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galatheaPlucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie – man, that has to be one of the oddest Supernatural titles ever – by Daniel Loflin and Andrew Dabb is a light-hearted standalone episode that gives us Sam and Dean at their brotherly best. I mean, there is humorous banter and affectionate teasing and joint laughter; honestly, the Sam-and-Dean-ness of the episode is off the charts. So, what’s not to love? ♥ And since the season so far has been mainly angst-driven, a momentary breather from the doom and gloom is a welcomed diversion in my opinion, even if the change in tone and characterisation is a tad jarring. Overall, the episode may not be very deep and it may not add anything to the ongoing storylines, but it is an all-around feel-good viewing experience, and sometimes that is enough to make me happy.
Okay, let’s get one thing out of the way first: The lack of character continuity between Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie and The Slice Girls, as well as the sudden tonal changes, are somewhat irritating at first. Now, Sam is not quite as badly affected by the inconsistencies in the characterisation as Dean is. I mean, Sam’s mental health issues have been on the back burner for most of the season anyway, and given that Dean makes an active effort to comply with Sam's request to get his head back into the game, his more upbeat mood is actually understandable. Dean, however, basically makes a one-eighty. Last episode, Dean had been in an advanced stage of depression; he could barely bring himself to care about the hunt, leaving the brunt of the work to his brother, and he was in rather low spirits and emotionally withdrawn from Sam. At present though, Dean is almost back to his old self. His work ethics have visibly improved, he engages in good-natured banter with his brother, and he is positively gleeful whenever he finds an opportunity to tease Sam. He also does not drink a single drop of alcohol throughout the entire episode – although that decision is actually addressed in the text – and considering that he has been on a liquid diet for months now, it is quite surprising that he does not seem to suffer from any kind of withdrawal symptoms. And while we are talking about inconsistencies, the fact that the brothers switched their accommodations from abandoned, derelict houses back to motel rooms again is not expanded upon at all.
That all being said, I really love the episode, so I feel highly motivated to find a suitable explanation for the seemingly inconsistent characterisation, and I think we can rationalise it thus: In the past, the realisation that his self-destructive behaviour hurts Sam has often been the only thing that could bring Dean to actively break out of a despondent state of mind. For example, at the beginning of S2, when John’s death sent Dean into a violent tailspin, it was Sam’s confession that he is terrified of losing him (Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things) that finally got through to Dean. Similarly, when Dean’s recklessness at beginning of S3 spiralled out of control, it was Sam’s desperate plea for Dean to be his brother again (Fresh Blood) that motivated Dean to drop his 'I am not afraid of hell' pretence. Now, The Slice Girl also ended with Sam breaking down and openly expressing his fear that Dean gets himself killed, so I feel rather inclined to interpret Dean’s changed demeanour in Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie as a genuine attempt to get his head back in the game for Sam’s sake. He may not be able to maintain his upbeat mood indefinitely, but I think even a temporary respite from his misery can only be good for Dean. And I admit, I also rather like the thought that Sam’s simple emotional honesty gave Dean a reason to actually try and make an effort to get better, while Bobby, Frank and Eliot Ness’ well-meaning advices failed to get through to him.
Dean: "Wait, wait, wait. This isn’t about your clown thing, is it?"
Sam: "What? No!"
Dean: "Sammy?"
Sam: "No."
Dean: "What in the world did they do to you?"
When Sam’s fear of clowns was first introduced back in Everybody Loves A Clown, the origins of his phobia were sadly never really explained, so I am delighted to finally get some back story on the topic, even if it comes with a five year delay. Now, apparently Dean used to drop young Sammy at a Plucky Pennywhistle’s restaurant from time to time and abandoned his big brother responsibilities in favour of pursuing girls – so, basically, he just acted like any other hormonal teenager – but obviously that would hardly count as a traumatising experience in and of itself for Sam. However, it at least suggests that on one of those occasions something happened to Sam that induced his lifelong, deep-seated fear of clowns. Unfortunately, the episode gives us no specifics though. It is also somewhat tricky to discern Sam and Dean’s exact ages at the time. I mean, Plucky Pennywhistle’s seems like a place designed for very young children – I would say the main target group is probably three to six year olds – but the thought of a ten year old Dean dropping his six year old brother at a fast-food chain to go chasing after girls is rather disconcerting. And if we put Dean at the more appropriate age of fifteen or sixteen, Sam would certainly have been too old to stay at a Plucky Pennywhistle’s.
Now, allow me to go off on a little tangent here. We know that Sam was eight when Dean told him the truth about the things that go bump in the night, and we also know that Sam’s immediate reaction was fear for his own safety and that of his family. So I think it is not unreasonable to assume that in the weeks after Sam’s world turned topsy-turvy, he had a heightened awareness of the dangers that surrounded him, resulting in a rather vulnerable state of mind. I think Sam would have been more jumpy than usual for a while and probably more prone to perceiving mundane things as a potential threat as well. Consequentially, Dean leaving him alone at an unfamiliar public place like Plucky Pennywhistle’s would have amplified Sam’s anxiousness, and the repeated experience would have gradually cemented a general feeling of unease and discomfort in connection to the restaurant chain and its mascot, ultimately manifesting in an irrational fear of clowns in general. Okay, so maybe this is just my imagination running wild, but I rather prefer this theory to the idea that something truly sinister happened to young Sam just because Dean acted like a normal teenager every once in a while. In any case, this scenario would put Sam at approximately nine and Dean at thirteen, which is still a bit too young to go chasing after girls in my opinion, but I am just going to assume that Dean was an early bloomer.
I admit, when I first read that Sam would be forced to face his childhood fear of clowns, I had high hopes that the writers would make an effort to connect the storyline to Sam’s post-cage arc this season. So, I am a tad disappointed that that is not the case, and I think that the writers missed a great opportunity to expand on Sam’s mental status here. I mean, given Sam’s already fragile mental state, one would assume that being exposed to this kind of high level emotional stress would threaten his precarious grip on reality. Odds are that Lucifer used Sam’s clown phobia to torture him when he was in the cage, thus re-enforcing Sam’s childhood anxiety. Consequentially, being confronted with clowns would have even worse associations for Sam now than before his trip to the cage, and I wished the writers would have explored that narrative option. For example, when the clowns first show up to attack Sam, it would have been easy to convey that Sam initially assumes that they are yet another hallucination – just Lucifer messing with his head at the most inopportune time – and tries to use pain to make them disappear, only to fall apart when he realises that they are indeed real. It would have added some interesting layers to Sam’s struggle in the episode. However, I do love that, in order to hold his fear at bay and keep his wits about him, Sam desperately clings to Dean’s advice that if it bleeds, he can kill it. Effectively, he uses Dean’s words to anchor him, and that is a wonderful illustration of the fact that Dean is Sam’s stone number one. ♥
Dean: "Sam, I’m sorry for psychologically scarring you."
Sam: "Which time?"
It probably comes as no surprise that, even though the episode has many wonderful brotherly moments, the final moment between Sam and Dean is my favourite. Actually, it is one my favourite brotherly moments of the entire season so far. ♥ I can’t quite decide what I love more: The way Dean tries to hold back his amusement when he spots his brother, who is covered from head to toe in colourful glitter, until he simply cannot hold it in any longer and just bursts out laughing. Or the fond expression on Sam’s face as he watches Dean, clearly delighted to see his brother genuinely happy for a moment, even encouraging him to laugh some more, even if it is at his expense. This is the big brother Sam wanted so desperately back at the end of last week's episode - responsive, caring, full of life - so this moment of shared laughter is more than just a feel-good moment between brothers for Sam, it represents the hope that he might not lose Dean after all. Furthermore, I think these past couple of months Sam and Dean have forgotten what happiness feels like or that, after everything that happened, it is even still possible for them to be happy. Obviously that does not mean that the brothers’ grief or Dean’s depression or Sam’s mental issues are gone, but for this one moment they can just enjoy being alive and together. And the brothers’ gift exchange at the end is simply the icing on the cake. Sam and Dean don’t usually get each other gifts outside of holidays, so their mutual gesture suggests to me that they feel extraordinarily connected at the moment. I mean, given that Sam was busy 'intimidating' the employees and hence could not have witnessed that Dean tried to purchase the giant slinky earlier, he must have remembered how much his brother wanted one as a child – and just snagged one for him. ♥ And it is just like Dean to get Sam a clown doll; it's obnoxious and affectionate, all in one. In short, the perfect big brother gift. Above all I love that, no matter how much their relationship may have been affected by their personal problems these last couple of months, their brotherhood proves to be rock solid.
What else is noteworthy:
(1) I love the scenes where Dean (more or less inconspicuously) mixes with the kids at Plucky Pennywhistle’s, while Sam interrogates the restaurant’s employees. What stands out to me in these scenes is how perfectly they portray the fascinating dichotomies in Dean’s character. I mean, one the one hand, there is the scene where Dean talks to young Tyler, who is angry that his mother never makes time for him. So Dean draws on his own childhood experiences to get Tyler to understand his mother’s difficult situation better, and that is the Dean who grew up way too fast, who had been old beyond his years as a child and took on adult responsibilities without complaint in order to take some pressure off his father. On the other hand, there is the scene where Dean can barely contain his child-like excitement at the sight of a giant rainbow-coloured slinky, and that is the Dean who never grew up at all, who embodies the child that was left behind when he was forced into adulthood at age four. I just love that these very simple scenes basically give us Dean in a nutshell. ♥ And, by the way, that pizza Dean snagged from Tyler must have been truly awful, considering that he even liked the prison food in Folsom Prison Blues!
(2) I am always wary when I go into a humorous episode, knowing that Dabb & Loflin are responsible for the script, because in the past their efforts at comedy often veered into rather questionable territory in my opinion. Yellow Fever or I Believe The Children Are Our Future come to mind. This time around I have no complaints though. Obviously the episode has its usual share of sexual innuendo, but it is not overly crude, and Jensen and Jared’s delivery just makes it work for me. For example, Jared’s rather deadpan delivery of Sam’s 'so we got dick on Dick' line is just right, and Jensen’s facial expression when Dean ropes Sam into saying 'ballwasher' several times in a row is just priceless. The silliest moment of the episode is probably the shot of the unicorn shooting rainbows out of its rear, but since that is clearly a reference to Sam and Dean’s infamous conversation about unicorns in Houses Of The Holy, I find that I am rather amused by it. Also, Sam’s attempts at playing 'bad cop' in order to intimidate the witnesses and get the killer to reveal himself are just hilarious. It definitely gives the impression that he learned everything he knows about intimidation tactics from bad TV.
In conclusion: Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie – try to say that ten times fast – may be a typical filler episode, and it sure has its silly moments, but overall I enjoyed the episode way too much to be bothered by that. I mean, an episode that enables Sam and Dean to share a genuine and almost carefree laughter after a job well done, simply cannot be a failure in my book. ♥ However, I think there is no doubt that this was just the calm before the storm. We are now at the point in the season where the writers usually begin to slowly build the story-arc that will lead up to the finale and, as a rule, those arcs are dark and angst-ridden, so we should probably just enjoy this little breather for as long as we can.
* * *
Did you know? It took Jared almost a week to get all the glitter out of his hair! (StSPN New Jersey 2012)
Okay, let’s get one thing out of the way first: The lack of character continuity between Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie and The Slice Girls, as well as the sudden tonal changes, are somewhat irritating at first. Now, Sam is not quite as badly affected by the inconsistencies in the characterisation as Dean is. I mean, Sam’s mental health issues have been on the back burner for most of the season anyway, and given that Dean makes an active effort to comply with Sam's request to get his head back into the game, his more upbeat mood is actually understandable. Dean, however, basically makes a one-eighty. Last episode, Dean had been in an advanced stage of depression; he could barely bring himself to care about the hunt, leaving the brunt of the work to his brother, and he was in rather low spirits and emotionally withdrawn from Sam. At present though, Dean is almost back to his old self. His work ethics have visibly improved, he engages in good-natured banter with his brother, and he is positively gleeful whenever he finds an opportunity to tease Sam. He also does not drink a single drop of alcohol throughout the entire episode – although that decision is actually addressed in the text – and considering that he has been on a liquid diet for months now, it is quite surprising that he does not seem to suffer from any kind of withdrawal symptoms. And while we are talking about inconsistencies, the fact that the brothers switched their accommodations from abandoned, derelict houses back to motel rooms again is not expanded upon at all.
That all being said, I really love the episode, so I feel highly motivated to find a suitable explanation for the seemingly inconsistent characterisation, and I think we can rationalise it thus: In the past, the realisation that his self-destructive behaviour hurts Sam has often been the only thing that could bring Dean to actively break out of a despondent state of mind. For example, at the beginning of S2, when John’s death sent Dean into a violent tailspin, it was Sam’s confession that he is terrified of losing him (Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things) that finally got through to Dean. Similarly, when Dean’s recklessness at beginning of S3 spiralled out of control, it was Sam’s desperate plea for Dean to be his brother again (Fresh Blood) that motivated Dean to drop his 'I am not afraid of hell' pretence. Now, The Slice Girl also ended with Sam breaking down and openly expressing his fear that Dean gets himself killed, so I feel rather inclined to interpret Dean’s changed demeanour in Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie as a genuine attempt to get his head back in the game for Sam’s sake. He may not be able to maintain his upbeat mood indefinitely, but I think even a temporary respite from his misery can only be good for Dean. And I admit, I also rather like the thought that Sam’s simple emotional honesty gave Dean a reason to actually try and make an effort to get better, while Bobby, Frank and Eliot Ness’ well-meaning advices failed to get through to him.
Dean: "Wait, wait, wait. This isn’t about your clown thing, is it?"
Sam: "What? No!"
Dean: "Sammy?"
Sam: "No."
Dean: "What in the world did they do to you?"
When Sam’s fear of clowns was first introduced back in Everybody Loves A Clown, the origins of his phobia were sadly never really explained, so I am delighted to finally get some back story on the topic, even if it comes with a five year delay. Now, apparently Dean used to drop young Sammy at a Plucky Pennywhistle’s restaurant from time to time and abandoned his big brother responsibilities in favour of pursuing girls – so, basically, he just acted like any other hormonal teenager – but obviously that would hardly count as a traumatising experience in and of itself for Sam. However, it at least suggests that on one of those occasions something happened to Sam that induced his lifelong, deep-seated fear of clowns. Unfortunately, the episode gives us no specifics though. It is also somewhat tricky to discern Sam and Dean’s exact ages at the time. I mean, Plucky Pennywhistle’s seems like a place designed for very young children – I would say the main target group is probably three to six year olds – but the thought of a ten year old Dean dropping his six year old brother at a fast-food chain to go chasing after girls is rather disconcerting. And if we put Dean at the more appropriate age of fifteen or sixteen, Sam would certainly have been too old to stay at a Plucky Pennywhistle’s.
Now, allow me to go off on a little tangent here. We know that Sam was eight when Dean told him the truth about the things that go bump in the night, and we also know that Sam’s immediate reaction was fear for his own safety and that of his family. So I think it is not unreasonable to assume that in the weeks after Sam’s world turned topsy-turvy, he had a heightened awareness of the dangers that surrounded him, resulting in a rather vulnerable state of mind. I think Sam would have been more jumpy than usual for a while and probably more prone to perceiving mundane things as a potential threat as well. Consequentially, Dean leaving him alone at an unfamiliar public place like Plucky Pennywhistle’s would have amplified Sam’s anxiousness, and the repeated experience would have gradually cemented a general feeling of unease and discomfort in connection to the restaurant chain and its mascot, ultimately manifesting in an irrational fear of clowns in general. Okay, so maybe this is just my imagination running wild, but I rather prefer this theory to the idea that something truly sinister happened to young Sam just because Dean acted like a normal teenager every once in a while. In any case, this scenario would put Sam at approximately nine and Dean at thirteen, which is still a bit too young to go chasing after girls in my opinion, but I am just going to assume that Dean was an early bloomer.
I admit, when I first read that Sam would be forced to face his childhood fear of clowns, I had high hopes that the writers would make an effort to connect the storyline to Sam’s post-cage arc this season. So, I am a tad disappointed that that is not the case, and I think that the writers missed a great opportunity to expand on Sam’s mental status here. I mean, given Sam’s already fragile mental state, one would assume that being exposed to this kind of high level emotional stress would threaten his precarious grip on reality. Odds are that Lucifer used Sam’s clown phobia to torture him when he was in the cage, thus re-enforcing Sam’s childhood anxiety. Consequentially, being confronted with clowns would have even worse associations for Sam now than before his trip to the cage, and I wished the writers would have explored that narrative option. For example, when the clowns first show up to attack Sam, it would have been easy to convey that Sam initially assumes that they are yet another hallucination – just Lucifer messing with his head at the most inopportune time – and tries to use pain to make them disappear, only to fall apart when he realises that they are indeed real. It would have added some interesting layers to Sam’s struggle in the episode. However, I do love that, in order to hold his fear at bay and keep his wits about him, Sam desperately clings to Dean’s advice that if it bleeds, he can kill it. Effectively, he uses Dean’s words to anchor him, and that is a wonderful illustration of the fact that Dean is Sam’s stone number one. ♥
Dean: "Sam, I’m sorry for psychologically scarring you."
Sam: "Which time?"
It probably comes as no surprise that, even though the episode has many wonderful brotherly moments, the final moment between Sam and Dean is my favourite. Actually, it is one my favourite brotherly moments of the entire season so far. ♥ I can’t quite decide what I love more: The way Dean tries to hold back his amusement when he spots his brother, who is covered from head to toe in colourful glitter, until he simply cannot hold it in any longer and just bursts out laughing. Or the fond expression on Sam’s face as he watches Dean, clearly delighted to see his brother genuinely happy for a moment, even encouraging him to laugh some more, even if it is at his expense. This is the big brother Sam wanted so desperately back at the end of last week's episode - responsive, caring, full of life - so this moment of shared laughter is more than just a feel-good moment between brothers for Sam, it represents the hope that he might not lose Dean after all. Furthermore, I think these past couple of months Sam and Dean have forgotten what happiness feels like or that, after everything that happened, it is even still possible for them to be happy. Obviously that does not mean that the brothers’ grief or Dean’s depression or Sam’s mental issues are gone, but for this one moment they can just enjoy being alive and together. And the brothers’ gift exchange at the end is simply the icing on the cake. Sam and Dean don’t usually get each other gifts outside of holidays, so their mutual gesture suggests to me that they feel extraordinarily connected at the moment. I mean, given that Sam was busy 'intimidating' the employees and hence could not have witnessed that Dean tried to purchase the giant slinky earlier, he must have remembered how much his brother wanted one as a child – and just snagged one for him. ♥ And it is just like Dean to get Sam a clown doll; it's obnoxious and affectionate, all in one. In short, the perfect big brother gift. Above all I love that, no matter how much their relationship may have been affected by their personal problems these last couple of months, their brotherhood proves to be rock solid.
What else is noteworthy:
(1) I love the scenes where Dean (more or less inconspicuously) mixes with the kids at Plucky Pennywhistle’s, while Sam interrogates the restaurant’s employees. What stands out to me in these scenes is how perfectly they portray the fascinating dichotomies in Dean’s character. I mean, one the one hand, there is the scene where Dean talks to young Tyler, who is angry that his mother never makes time for him. So Dean draws on his own childhood experiences to get Tyler to understand his mother’s difficult situation better, and that is the Dean who grew up way too fast, who had been old beyond his years as a child and took on adult responsibilities without complaint in order to take some pressure off his father. On the other hand, there is the scene where Dean can barely contain his child-like excitement at the sight of a giant rainbow-coloured slinky, and that is the Dean who never grew up at all, who embodies the child that was left behind when he was forced into adulthood at age four. I just love that these very simple scenes basically give us Dean in a nutshell. ♥ And, by the way, that pizza Dean snagged from Tyler must have been truly awful, considering that he even liked the prison food in Folsom Prison Blues!
(2) I am always wary when I go into a humorous episode, knowing that Dabb & Loflin are responsible for the script, because in the past their efforts at comedy often veered into rather questionable territory in my opinion. Yellow Fever or I Believe The Children Are Our Future come to mind. This time around I have no complaints though. Obviously the episode has its usual share of sexual innuendo, but it is not overly crude, and Jensen and Jared’s delivery just makes it work for me. For example, Jared’s rather deadpan delivery of Sam’s 'so we got dick on Dick' line is just right, and Jensen’s facial expression when Dean ropes Sam into saying 'ballwasher' several times in a row is just priceless. The silliest moment of the episode is probably the shot of the unicorn shooting rainbows out of its rear, but since that is clearly a reference to Sam and Dean’s infamous conversation about unicorns in Houses Of The Holy, I find that I am rather amused by it. Also, Sam’s attempts at playing 'bad cop' in order to intimidate the witnesses and get the killer to reveal himself are just hilarious. It definitely gives the impression that he learned everything he knows about intimidation tactics from bad TV.
In conclusion: Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie – try to say that ten times fast – may be a typical filler episode, and it sure has its silly moments, but overall I enjoyed the episode way too much to be bothered by that. I mean, an episode that enables Sam and Dean to share a genuine and almost carefree laughter after a job well done, simply cannot be a failure in my book. ♥ However, I think there is no doubt that this was just the calm before the storm. We are now at the point in the season where the writers usually begin to slowly build the story-arc that will lead up to the finale and, as a rule, those arcs are dark and angst-ridden, so we should probably just enjoy this little breather for as long as we can.
Did you know? It took Jared almost a week to get all the glitter out of his hair! (StSPN New Jersey 2012)
