Supernatural Review: Dean’s Back!

Things are beginning to take shape and get interesting in season six of Supernatural. After feeling a little disappointed by last week’s premiere episode, it appears that the Winchesters are beginning to adjust to their new roles and circumstances.

Episode two starts with a young mother running from a killer inside her house with her baby in tow. She finally hides underneath a bed and I found myself concentrating more on the plastic baby stunt double in her arms. In any case, just when she thought she was safe, in classic horror movie style the killer pulls her legs and she is dragged from under the bed.

Sam is investigating the case with multiple murders in the area, all young couples with their babies missing. He calls Samuel to report in and they aren’t sure if it’s a monster doing it or just a regular crazy serial killer. In any case Samuel tells his grandson to keep at it.

Dean in the meantime is unpacking because he’s moved his family unit to a new undisclosed location. Young Ben is upset having been uprooted from his life, but Lisa appears to be taking it all in stride. After telling his brother in last week’s episode that he was out, the older Winchester continues to struggle with his decision. He’s worried that eventually something will get Lisa and Ben simply because he is in their lives. Though because of his worry he begins to act like his own father, putting Lisa and Ben essentially in lockdown. Dean even looses it when Ben finds his guns in the trunk of the Impala and asks to get taught the ways of the hunter.

Meanwhile Sam makes his way into the home of another couple that fits the profile of married couple with baby to find them already killed. He manages to scare the killer away after slicing his arm with a silver knife. Sam then faces something he’s never had to face before, a baby. Not knowing what to do, he calls his big brother up for help. It’s nice to know that Sam still looks to Dean first when he’s in a crisis situation.

Dean reluctantly leaves his nest to help Sam babysit and figure out what’s going on. The killer could be a number of monsters that reacts to silver – ghoul, shapeshifter, or something else. While grocery shopping for baby necessities, an elderly African American woman attacks them. The comedy we’ve grown to love is also back in full force such as the scene when the brothers are asked the name of the baby and Sam blurts out “John” while Dean says “Bobby,” the two father figures in their lives. The little tyke is thus christened, Bobby John!

The shapeshifter changes into a police officer and goes to the motel where Dean and Bobby John are hiding out. Bobby John has gone through his first shift and is now an African American, matching the picture of an African American baby on the diaper box. As Dean scuffles with the shapeshifter, it says that Bobby John belongs with his father and then at some point says “our father.” Sam arrives back in the nick of time and shoots the monster.

He was out interviewing the husband of one of the murdered women and finds out that they divorced because she had cheated on him. The man explains that there was no way the child was his because they hadn’t slept together in awhile even though his ex-wife claimed that they did. They figure out that the shapeshifter must have impregnated all those women by changing into their husbands and then nine months later comes back to take the babies.

After the motel attack Sam suggests that they go to Grandpa Campbell because he would know what to do. Dean still doesn’t trust the old man but doesn’t have a better idea. Back at Casa Campbell, Dean is as uncomfortable as ever with his cousins. He seems to be in a testosterone competition with Christian as they play who’s a better hunter. For the Campbell hunters to keep proclaiming that they are “family” with Dean, it sure doesn’t feel like it. They strike me as a group of cold, shady mercenaries with Grandpa as the shadiest of all.

He keeps trying to make a connection with Dean by telling him stories of their mom but Dean isn’t going to get hooked that easily. I wonder how Grandpa Campbell and the rest of them treat Sam because if they actually trusted him, what reason would they have not to trust his brother? Of course there must be something else going on that we’ll eventually find out.

Samuel decides that Bobby John stays with them with Christian as a new dad. They’ll raise him to be a hunter. Dean trips out because the baby’s not theirs, it’s a monster and yet they can’t kill it. But what’s the alternative? The shapeshifters are still looking for it and they can’t just leave it at an adoption agency because it will probably freak people out when it shifts into another color or sex. They don’t have time to debate it further though when they hear a noise from the outside; presumably another shapeshifter has found their hideout.

Sam, Dean, and Bobby John go downstairs to a chamber while the Campbell hunters battle the shapeshifter that looks like Samuel. Mark Campbell is killed and despite numerous tranquilizers, the shapeshifter overcomes the drugs and goes downstairs to take the baby.

After the fight, Dean finds out from his grandfather that they probably just met the alpha shapeshifter, meaning THE very first one who spawned the rest. Now why would this guy be making all these babies? Is he creating some kind of shapeshifter army? Does he plan on putting Bobby John and the rest of his new spawns as deductibles on his tax returns? Or maybe he’s just getting old and wanted to prove his virility? In any case Dean is mad that Samuel didn’t say something sooner and he wonders if his own brother is keeping things from him.  After they leave Grandpa Campbell is seen talking to some mysterious person about loosing the alpha shapeshifter, making us believe that he was trying to catch it. Matches up to last week’s djinn capture, maybe this person is collecting monsters?

Dean and Lisa have a very serious discussion when he gets back about what to do next. They both know that they can’t live in constant lockdown. Dean tells her that he’s struggling because he feels like he’s becoming his father and he swore never to be like that but he doesn’t know how else to protect them. Lisa says that he’s a hunter not a carpenter and asks why can’t he have both – monster slaying and the family. She says that he can go off and do his thing and they’ll be here waiting for him. Dean finally agrees and they decide to see if they can make it work.

The last scene is Dean taking off the Impala’s cover and giving a big ol’ smile.

This episode felt like a great improvement from the previous week because it feels like we’re getting more pieces of the puzzle. It was also great to see Sam and Dean’s continued flipped roles such as the motel scene where the older Winchester talks about their father and how he doesn’t want their childhood to be Ben’s. Sam responds by saying that Dean keeping them in lockdown is just like Papa Winchester. The comic relief was also back with the brothers’ trip to the supermarket and it was hilarious to see them so out of their element in taking care of a baby.

It’s great that Dean appears to be back in action, but I’m not sure if I buy Lisa patiently waiting for him. I guess it’s like any long distance relationship where you try to make it work and hope for the best. Only time will tell if things work out for the two of them or if Lisa and Ben become victims of some crazy supernatural creature like so many women in the Winchesters’ lives.

Seeing Dean’s struggle with his new life and the fear of loosing his brother into the potentially questionable ways of the Campbell family hunters is a great part of the new season. It feels like audiences are taking the journey with him to figure out what’s going on and how to live life under these new circumstances. Sam also appears to be much stronger, but a tad too trusting of his new “family.” Also it seems like Sam’s the only one going out and in the field researching cases.  Why didn’t he take one of his new cousins with him?

Still things are definitely picking up and my faith is renewed. Next episode we finally see Cas!

Season 6, Episode 2: Two and a Half Men (originally aired date October 1, 2010)

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Photograph courtesy of The CW and Jack Rowand.