Supernatural - Episode 6.04 - Weekend at Bobby's - Recap by Selina

I had been looking forward to this episode before I even knew it was airing: it is no secret that Bobby is my favourite character and aside from stressing the hell out about him dying whenever he's on screen, I always cherish the episodes that center around him. I'll try to stay as objective about this episode as I can, however, and give you a fair and balanced recap.

As Sarah pointed out in the comments, this was also Jensen Ackles' directing debut. It's always great to see actors take initiative with their shows in this way, it demonstrates a commitment and how serious they take the narrative, when they engage with it in this completely new way. Jensen did an amazing job, and through his directing showed a great understanding of Bobby's character. Great job Jensen!

I'd also like to apologise for this week's recap being delayed. I had a really good reason: I pretty much used up all of my self-allocated blogging time this week typing up reports of the author talk with Philip Pullman and the award ceremony with JK Rowling I attended within this last week - I know right?! If you are a fan of either of these authors or their works feel free to check out these reports at The Patchwork Blog!



Weekend at Bobby's - uh oh, who dies?

First up we are refreshed on the storyline from the previous season in which Bobby sells his soul to King-of-the-Crossroads Crowley... for some reason. Why did I forget that? Embarrassing. It's almost as bad as me mistaking sand for salt last week (or was it the other way around?). ;) I do remember Crowley's nice gesture of giving Bobby the use of his legs back, no extra charge. I like the idea of Crowley actually being a decent demon, it's time we had one who wasn't ultimately out to trick them for evilness... I think the only other not-all-evil demon we've seen was that random woman Dean was stuck in a basement with in (I believe) "Criss Angel is a Douche Bag".

We were also reintroduced to some characters from Bobby's past: hunter Rufus Turner and Sheriff Jodi Mills. You know, I'm not a fan of the previously ons on television, because while it's important to refresh the casual viewer's (backbone of the way overrated Nielsen system) memory and get us all in the right frame of mind to watch the episode, it totally ruins the surprise of who's coming back and what themes they'll be addressing. I suppose it wasn't totally awful this time around since a) they're minor characters and b) their returns aren't like, super surprising, but sometimes it's just unnecessary and it bugs me, like in the season premiere where the suspense about what monster it was was ruined by them refreshing us on shapeshifters.

But why am I talking about this? It's Bobby time!


One Year Ago...

When I saw that, I was so excited. Learning more about the mystery of Sam's return (which I'm expecting and hoping they'll do in bits, give us more and more clues about and sides of what happened without revealing it until the end, Lost-style) ranks high on my wishlist of SPN story elements this year.

With the TV as background noise (very Bobby, isn't it?), Bobby does himself some dark magikz, and conjures himself a Crowley. "That swan dive of Sam's was a thing of beauty." Cruel. He reminds Bobby to be proud that Sam saved the world, Bobby does a very good imitation of a British accent, and with some general bantering it is established that Bobby wants his soul back. Did anyone else think Bobby was trying to get Sam back? But no, Bobby wants his soul back (which is fair enough) but Crowley's tricked him. 10 years, standard demon contract deal - and hey guys, remember Bela? No one saved her out of hell. Sad pandas.

This scene played out like a game of Who's Bigger, with Crowley first having the upper hand, then Bobby with the demon trapping, then Crowley again with the hell hound (and we already know that's the bigger one)... but this ain't over till it's over!


Wow. Bobby's computer is ancient.

Next we head to Kenosha, Wisconsin, panning from a happy playground scene to a very dead, very eviscerated corpse in the bushes. Sam and Dean are investigating (let's cherish these scenes before more brother drama splits them up and makes them pout at each other again, shan't we?), and call Bobby! Must be Friday. :)

Bobby does some research, but finds he needs to go to the uni library. A pretty girl waves at him, ooh, he breaks in, falls down, his car won't start... "Balls!"

And I guess this is the first time we really realise how much trouble Bobby goes to to help Sam and Dean on their quests. I know that at least I see him very much like a Giles character, with an unlimited wealth of knowledge that will help solve any mystery, but even Giles needed the Scoobies to help him about once an episode for epic research sessions. Bobby's just got Bobby, a crappy computer, and... balls.

Let's also appreciate Bobby's ability to pull an all nighter. Man, I stopped being able to do that after my first year at university.


The dark side of the moon.

And now the plot of the episode is beginning to shape: what we're seeing now is the flip side of every episode so far, because instead of following the brother's investigation and cutting to scenes of Bobby on the phone telling them stuff, we are here seeing everything that happens in Bobby's life and the way in which the brothers affect it. I guess it would be a pretty boring show if it was usually like this, but isn't it amazing anyway that it's taken us six years to get to this point? And I gotta admit, as much as I love Bobby I never saw the story this way, I never really took my time to imagine this side of what was going on. I was too busy worrying about the boys' angst.

Dead hangs up as soon as he gets the information, and Bobby is left staring tiredly and dejectedly at the phone. Not even a thank you, after he went to all that trouble.

A voice calls out: "Hey! I'm still here!" Bobby goes down to the basement and opens a door to reveal: a demon tied to a chair! Huh. He's interrogating her - and at this point I know enough about accents that I caught the Canadian "abuut", go me! - because he wants Crowley's real name. I forget, is this the usual way to battle them or are we in some sort of Rumpelstiltskin situation? Which would be ironic considering how I think of Crowley every time I see that little bad guy in Shrek 4.

The demon makes a really lame attempt at hurting Bobby, but aha! Bobby's got a sack of... something... demony. He lights a flamethrower and takes it to her business (no, not that business), and she begins burning up from the inside. Ooh that's new... but god, enough with the double standards about possessions already! Remember in season 4 when Sam having to drink the possessed girl's blood was a massive omg-he's-evil game changer and Dean couldn't be more disappointed, well gee, how about putting down the demon-killing knife and stop slaughtering innocent people by the dozen! And here we've got it again, Bobby paying the poor woman trapped inside no heed in his quest to get what he wants. It's not so much that he does it because we know he can be awesomely bad-A when he wants to be, it's just that the moral ambiguity is always kind of glossed over and it annoys me.


I am Crowley, KINGGG OF HELLLLL MUAHAHA- what, too much?

Oh wow, forget what I said about Crowley not being all that evil. O.O King of Hell... that's a whole new level of nasty. He's not just some demon working his way up (down?) the power ladder, he's the actual fricking king of Hell?! So all the deals, all the torture and horrible things Dean suffered and was made to do to others, Crowley is pretty much directly responsible for that... that's pretty much unfathomable.

The doorbell interrupts Bobby's torture session, and it's the pretty girl, neighbour of six months, bringing him something edible. The demon shouts "Help me! Somebody help me!" from the basement, but Bobby says it's a scary movie. Hahaha. The girl falls for it, infatuated and silly (seriously, this is how you die, stupid girl. You say you love scary movies, maybe you should pay attention!), but imagine... Bobby could easily have been evil, holding a poor innocent girl hostage, and she would have just totally been ignored.

("Have you seen Drag Me to Hell? lolz. Not My Bloody Valentine?)

Marcy looks for another way to get him over to her place, and though she's thick as a tree trunk I have to agree with the tied up demon, she does seem nice.

Crowley's real name: Fergie McCloud ("they call him Lucky the Leprechaun behind his back," hilarious!). That was anticlimactic.


Who said men can't multitask?

Bobby uses all his phones (and again, I knew he had them but I never thought of the grunt work they're used for. After a long time of this, with the usual this-is-a-light-moment SPN garageband music playing in the background, Rufus comes a-knockin' and there's a body to be buried. It's an Okami, out of Japan! There's also some Greek monster that Sam and Dean are tracking, and we're reminded that strange things are happening in the world.

They bury the body (smartly, Bobby has invested in a construction machine to do this, imagine using a shovel like Sam and Dean for all the bodies he must have lying around there...wow to an outsider he really must seem like a serial killer!) and talk about Crowley. He's gonna go look for him... in Scotland. Investigate the background his his human self, before he was corrupted in Hell. I keep forgetting that demons are corrupted human souls, it's a pretty neat concept really. Like how Lucifer is a fallen angel, his disciples are in theory the fallen disciples of God.

Sam and Dean call again, they need another way to kill the Llama demon (stop it right there, I see your hand moving towards that comment button (and please, do comment!), I know that's not what it's called but it's close enough), but at the same time the police knock on his door. Luckily Bobby really is able to think of solutions on the fly - unlike Sam and Dean, evidently - and generally an excellent multitasker.

Sherif Mills is back, they are looking for Rufus and the other police man wants to look through his house. Mills bails him out - now she knows the truth, she's luckily eager to help - but Bobby's just got bodies everywhere... the Akami turns out not to be dead though and has escaped ("Stabbed it five times." "It's seven, damn it!"), and is out to feast on some single white females... haha, random. Hey, bonus points to anyone who knows in which series someone claims to have just been "single white femaled."


So wood chippers trump pretty much anything.

So our candidates, of course, are Bobby's pretty neighbour friend and the police woman right? No, apparently just Marcy... so of course Bobby storms in and demands he take her to... her bedroom. The Okami is hiding in there (luckily, otherwise Bobby would have had a hard time explaining himself), and Bobby has an awesome fight with it, and literally tears it apart with Marcy's chipper. Marcy is, understandably, freaked... and covered in blood lol. And doesn't want him over for dinner anymore, sad times.

Rufus calls the next day with more information, including the little gem that Crowley had a son back in his human days. And how long does it really take to reach King of Hell status? He was born in 1661, so let's say he's been dead roughly 300 years... not long by universe standards, is it? Of course time moves differently in Hell though, so that probably factors into it. And here's another thing, is Crowley not, like every other demon, having to possess a human body to walk the earth? The rules have always been a bit bent with them being able to appear and reappear with the same body and all, but still. Surely this was not Crowley's human appearance right? Maybe that's obvious, it just occurred to me as I was watching.

Crowley's son had a signet ring, which Bobby now needs. Rufus offers to help, and they discuss the plan: Gavin's ghost for Bobby's soul. "Let's hope that works out." It's a shot in the dark, but you know.


Ring ring, it's trouble calling.

Dean calls Bobby (again interrupting his pie eating time) about Sam. "He's different". Well duh. Bobby gets another call ("more important than Sam?" Dean asks incredulously... and while I see his point, for once we aren't seeing it from the Winchesters' side of things but Bobby's, and therefore as viewers we'll be more invested in the storyline at hand... it's interesting, the whole perspective thing), and Rufus got the ring but the police are on his tail, so he swallows it.

"I'm bearing my soul like a freaking girl here, and you've got stuff to do..." Poor Dean, because let's not forget that Bobby is the closest thing he's got to a father, and they've grown extremely close over the past few years battling evil and trying to deal with Sam's growing darkness. Yet he's kind of overdoing it with the guilt trip I think, and like all children forgetting that their parents have lives, issues and worries too that don't revolve around them. Dean calls Bobby selfish, "it's not all about you," and this is of course very ironic in light of what we've seen Bobby go through in this episode. But Bobby doesn't hang up, or tell Dean off, which is pretty great of him I think. Instead he gets Sam on the line.

And then, praise the heavens, Bobby finally sets the boys straight! In one of the finest moments of SPN history, I have to say!

"Sam, Dean, I love you like my own, I do, but sometimes you two are the whiniest, most self absorbed sons of bitches I ever met! I'm selfish? Me? I do everything for you, everything! ... You call me, and I come through every damn time! And what do I get for it? Jack, with a side of squat! Now look, I know you got issues. God knows I know. But I've got a newsflash for you. You ain't the center of the universe! ... So how about you two sack up and help me for once!"

YOU TELL THEM BOBBY! *does a happy Bobby dance*

Sam reminds him that all he has to do is ask... and this is true, gotta give the boys that.


Doctor Phil summons you to bare your soul. No really.

Jodi is turning out to be a useful ally, and refreshingly cheerful for a show that averages about 5% smile time. But she can't do miracles... she's a police officer, not a magician. But Bobby needs all the help he can get on this one - and somehow Jodi pulls through! Bobby gets the ring (ew), yay!

He makes a magic circle of fun, and summons Crowley's son's ghost... creepy fellow, who looks suspiciously like Crowley['s vessel]. I call plot hole on this one.

Crowley appears, he's having a hard time. Hell's been hell, it turns out, and he doesn't care much for demons. He tried to show them "a better way," but I wonder if that's better for them or for the humans trapped there. I mean really, anyone who runs Hell, not a happy bunny in my book. I did enjoy Crowley's moaning though, it makes him so much more sympathetic as a character - evil or not.

I also enjoy the camaraderie, if you can call it that, between Crowley and Bobby. Clearly it's mostly on Crowley's side, but I feel like despite all he's done against him Crowley has some respect for Bobby, and likes him more than other humans. In some sick and twisted way, this is probably why he's glad to have his soul.

There's a touching reunion between father and son... touching, and totally phony, because damn, Bobby conveniently forgot that Crowley's a demon. Very far removed from any human emotions he once had. He hates his son, it turns out. But here's the clincher: Gavin turned out to be useful because he hates Crowley too, and Bobby's now got some real dirt.

Bobby "knows it all." And turns out the big secret? Crowley sold his soul back in the day for an extra three inches... wow, priorities eh? They get Dean and Sam on the phone: they're in Scotland! Woot! This is the first time we've seen them out of America, correct? We find out what Bobby used to burn up the female demon earlier in the episode, what can destroy them: their human remains. Again I say, poor vessels.


Demons = ghosts with an ego.

That's good to know.

So it's Crowley's bones for Bobby's soul... now that's a trade eh? "Bollocks!" And it's Bobby for the win! (How do we know he got his soul back? Is there a way to know?)

Crowley warps to Scotland and has a rendez-vous with the boys and calls Sam a moose tee hee. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a little hell to raise." Hmmm.

The episode concludes: Sam and Dean make nice with Bobby: "without you I don't even wanna think about where me and Sam would have ended up." Aww, it's nice that he's acknowledged. They roll credits on the chick flick... and Bobby can finally enjoy some pie - oh wait, nope. Cause life goes on. Roll credits, for real this time.

And what an episode! This, in a lot of ways, is what a great episode should be! It had mystery, a good twist, good emotional development and some themes revisited from earlier seasons that it was good to see hadn't been forgotten about. It was an excellent exploration of Bobby's character, and gave Jim Beaver a chance to show his commendable acting talents. Five stars from me!