Review for 4x03 'In The Beginning'

[galathea]

Sorry this review comes so late, but my sister stayed with me over the last few days, so I couldn’t follow my urges to just sit down for a couple of hours to write down my thoughts about the episode and had to sneak in time here and there over the weekend to formulate short paragraphs. I hope it's still coherent nonetheless. ;)

Anyway, wow, the show ups its ante considerably this season! In The Beginning draws the mytharc together in a fashion that leaves me stunned and breathless. Jeremy Carver wrote an excellent script and once again proved to be the most valuable addition to the writer’s staff in a very long while. S4 so far just defines new standards for this show and even this far into the story, Supernatural still manages to surprise me! My show just rocks! ♥



First off, I was wary when I read about the episode, not because of the content itself, but because I knew that Sam would have next to no part in this episode and I usually dislike it if the boys are separated or if one of them is sidelined. This is especially true for Sam, since I feel that Sam’s side of the story has been neglected for quite a while now and we don’t get the kind of insight the character deserves. After watching In The Beginning though, I think that not only the plot development was worth Sam’s absence, in the end the whole episode turned out to be about Sam after all and all my objections were blown away by the way this episode managed to tie up loose ends and reflect back on all the seasons that came before.

S4 so far focuses on the mytharc and the Winchesters and I like that. Not that I don’t enjoy a good case file, but since S3 had to cut all storylines apart from Dean’s deal, I am glad that they deliver the missing puzzle pieces so early in the new season instead of dragging it out. The gravity of the events Sam and Dean went through and the new mythology developments easily justify a deviation from their usual episode pattern of one mytharc episode followed by 4-5 standalones. I love how much direction, energy and mystery the new season displays so far and I hope that they can maintain that. Kripke stated that S3 was a transitional season and he admitted that the writing lacked a bit of focus. This year though they seem to be back to their top form; I haven’t been this excited about a season in a while. ♥

Dean: "Oh, I care, I care a lot, but these are my parents. I’m not gonna let them die again. I can’t. Not if I can stop it!"

Dean’s reunion with his parents and grandparents was an absolute joy to watch. I loved the little moments in his encounter with John: For example, just last episode Dean mentioned they should visit the Star Trek experience and here we learn that it was John who was the Star Trek fan, showing another interest that Dean shared with his father. The scene where Dean convinced John to buy the Impala instead of the van Mary wanted was a wonderful touch as well. Dean’s wonderment at experiencing his father as the naïve civilian, the sweet kid next door with no other ambitions than to build a family and a home of his own, was amusing and sad at the same time. To see John so innocent here, makes his later development into the revenge driven, withdrawn and mistrusting drill sergeant all the more tragic. Especially since meeting the Campbells just again drove the point home that it is possible for hunters to have a steady home base as a family, with all the domestic and social benefits and still pursue a hunting career.

As so often it is Dean’s interaction with Mary though, that touched me the most. His heartbroken expression when Mary confesses that she wants out of the life as a hunter, that she hates the thought of her children being raised like herself and Dean’s desperate attempt to warn his mother about the fateful night that will change all of their lives, were heart-wrenching. Jensen again knocked these emotional scenes out of the park. ♥ To see Mary make a demonic deal for his father’s life, just like he did for his brother, must have hit Dean hard. He knows first hand how grief and desperation can drive a person to make a rash decision like that and still, I wonder if witnessing his mother’s deal affected Dean’s opinion of her. I guess only time will tell.

Dean’s conversation with Castiel in the car was a beautiful reversal of his one-sided conversation with (dead) John in What Is and What Should Never Be. Back then Dean chose to give up personal happiness and the safety of his family for the greater good, but since then he lost everything he had left, his brother, his life, his soul, and he is done sacrificing his family for the well-being of others. We know he does care deeply about the people he saved, but here he seemingly has the opportunity to change the course of the lives of the people he cares about the most and he seizes it. This decision is especially interesting as it comes just after Dean was faced with the more negative consequences of his life as a hunter last episode and I wouldn’t be surprised if his feelings of guilt towards the people he couldn’t save played at least a small role in his decision making here.

Mary: "I wanna get out. This job, this life, I hate it. I want a family. I want to be safe. You know the worst thing I can think of, the very worst thing? Is for my children to be raised into this, like I was."

I have to admit that I didn’t see it coming at all that Mary was a hunter, raised in a family of hunters. That's an utterly brilliant plot twist. ♥ I adore how Mary mirrored Sam completely in her wish to flee into normalcy for the illusion of safety. While Sam took refuge at Stanford and in his relationship with Jessica, Mary tried to escape into her marriage with John but in the end their unwillingness to face reality hurt the people around them. Mary refused to tell John the truth about herself, thus denying them the opportunity to be prepared when the YED came to collect his debt. Sam didn’t tell Jessica the truth about himself and ignored his nightmares, also wasting any opportunity to prevent what happened.

I also love that Sam’s question "You think Mom would have wanted that (life) for us?" to Dean in the Pilot turned out to be entirely accurate in its assessment. Mary’s abhorrence at the thought of her children being raised as hunters was heart-breaking in the light of the events of the first three seasons. It’s an immense tragedy that by making the deal for John’s life, she achieved the very thing she feared the most. She unknowingly sacrificed the future of her unborn child for her own happiness, thus starting the vicious circle of deals in her family and that’s an extremely fitting twist in the Winchester saga. Now her apology to Sam in Home makes perfect sense and I am incredibly pleased that the show managed to tie up this loose end so satisfyingly.

It has to be said though, that if Dean hadn’t mentioned Liddy Walsh to Samuel, Mary and her father would have never been at her house, trying to save her and the YED might have never noticed Mary and targeted her and her family. That by trying to save his family Dean inadvertently caused the very events that would lead to Mary’s deal is an utterly devastating thought though. Of course it’s entirely possible that the YED would have targeted Mary no matter if Dean interfered or not, as Castiel stated, all roads lead to the same destination, still if the time travel was a genuine event it is possible that sending back Dean in order to show him the truth may be the very thing that sealed the Winchester’s fate.

Dean: "So these deals you’re making, you don’t want those people’s souls?"
YED: "No, I just want their children. I’m here to choose the perfect parents, like your mommy. (…) So far she’s my favourite!"

The YED was back and once again I realised how much I miss him. His menacing presence, his sarcasm, the sadistic streak; he was the most memorable villain in the show and so far Lilith just pales in comparison. The YED’s unique persona obviously inspires the actors as well, since just like Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Fredric Lehne, Mitch Pileggi visibly stepped up his game when he impersonated the YED. His exchange with Dean was excellent, creepy and intense, very reminiscent of Devil’s Trap. I love how easily recognisable the YED is, no matter who plays him.

So far most of the new information about the YED’s plans ties in with the previous seasons. He makes deals with young people, tempting them into giving him permission to enter their houses, 10 years from the day the deal was made, in order to be able to exact his blood ritual on their infants. The fact that he needs to be invited into a house is interesting and explains why he interacted with his psychic kids in dreams rather than in person. Since we have seen possessed people enter houses without problems, it stands to reason that only in their pure form demons are denied that possibility, which would mean that the body the YED used in the Pilot or Salvation was indeed a materialization of the YED himself, rather than a possession. That would also explain why he simply dissolved when Sam shot at him in Salvation, while Dean was able to kill him when he possessed the janitor. It’s possible that they are only vulnerable to the Colt when trapped inside a person.

Another interesting fact was that the YED showed no fear or surprise about the obvious interference of angels with the timeline. I guess he either concluded from that, that his plans in the future were a success, bringing forth the heavenly armies as a result or he is indeed evenly matched to angels in power and doesn’t fear them out of arrogance. I wonder if the YED was already around 2000 years ago, when angels roamed the earth the last time. In any case his indifference towards the angelic assistance for Dean stood in stark contrast to the reactions of the standard demons we saw so far.

There are only two minor problems with the YED’s story I can make out so far. Firstly, the YED stated that he can't bring people back from the dead in In My Time Of Dying. That was directly contradicted here. Secondly, in Salvation it was implied that the YED was dormant between exacting the blood ritual and the time the psychic kids came of age, which is why John never picked up his trail before 2005. Now we learn that he was active after all, closing the deals for every new generation of psychic kids, so theoretically there should have been omens of his presence for example in 1996, when the YED made the deal with Rosie’s mother (and presumably others). If John checked on everyone who ever may have come in contact with the YED and even backtracked the signs to 1973, why didn’t he notice these signs for later years?

It would also be interesting to know when exactly John did all that research. Was that part of what he did while he was vanished and did he add those pages to his journal after he reunited with his sons? After all Sam and Dean had the journal with them and I would expect that they would have noticed that list if it had been in there. So, these details seem a bit shaky to me, but it’s nothing I can’t rationalise away by John’s penchant for keeping secrets or keeping his sons on a strict need to know basis.

Anyway, the new information opens up the question again as to what exactly the YED’s endgame was and if Lilith plans tie in with them at all. If the YED’s plans were the same as Lilith’s, wouldn’t the angels know about it? Why did all of Mary’s friends have to die in order to cover the YED’s plans? What kind of threat did they pose? There are still a lot of question marks but one thing is clear, the human general was a crucial element in the YED’s endgame and I am curious to see how Sam’s latest actions may or may not play into his plans.

Castiel: "Your brother is headed down a dangerous road, Dean. We’re not sure where it leads. So stop it, or we will!"

As already predicted after Lazarus Rising the sole purpose for Dean being returned from hell with angelic assistance lies in preventing Sam’s path towards perdition. That’s why it had to be Dean and nobody else, since he is the only person who has the power to reach his brother. I love how this plotline directs back to S2, pushing Dean’s mission to either save Sam or he might need to be killed to another level. Castiel threatening Sam's life in case Dean fails his mission firmly establishes him as a possible adversary and I really look forward to the potential battle over Sam's salvation between Dean and Castiel. I have to wonder though, that if destiny can’t be changed, why Castiel even offers Dean the possibility to save Sam from the path he has chosen at the moment? If all roads lead to the same destination it should make no difference if Dean interferes or not, Sam would end up wherever he is meant to be, no matter what Dean does.

So far the show has always made a point in emphasising that Sam and Dean’s choices control their fate, that their destiny is not written in stone. Castiel’s own words ”You have to stop it!”, which by the way were wonderfully ambiguous, since he didn’t mean the YED & the past, but Sam & the future, indicate that Dean does indeed have a chance to save his brother and that Sam does have a choice. So either Castiel’s statement about destiny was simply an attempt to reconcile Dean with his failure to save his parents or Castiel tries to manipulate Dean here. Of course it could be just an inconsistency but I reserve judgment on that for when we know more.

Castiel: "Time is fluid, Dean. It’s not easy, but we can bend it on occasion."

In the end a couple of words about the time travel issue. Time travel is always a little mind-bending and tends to either cause paradoxes or general confusion about the events of a timeline. As I see it, there are three possibilities how the time travel aspect of In The Beginning played out:

1. Time is unchangeable. Dean did indeed travel back in time but his presence has always been part of the timeline. That arises the question as to why Mary didn’t heed Dean’s warning or why the YED didn’t consider Dean a threat to his plans. I think these questions are easily answered within the characterisations of Mary and the YED: Since Mary desperately wished to leave the life of a hunter behind, she buried everything tied to her past and embraced 'normalcy' whole-heartedly. In the process Dean’s warning became a distant memory, something she more or less deliberately banned from her mind, not unlike how Sam ignored his death dreams about Jessica, so he could maintain his illusion of normal and safe. As for the YED, he has always been depicted as extremely arrogant, as someone who didn’t consider humans a threat, as his interaction with John or Jake clearly show. It’s totally in character for him to dismiss Dean’s threat as empty; in the end his arrogance was the downfall of the YED.



2. Time is changeable. The timeline we saw up to the point before Dean travels back in time was how the ‘original’ events played out and when Dean travelled back, his presence changed the timeline. While we are not privy to how exactly the events between 1973 and 2008 may have been altered, we can conclude from the fact that Dean returns to a (from his perspective) unchanged present, that his actions in the past had no substantial impact on the main events of his life up to this point. Details may have changed, but the end result stayed the same, as Castiel said, all roads lead to the same destination.



3. The third option would be that Dean did not really travel back in time, instead Castiel created an artificial replay of the events in the past in order to show Dean the truth. Either he created an alternative reality like the Trickster did for Sam in Mystery Spot or he showed him a high definition instant replay, like the YED did in All Hell Breaks Loose Pt1, only with the added possibility to interact or the events played out in Dean’s head, like the djinn induced fantasy in What Is and What Should Never Be. In either case, obviously his actions didn’t interfere with time at all in this instance.

So, however the show wants us to interpret the time travel aspect of the episode, I think it’s always within the limits of reason that the present remains unchanged for Dean.

What else was noteworthy?

(1) Dean’s habit of talking to himself when he is alone will never be not adorable and it’s even more endearing when he is talking to Sam in his absence. ♥ I just love that his need to share his experiences with Sam is so ingrained in him by now, that he just can’t help himself. Somehow this makes Dean’s trust that his brother is tearing everything apart in the future in order to get Dean back and Castiel’s reply that Sam isn’t looking for him even more heart-breaking.

(2) Talking of: Sam’s new habit to just sneak out on his brother and follow his own ambitions in secrecy terrifies me. Sam’s whole demeanour in the short scene in the beginning screamed determination and satisfaction about what he was about to do. It makes me wonder if he actually still wants to stay with his brother or if it is just a sense of duty or guilt that keeps him at Dean’s side at the moment. Although the last episode showed that he still feels the brotherly connection to Dean, his need for companionship with him might by-and-by be overpowered by his need to explore his powers. It wouldn't be the first time for Sam to leave his uncooperative brother behind until he got the answers he craves. Sam and Dean’s confrontation in the next episode will most certainly be explosive.

(3) I totally love that we revisited Daniel Elkins and the Colt. Another S1 reference that was logically incorporated in the plot. I really admire that Carver, who is relatively new on the writing staff, obviously did his homework!

(4) That Sam and Dean were named after Mary's dead parents was a lovely touch and Dean's 'you got to be kidding me' expression when he realised he was named after his grandmother was absolutely priceless. ♥

In conclusion: In The Beginning was probably the most important mytharc episode to date and a near flawless one at that. It completely infuses the earlier seasons with new layers of meaning and while I am sure that Kripke needed to rearrange plotlines and details in the overall story, I think it's stunning that the show managed to create this level of continuity and consistency from the Pilot on. I can’t wait for the next episode and see how it all plays out! ♥

* * *
Did you know? Jared had a couple of days off during the filming of the episode and took a short trip to Hawaii to relax. In order to tease Jensen with Jared's off-time from set, the crew was taping postcards from Hawaii on the front of the cameras while they were filming.

Comments

[galathea-snb.livejournal.com]

ROFL quick brother you have there! *g* Well, that Mary knew the YED is clear ever since the S2 finale, there could've been a gazillion of explanations though. My first thought back then was that Mary had been a psychic kid herself, one of her generation so to speak. It could also have been that the YED was breeding with human women and that Sam was a product of that. Funny enough, that she was a hunter never crossed my mind. LOL

(...) why would demons even care to hide inside human persons Well, they would be very limited in their possibility to move without a body to possess. We don't know how the materialized body of a demon works, maybe it's difficult for them to maintain that form and they can only hold it for a couple of minutes before they dissolve again. Also, the Colt was a myth for a long time, which only resurfaced 2006 and had limited amunition, hence the probability for a demon to be killed by the Colt was minimal and they don't actually have anything to fear within a human body. :) The Tammy demon in MM was even able to stop the bullet from within her human host. So, the threat of the Colt was practically negligible.

Plus, they often possess bodies that are useful to them, allowing them to gain access to certain people: like the YED possessing John to get to the boys and the Colt or the demons infiltrating the FBI (JIB) so they know when the Winchesters made the radar or Meg possessing Sam to get to Dean. Possessing people is a very useful means of infiltration. :)

Thank you! I am glad you enjoy my reviews. It's always nice to know that people read them. :)