galathea | Review for 2x07 'The Usual Suspects'

The Usual Suspects provided some much needed humour and light-heartedness after the heavy angst of the first few episodes of the season. The Winchester boys back in sync, some great guest stars and an interesting genre mix made this episode great fun to watch. *g*

First off, this week’s recap, with all their aliases being edited in a row, was hilarious and set up the tone for the episode quite nicely! I think Supernatural is the first show that ever managed to make me look forward to the recaps every week as part of the show itself, rather than an annoying repetition of scenes!

I think it’s really interesting to have The Usual Suspects directly after No Exit because it’s a direct comparison on how to handle a guest star on the show right and how to do it wrong. In last week’s episode Sam was practically non-existent onscreen, uninvolved in the storyline, the focus on Dean and Jo bonding & working together, giving the impression that Jo was featured at the expense of Sam. In The Usual Suspects on the other hand they kept the brother dynamics intact, while focussing on Sam and Detective Ballard. Though this was clearly a more Sam-centric episode, Dean was an important part of the storyline and although they weren’t even together for most of the episode, they were connected at all times. ♥

Sam: "I’m taking a road trip with my brother."
Ballard: "How’s that going for you?"
Sam: "Great. I mean, we saw the second largest ball of twine in the continental US. Awesome."

The opening sequence where Detective Diana Ballard interrogates Sam was interesting. I love how she assumes to know everything about Sam and Dean out of some few dates and 'facts' from Sam’s curriculum vitae and some criminal reports. An outsider’s perspective on the boys always creates a great contrast for the viewer, because we understand the characters so well and identify with them as the heroes of the story, that we sometimes forget how impossible it is to understand their actions without the proper context. It’s also great because over the course of the episode Ballard gets to adjust her view on the boys and makes a complete turn-around at the end.

Anyway, Sam’s short life résumé confirmed very well what we know about the past of the brothers, especially that John dragged his kids all over the country, never settling down anywhere. We also get confirmation here that John is still officially alive, obviously the real identity of Elroy McGillicuddy was never revealed to the authorities. That’s lovely continuity from In My Time of Dying. They also finally come back to Dean’s official demise in Skin. With his capture in this episode his 'dead' status was suspended, which will probably create even more trouble for the brothers down the road.

While it’s not an overly new concept to tell part of the story in flashbacks, they really pulled it off nicely with a twist, in creating the obvious discrepancies between visual and oral narrative here. A nice nod to the movie the episode title refers to, since it used the same form of narrative! Sam telling Diana an impromptu bogus story, while the viewer gets to see in flashbacks how the events actually unfolded was just hilarious. The flashbacks itself were blessed with an abundance of brotherly banter and teasing while Sam and Dean were working the case. I especially adored Dean’s barely contained over-eagerness when they interrogate the poor widow, with Sam alternating between concerned looks for Karen and scolding looks for his brother, as well as Dean’s display of boredom when Sam tries to crack the password of Giles’ office computer. Any residual tension between the brothers after John’s death is erased and they were visibly relaxed around each other. ♥

As a side-note: It has to be said though that it would be easy for Detective Ballard to check on Sam’s story and to find out that Anthony Giles and John Winchester never were together in the army or that Giles and his wife probably never were in Paris and hence reveal his story as a bunch of lies, which would really endanger their case even more. I guess though that Sam expected them to escape from their situation soon enough to worry about these details.

Ballard: "Sam’s story matches Dean’s to the last detail."
Sheridan: "Yeah, well, these guys are good. I give them that!"

Clearly my favourite part of this episode was how much back in sync Sam and Dean were, even though they were physically separated most of the time. The level of teamwork and brotherhood they displayed in this episode was fantastic: from pulling up the same stories for the cops, to using the same popculture references, to solving the anagram puzzle at the exact same time, knowing the other one is trying to work it out as well. Each of their actions goes hand in hand in solving the case, alhtough they are not even able to align them by conferring with each other: Sam backing up Dean against the murder charges, Dean finding out the real meaning of 'danashulps' and creating a diversion for his brother to escape, later on trusting Sam’s ability to save Diana’s life, without him being there to back him up. Fabulous!

I loved the introduction of codes between them; it makes a lot of sense in their line of work to have a set of rules, in case they are separated or unable to speak freely. I also adored how easily they fall into non verbal communication when they are reunited, avoiding to heat up an already dangerous situation. It was great to see how unconcerned both Sam and Dean were about the predicament they found themselves in, putting the case firmly before their own problems, feverishly trying to work out the details, while under arrest and restrained in movement.

All in all the Winchesters were in absolute best form in this episode and I loved it! ♥ The character development especially of Sam in the last season comes to full fruition here. They always worked well together, if not out of commitment from Sam’s side but out of sheer habit due to their upbringing, but the fact that they work together like a well oiled machine while being separated, emphasizes their teamwork, trust and knowledge of each other more than ever before. I don’t think we saw it to this extent in earlier episodes. The last couple of months together on the road clearly fine-tuned their interaction immensely.

Sam: "You can arrest me later, all right? After you live through this."

I loved to see Sam in charge of the case for a change, as Dean’s absence forces him to rely on his own resources; he’s just as much a capable hunter as his brother is. His dedication to the hunt, which initially resulted from his guilt over John’s death, seems to have settled in contentment over the last couple of weeks. When he talks to Diana, it’s the first time I can remember Sam referring to hunting as his job with a tone of pride, acknowledging that it is something he is good at. The last time he talked about it was with Kat in Asylum and he was rejecting it with passion back then. It will be interesting to see, if he will return to his dream of 'normal' at some point, but I thoroughly enjoy seeing him stepping up to the task at the moment.

Seeing Sam interact with Diana was very enjoyable. Once they settled into working together, Sam was very open and didn’t try to talk around the various weird supernatural aspects of their line of work, he even seemed to enjoy broadening Diana’s background. His calm and competent demeanour visibly inspires trust in her, despite the unsettling situation she finds herself in. By the way, I find it funny that it is Sam who instantly comes up with the idea of tracking Sheridan and Dean down by the lo-jack in the police car and not Diana. Boy knows his stuff, both the supernatural as well as the normal.

Dean: "My name is Dean Winchester. I'm an Aquarius. I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and frisky women."

Dean was also back to his old form, as snarky and smartass-y as ever. His complete disrespect where law enforcement is concerned is always great to watch. He visibly loves to get a rise out of Detective Sheridan, but keeps his cool at all times, seemingly unconcerned by Sheridan’s accusations and giving him no opening to nail him down. I also loved how he completely ignored the lawyer’s attempts to talk with him about his situation and instead managed to manipulate him into aiding him, by getting his note to Sam. By the way, I am pretty sure that this action was an infringement of his duties as a lawyer and I also doubt that it is a custom practice to assign one lawyer to represent two suspects in the same case. The show seems to take a lot of liberties with the legal procedures here.

Anyway, Dean’s 'fake' confession was fabulous! Not only did it create a diversion for Sam to escape but it also actually helped them along with the case, because by telling the truth instead of some fictional story, he inadvertently gave Diana just the right information to put 2 and 2 together after her encounter with the spirit. It’s very in character that Dean meets Diana with a blasé attitude and snarky responses when she approaches him after his confession, but then adjust his attitude to concerned and attentive as soon as he realises that she believes him and needs his help! He instantly cares about her safety and even trusts her enough to give up Sam’s location, which is no small risk at that moment, but saving people has always been one of Dean’s main motivations!

What else is squee-worthy?

The abundance of pop culture references in this episode was a pure delight: From The Rockford Files, to Matlock, The Great Escape, The Shining, The Exorcist, Casper, X-Files, you name it and you find it here! ♥

So far we have only encountered vengeful spirits in the show - with the exception of Mary in Home - so the death omen was a nice change, only looking for justice but not for revenge. I also liked how we were lead to believe that is was the spirit committing all the gruesome murders, only to find out that in the end it came down to a simple case of human greed and cruelty, which in a way made the goriness of the murders even more disturbing for me.

I really appreciated that for one episode they took a completely different approach here, basically taking another genre (cop and crime shows) and putting their supernatural twist on it. Though I did expect something more noir-ish from the episode, a bit more L.A. Confidential and a bit less The Big Easy, I think they really did a good job in bringing the different elements of cop-show and the mystery show together.

So all in all this was not an important episode, it didn’t develop the mytharc further, had no deep character development, not even a resolve for the legal problems that result from the Skin storyline, but that doesn’t make me love this episode any less. For me it falls into one line with Phantom Traveller and Hell House, episodes I have seen by far more often than other episodes, simply because they show the deep connection between the brothers and are light and humorous, which leaves me with fuzzy warm feelings. I don’t always need to dive deep into the mytharc or the drama; I can appreciate this kind of episodes a lot in between, but then I have always been a fan of good standalones. ♥

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Did you know? Dean’s last line 'I could really go for some pea soup' wasn’t actually in the script. It was added later by Jensen as a reference to the movie The Exorcist.