Review for 6x04 'Weekend At Bobby's'

[galathea]

I don’t think there has ever been an episode with less screen time for Sam and Dean than Weekend At Bobby’s, courtesy of Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin, and I think it is unfortunate that the episode aired right after The Third Man, leaving us with two episodes in a row that focus on secondary characters rather than developing the brothers’ story. However, I can’t even remember when I had this much fun while watching an episode of Supernatural. It is certainly one of the most amusing standalone episodes in a long time for me, so I feel pretty forgiving for the lack of Sam and Dean. Additionally, there are a lot of familiar faces in the episode that nicely add to the overall dynamic of the episode. Good times! ♥



There are several reasons why I enjoyed Weekend At Bobby’s more than The Third Man despite the fact that it has even less Sam and Dean time. First of all, the 'brother light' focus of the script is a result of external circumstances rather than an imbalance in writing. With Jensen moonlighting as the director of the episode, he simply needed to cut down his time as an actor, and putting the focus on someone other than the brothers was the obvious solution to that dilemma. Bobby has been a likely candidate, not only because he is a long-standing recurring character who has earned his right to be in the limelight for once, but also because it gave the writers the opportunity to elegantly wrap up the unresolved S5 storyline of Bobby’s deal with Crowley. That being said, however, I think that this would also have been the perfect occasion for a Sam centric episode, either allowing us deeper insight into Sam’s current state of mind or revealing at least some of his activities of the past year – maybe in form of a flashback episode – and as much as I love Bobby, I think that would have been the preferable storyline.

Anyway, another reason why I enjoyed Weekend At Bobby’s more than last week’s episode is the undeniable fact that I love Bobby way more than all of the angels taken together. Admittedly, I would watch the Bobby & Rufus show in a heartbeat – they are like the senior edition of Sam and Dean, a bickering odd couple – while the Castiel & Balthazar show just does nothing for me. I have always been more invested in the human characters of the show and I have always enjoyed the storylines about the hunters' community, so the central focus of the episode matched my preferences better. Not to mention that I prefer a character centric script over a plot driven script any day. Lastly, The Third Man started out as a story about Sam and Dean and then just shifted the focus to the angels in the middle of the episode. That’s like giving a child (me) their favourite toy (the brothers) and then take it away again. Weekend At Bobby’s, on the other hand, chooses one focus and sticks with it throughout the episode. It doesn’t even pretend to tell a story about Sam and Dean, instead it is a straightforward story about a day in the life of Bobby Singer. The result is a more cohesive feel of the episode.

I know that I sound like a broken record lately, but I am incredibly happy that, generally, the show has become genuinely funny again. The dialogue is witty and snarky and the comedy naturally derives from authentic character quirks or the plot. The balance between drama and humour is great, and there is an upbeat quality to the writing that gives the episodes a more light-hearted feel without compromising the drama of the ongoing storylines. I find that especially noteworthy, because that kind of balance is exactly where S5 failed so spectacularly. In their attempt to lighten the mood in the first half of S5 the writers resorted to off-the-wall premises, crude frat boy humour and absurd characterisation, and more often than not they completely missed their mark. That’s particularly true for the writing duo Dabb & Loflin, who really didn’t have the best hand for comedy in their past episodes. In fact, I always expect the worst from them in the humour department, so the well written banter and snark between Bobby and Rufus, as well as Bobby and Crowley in Weekend At Bobby’s has been a very pleasant surprise.

Dean: "It’s Sam, Bobby. He’s different. And I get it, you go through something like that and you change. But something’s not right to me."

While Sam and Dean’s story mostly takes place off-screen in this episode, there are still some moments that are worth mentioning, like the concerned and guilty looks that pass between them when they are listening to Bobby’s rant or Dean opening up to Bobby about his doubts and worries. I don’t think it’s necessary to know the particulars of what happened between the brothers while they were working on the Lamia case to understand why Dean feels the need to express his concerns about Sam to Bobby. The previous episodes provided enough insight into Sam’s 'wrongness' for us to connect the dots. In that context it’s especially telling that Dean questions if leaving Ben and Lisa has been the right decision after all. I think Dean genuinely wanted to return to the hunt for the sake of hunting, but to reunite with Sam has certainly been a main motivation in that decision, too. He grieved his brother for over a year, so it’s only natural that he was looking for a way to reconnect with him.

However, now that Sam doesn't appear to be Sam anymore, it almost seems pointless that he abandoned his new life to get back on the road. With a stranger at his side, hunting rapidly loses its appeal, especially given that he feels committed to Lisa and Ben as well. I don’t think though that Dean has already given up on Sam. The fact that he asks Bobby to tell him about the year Sam spent alone/with the Campbells shows that he is rather determined to get to the bottom of what is going on with Sam. And I think it’s especially heart-warming that despite his worry and despite his commitment to Lisa and Ben, Dean still can’t see how anything can be more important than Sam. ♥ No matter how much they have grown apart or how much they have matured over the years, I think there will always be a part of Dean that will put his brother first.

Bobby: "I’m selfish? Me? I do everything for you. Everything!"

I really loved Bobby’s angry outburst in which he accuses Sam and Dean of being selfish and complains about the fact that they take him for granted. Is Bobby’s rant fair? No. Is it surprising? Not at all. He is stressed out, overtired and desperate, and the tension that built over the past year simply needed to unload at some point. I think it’s a very real human reaction to his situation. Now, obviously Bobby is way off the mark with his accusation that Sam and Dean never give anything back. The brothers not only frequently expressed their gratitude and affection for Bobby, but also never hesitated to help Bobby when he was in need. In Dream A Little Dream Of Me they risked their lives to free Bobby from his dream prison, in The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester Dean sold fifty years of his own life to save Bobby from an imminent death and in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid they tried to protect him from his zombie wife. However, in all these cases Sam and Dean stumbled upon Bobby’s problem accidentally, he never turned to them for help. As Sam so rightly points out to him, in the end all he has to do is ask, and I think therein lies the real problem.

Bobby is an independent man who takes pride in being a pillar of the hunters' community and, if anything, Weekend At Bobby’s demonstrates how many hunters rely on Bobby. He is the one everybody turns to for help/information/cover stories, and he might complain about being taken for granted, but I think Bobby deliberately nurtures the image of being a self-reliant jack-of-all-trades by trying to keep up a strong and invincible appearance most of the time. That’s a double edged sword though, because it leaves him with no real confidante and I think over the years it has become increasingly difficult for Bobby to admit that he himself needs help as well from time to time. However, Bobby somewhat underestimates how much the people close to him appreciate him. In Time Is On My Side Bobby had been convinced that Rufus doesn’t really regard him as a friend – they hadn’t seen each other in 15 years – and still, Rufus comes through for him without regard to his own well-being, as soon as Bobby is in trouble. So does Sheriff Mills, and I am under the impression she acts because she genuinely likes Bobby rather than because she owes him. And if Dean flying to Europe doesn’t tell Bobby how much he loves him, nothing ever will.

Crowley: "This is ridiculous. The whole burning bones thing, it’s a myth."
Bobby: "I know an employee of yours, who’d disagree."

The first thing that comes to mind in regard to Bobby’s plan to force Crowley to release him from his contract is Sam and Dean’s futile attempt to break Dean’s contract in S3. Why didn’t Bobby mention the whole 'burn the demon’s bones' myth to Sam and Dean? I would postulate that even if Bobby had told the brothers about it, this particular solution would have been impossible to achieve for the brothers. Firstly, Sam and Dean simply didn’t know who held the contract for Dean’s soul until Bela told them in Time Is On My Side that it was Lilith. We know that Lilith was the very first demon, a human soul Lucifer himself twisted into a monster. So, I doubt that any demon could have provided Sam and Dean with her human name, and I am pretty sure that after thousands of years Lilith’s bones are nothing but dust. Furthermore, even if the brothers had found a different way to force Lilith into releasing Dean, the terms of Dean’s contract explicitly stipulated that Sam would die as a result, which is why the brothers had been looking for ways to kill her in the first place. Dean vehemently refused to take any chances with the additional clause in his contract throughout the year he had left. I doubt he would have changed his mind in the end.

Obviously Bobby isn’t hampered by similar considerations, and it’s clear that he spent most of the past year trying to find a way to outmanoeuvre Crowley. While it is understandable that Bobby takes any means necessary to save his soul, it’s really disconcerting to see the man who had nothing but compassion for Meg back in Devil’s Trap and even berated Dean for hitting her, ruthlessly torture a demon for information and then mercilessly kill it (and its innocent host). Especially since he could have simply exorcised her after he retrieved the information of Crowley’s human name. It seems that, just like Sam and Dean, Bobby has become increasingly less concerned with the collateral damage in their line of work. He has been in the business a lot longer than Sam and Dean, but I am under the impression that Bobby has probably seen less action than the brothers. Apart from the occasional hunt out in the field, Bobby’s main focus is to provide a point of intersection for the hunters' community. These last three years, however, Bobby had to face a lot of loss and huge personal sacrifices in a very short frame of time, and with fear and anger egging him on, I think the usually compassionate man just reached his limits.

By the way, I am not overly happy about the 'adjustments' in the demon mythology, even though it does make a certain kind of sense that demons are susceptible to the burning of their human remains as well. After all, both demons and spirits are disembodied souls. I think the main difference is simply that spirits can find peace and eventually move on, once their unfinished business is, well, finished, while demons are tortured souls that have permanently been twisted into something evil, and they are bound to hell until they are destroyed once and for all. So, the demon lore twist presented in Weekend At Bobby’s isn’t all that far off. I guess I am simply not fond of changes in the core mythology so late in the series, especially since demons played such a huge role in the show. I mean, if burning the bones of demons had been a possibility to get rid of them all along, Sam and Dean would have had ample opportunity to try and deal with Azazel, Ruby, Meg or Alistair in a similar manner. I did like though how the writers expanded on this season’s theme of monsters acting out of the ordinary/against their nature. Rufus and Bobby’s conversation about the topic has been a nice way to loosely connect the episode to the overarching seasonal storyline.

What else was noteworthy:

(1) Sam and Dean have now officially been in Europe, which delights me a lot, for obvious reasons. ♥ Although I find it highly unlikely that the brothers would be able to just get the necessary paper work that is required for an overseas flight done so quickly, especially considering that they are both officially dead, but I’ll just ignore that. I love that the writers remembered Dean’s fear of flying and the mental image of Dean puking his guts out on a nine hour flight, while Sam alternates between exasperation and worry over his brother is priceless and it really makes me sad that we didn’t get to see that. The actual visual of Sam and Dean crammed into a comparatively tiny car and Dean struggling with a right-hand drive makes up a little bit for that negligence though.

(2) I think part of what makes this episode so enjoyable is the row of excellent actors that act alongside Jim Beaver. Steven Williams as Rufus has great comedic chemistry with Jim and Mark Sheppard as Crowley already worked well with him last season. I was also very happy to see Kim Rhodes back as Sheriff Jodie Mills and even Jennifer Aspen as Bobby’s flirty neighbour Marcy was pitch perfect in her combination of eagerness and indignation. On the story level it also helps that we already have a history with most of these characters, so there isn’t a lot of exposition necessary, which allows for a fast pacing of the episode. There really isn’t a dull moment throughout it.

(3) I am not very knowledgeable where the technical side of directing is concerned, so I have no profound insight into Jensen’s work as a director here, but from what I can tell, he did a solid job with the episode. There have been some really nice camera angles and the overall atmosphere felt appropriately 'Supernatural' to me. Everyone involved in the episode had nothing but praise for Jensen’s skill behind the camera and Jim Beaver, Mark Sheppard and Jared all emphasised how much fun it was to work with him. ♥

In conclusion: Weekend At Bobby’s is a fun episode that gives Bobby some well deserved screen time and shows us some of the nicer sides of the hunters' community. Now I am ready though to see a substantial development for Sam and Dean’s storyline. They have been back on the road together for two episodes now, and I would really like to see how they adjust to each other again.