Well I admit I’m kind of a dummy when it comes to these things. It took me halfway through the episode to figure out what was going on. I should have more faith in the good people in charge of bringing Supernatural to us week after week than to think they would hit us with a useless dream sequence. Because initially, that’s exactly what I thought. Silly me.
Even though I was all kinds of disoriented, I was loving every second of what I saw. How much fun was it to see Sam and Dean living a normal life, working in the same building but not even knowing each other? Dean makes the perfect corporate asshole. And the master cleanse diet? Hilarious.
Poor Sam. First he goes undercover as a janitor and now he ends up listening to people bitch about their printer not working. Dean gets all the good jobs. Also, nice little joke thrown in by naming them Dean Smith and Sam Wesson.
Finally I remembered the title of the episode and got the play on It’s a Wonderful Life. I had a feeling angels were behind the craziness, but more along the lines of “In the Beginning” where Dean woke up and everything was back to normal. Then, for a split second at the end when Dean got his memory back, I was doubtful again, wondering if it was a demon. Probably because Kurt Fuller almost always plays the bad guy, or at least the asshole.
Now that Uriel is gone, I’m wondering if we’ll be seeing more of Zachariah in future episodes. Since most of what we saw was him masquerading as Dean’s boss, he’s somewhat of a mystery.
Any opportunity for insight as to what the angels have planned would be welcome to me, because up to this point, the way I feel about Castiel changes from one week to the next. Right now, I see him as someone who is truly trying to do the right thing, and also do right by Dean. A couple weeks ago, I thought he had it in for him.
Even if we don’t see any angels next week, I am completely stoked to watch. I’ve been waiting for “Jump the Shark” ever since I heard the premise, and I’m sure it won’t disappoint.
Clacked by Cate Cropp
on Mar 27, 2009 @ 13:00 EST5EDT
I thought this episode was brilliant for two reasons. One, it took all the anxiety that people are currently having over jobs and the economy and turned it into a mini horror movie. That has always been the high art of the horror genre, holding a funhouse mirror up to our deepest fears and anxieties.
Two, it proved that Dean’s whining this season, while somewhat clumsy at times, was a fully conscious choice by the writers. God forbid should a show actually let a character develop a flaw, you know, like a REAL person might, if they were in the same situation. I’d like to meet these people who seem to think that they could actually go to hell and back (and experience everything Dean went through down there) and then just stoically go on with their lives as if nothing happened. The fans who’ve abandoned ship because their hero didn’t live up to their two dimensional macho stereotypes, well, they’re the ones who’ll miss out I guess.
I also picked up on the Smith and Wesson joke, not to mention Dean’s “family”. His father Bob (Bobby?), mother Ellen, sister Jo. Oh and he went to Stanford (Sam’s Alma Mater). I wonder if those false memories were just planted by the angel or if they reflect subconscious wishes of Dean’s? Does he wish Bobby was his dad, or that he could’ve gone to an ivy league school like Sam? I also loved that we got to see the Ghostfacers, if only by video. I hope we get another episode with those guys before the show wraps up next season.
I forgot to add the main point to my comment. Kripke and co. obviously had a plan all along for Dean’s depression following his return from Hell. Zachariah perfectly gave Dean a little kick in the ass. But he also was encouraging him, which I thought was really wonderful and touching in a way. When he told Dean, “You’re good at this, you’ll be successful, you will stop it,” Zachariah was letting Dean know that the angels (the good ones at least) believe in him. They believe he has the skills and the strength to get the job done.
Kate, your comments are really on point and actually helped me to respect the writers a little more. Though, I’d never considered dropping the show because of weepy Dean I was really mourning the loss of badass Dean. You’re right, it is amazing that they took the time and sacrificed some of the coolness of the show in order to develop the character in a realistic way.
All that being said, I thought this was another strong-though not particularly remarkable-episode. Did we need a whole 53 minutes devoted to bizarro world Sam & Dean? Bonehead that I am, I missed the Bob, Ellen, Jo reference and no, I didn’t even pick up on Smith and Wesson (which is way cool, btw). I did catch the Madison reference and I liked that her phone number linked to an animal shelter (as she was a, er, wolf).
*POST AUTHOR*
Weirdy, I was thinking the same thing (kind of) in that, I kept expecting one of them, probably Dean, to shoot up in bed gasping a là Allison Dubois and then to get on with the story. But as I started to realize that it *was* the story, I liked it more. I thought it was a creative way to take the necessary step of restoring some (though not all) of Dean’s confidence. Although they did leave it open ended, I’m sure that was the end result, no?
Glad you found my comments useful. It wasn’t directed at any particular person, although I have actually seen comments from some “fans” on this blog and others, that they were going to stop watching the show because Dean just wasn’t manly or heroic enough for them anymore, lol. I just think maybe they are young or fortunate enough that they have never been through a truly traumatic experience or known someone who has. Believe me, if you’ve ever known someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you instantly recognize that Dean’s behavior since he got out of Hell is remarkably authentic, right down to the crying out of the blue.
Who is Madison?
@ xnifex:
In Season 2, episode 17, “Heart”, Sam and Dean met a young woman who was a werewolf. Sparks flew between her and Sam and they had sex. But Sam was forced to kill her at the end of the episode.
Cate, I definitely think it was the end result. This was like the “Dean, stop whining, you have work to do” episode.
One more thing, I got really excited when I saw AJ Buckley and Travis Wester’s names in the opening credits…the little clips were a nice shout out to the ‘Facers, but I would’ve liked to have seen more of them.
Also, I appreciate their efforts to bring the term “douche nozzle” into the mainstream vernacular.
Me too! I kind of thought that Maybe Sam and Dean were going to call them up and that would be how they found out that they were actually the Winchesters. I really hope we get another Ghostfacers episode. :-)
Me too, that would be totally wizard.
solid episode as always :)
I loved this episode. Corporate Dean was top drawer.