not so sure about that. I think the attitude was definitely there - in how he interacted with wee!Sammy, even in his "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it before" assurances to John. It may have been subdued in the episode, because he was, at that moment, being thrust into a position of responsibility, and I think it *certainly* went into a bit of a repression for a while after the Shtriga incident, in the face of John's disappointment. But the kid who would sneak out against orders to play video games, and the anger with which he dumped out those Spaghetti-O's, to me, is indicative of his own Tween-aged 'tude.
Yeah, there were hints of attitude there, but subdued, like you say, nothing like the over-the-topness with Ben, although I think that was mostly to do with the anvilicious hammering home of the Mini!Dean point, tbh. Ben has a level of carefree about him that would have been unthinkable for Dean as a child, and that was definitely there in Something Wicked, which is the real parallel. Of course, we haven't really seen enough of Mini!Dean to be able to judge fully.

Kids are definitely being sexualised much earlier these days - I work with junior school age kids on a regular basis, and they do talk a lot about 'boyfriends' and 'girlfriends', but not in the way that Ben did. That was definitely over-done in the interests of promoting him as a Mini!Dean.

I couldn't even *explain* to her the relief everyone seems to be feeling that it's this and not the other.
LOL I like Glossy Blonde so much better knowing that she's a demon - I hate so much that she's been hyped up as a hunter, as if they *wanted* everyone to hate her! She makes so much more sense as a demon, and I think I'm going to really enjoy her storyline now. I'm looking forward to seeing the impact her manipulations have on Sam.

Anvilicious! is totally a word.

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

I love verbing! It weirds language.

Yeah, exactly. ficwriter1966 sagely points out that they only have 39 minutes to tell a story. Anything less than anvilicious hammering would not penetrate Dean's willfully thick thicky McThickyson skull.

I can completely see a Dean who realises early that he's a cute kid and works it for all it's worth. He and Sam were both highly precocious in their own ways, and in Dean's case the impact he has on women - probably mothers and female teachers at first, but eventually "chicks" - is probably a revelation to him, and an advantage he would not scruple to press.

But in terms of being a little horndog at 8? Yeah, a bit early for Dean.

Re: Anvilicious! is totally a word.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

I can completely see a Dean who realises early that he's a cute kid and works it for all it's worth. He and Sam were both highly precocious in their own ways, and in Dean's case the impact he has on women - probably mothers and female teachers at first, but eventually "chicks" - is probably a revelation to him, and an advantage he would not scruple to press.

Oh, totally. It's just that...*tries to assemble reluctant thoughts*...Adult Dean's character traits tend to be very exaggerated. It's part of his defence mechanism, whether he's aware of that or not. And I don't see that developing until much later - the child Dean we see in Something Wicked has the seeds of it, yes, but none of the exaggeration. His life isn't easy, but it hasn't worn him down to the extent that he's having to build those emotional walls yet.

Young Ben has all the exaggerated traits of adult Dean. Which I think is what I was trying (badly) to say in the recap. He seems a lot closer to adult Dean than to child Dean - necessarily so, for the purposes of storytelling. But in the internal logic of the show, it means that he's reminding Dean of himself as he is now rather more so than himself as a child. I doubt Dean as a child had as much opportunity as Ben seems to have.

Of course, a lot of Ben's character exaggeration came because it was his birthday party and he was showing off...

Okay. I'm overthinking in circles now.

Re: Anvilicious! is totally a word.

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

Ah... yes, that is a slightly different point and one with which I completely agree. I think your earlier insight about Ben's relatively "easy" life is also a factor, here...he, in contrast to Dean, has never really had to *suppress* his natural exuberance. So we're seeing an unguarded sort of kid with a childish enthusiasm and no need to rein himself in. And yes, he's also on his "home turf" and it's his birthday.

I just spent a week-end with a young man who was just turning 9 (in fact Friday was his birthday). He was *very* outgoing and talkative, but nowhere near as self-contained as Ben at eight. What he did have was exuberance and enthusiasm in spades. Every emotion was fully felt and desperately expressed, including quite sudden hairpin turns from happy to tearful.

I take your point, though, about Dean developing his "persona" to a degree that's overly exaggerated and yes, that did come later. But I think it was well in place by the time he was in his teens. I think the idea is that in Ben, it comes from a different place to its origin in Dean. In Dean, it's the facade coloured by the underlying personality; in Ben, it's more the genuine personality covered by a facade of youthful over-the-topness.

Re: Anvilicious! is totally a word.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

'Exuberant' is the word I was looking for, thank you. There's something very exuberant about Ben, and adult Dean also tends to be very exuberant, whether genuine or feigned. But I don't see any of that exuberance in the child Dean in Something Wicked. He grumbles a bit to his dad, is grouchy and long-suffering with Sammy, sneaks out to play video games when he gets bored...but there's something very subdued about him through all of that. And it's just that although they clearly have likes and dislikes in common, in terms of attitude you just can't compare an only child who lives in a big house with a doting mother and has everything he could ever want, with a child who has witnessed his mother's murder, been uprooted from everything and everyone he ever knew, dragged around a succession of backwood cabins and cheap motels, and is regularly left alone for days at a time to care for a younger sibling. They come from completely different worlds.

And that's why it seems to be that Ben is more a carbon copy of adult Dean than reminiscent of Dean as a child.

...nice debate. :-) It'll bug me now until I end up editing some of these thoughts into the recap...

[littlepunkryo.livejournal.com]

YAY! *off to read*

[littlepunkryo.livejournal.com]

*is back now*

You know, they did push the mini-Dean a bit, but I honestly liked this ep a lot. And I think you're right, that this season is about Sam learning to stand on his own, whereas the first was about them becoming partners as well as brothers and the second was for Dean. I reading your thoughts, they make my brain work better.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

I have to write it all down in order to make any kind of sense of my own thoughts!

I'm so much more interested in Sam's story this season than I have been in the past. He's been frozen to the spot for so long, hiding behind Dean. It's good to see him trying to handle things on his own, even if it does seem inevitable that all the secrets will only head to bad things down the track.

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

Heh, excellent review as usual!

I love the parallel you brought in, with Dean loosing John in S2 and coming into his own and now in S3 Sam needing to loose his mentor Dean, to grow up. I didn't think about that parallel that much yet, it's a good thought though (I see fanart coming on LOL), even though I am struggling emotionally with it. So, in S4 we should see them as full equals :D

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

See, it's something that's occurred to me over and over, ever since I read those interviews with Kripke where he talked about having to remove the mentor. It worked for Sam only to a certain extent, and you really do have to take Dean away for him to truly stand on his own two feet. So it's interesting to see if that theme will continue to be explored this season, or if it's just me reading too much into the first two eps!

[siluria]

I'm still trying to decide what I thought about the ep, and hoping my 'here we go again' thought at the end of the ep with Sam and (to coin a phrase) Glossy Blonde is not a foretelling of doom and disappointment for this season. I have to be honest and admit I didn't see the whole demon thing coming though, clearly it pays to not think about things too much.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

My immediate impression, watching, was that I really enjoyed it. Of course, it probably helped that while recapping the last ep I'd come to the conclusion that Glossy Blonde could very well be a demon/agent of the YED of some kind, based on her attitude and interest in Sam. So from the moment she appeared in the diner with him, I was bouncing up and down getting excited about my theory, and then when the reveal happened I almost fell off my chair in delight. LOL - I don't often see things like that coming! So the fact that the episode made me feel really clever does help with the enjoyment factor. I think I'd still like it a lot, though. It's a pretty straightforward episode, but has plenty to recommend it. There's the funny, the cute, the poignant, the intriguing...

[siluria]

I was enjoying it, despite my complete aversion to kids, I thought little!Dean-like child was a good actor and the parallels were quite funny; I laughed despite that part of me cringing at the cheese-factor. The thought of a baby Dean running around and being the echo of his dad is a lovely thought that I hadn't really considered. I'm just a bit apprehensive about where they're going this season...

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

Oh, but the cheese-factor was nowhere near as high as it could have been.

I refuse to worry about the future. That's been my philosophy for a long time. I just enjoy the ride wherever it takes me. And so far (although, yeah, very early days yet) I'm finding a lot about season three to intrigue me. They are setting up so much potential goodness for later in the year. All we can do is hope it plays as well as it could/should.