This week’s episode
of Supernatural, “As Time Goes By”
was written by Adam Glass, who also wrote this season’s “Southern Comfort.” It
was the first time directing for Serge Ladouceur, who fans will know as the
show’s Director of Photography. That duty was covered in this episode by Brad
Creasser. I was excited to see what magic Ladouceur would bring to the director’s
chair, but this episode will likely be remembered even more for how much it has
added to the canon of the show and the doors it has opened up going forward.
The episode opens with a wonderful
montage – maybe the best they’ve ever done - of the show to date. The theme was
the importance of family and the Family Business. We even get the clip of Sam
(Jared Padalecki) telling Dean (Jensen Ackles) that their father’s legacy
to them is saving people. It almost felt like a new start for the show. I
really feel like the first half of this season was truly building to this
moment. That the brother’s had to go through a period of estrangement and
adjustment and re-commit themselves to really wanting to be in the family
business before they could make this new start.
A quick shout out to Jerry Wanek for
this episode for the set dressing. Upon the first scene in young John’s
bedroom, my husband informed me that he’d had exactly the same lampshade as a
child – so thanks Jerry, that really drove that scene home for us! Of course
Wanek is also responsible for the wonderful motel rooms we get each week. My favorite
set this week was Astro Comics though. It was really the only setting that
actually threw Henry for a loop too!
Having John’s music box play As Time Goes By and having that as the
title really resonated with the episode. Casablanca
after all is about wartime heroism. It’s about the unsung heroes, the Ricks of
the world who seem like bad guys but are the real good guys. It’s about
unlikely allies forming to fight for what’s right. Sounds an awful lot like the
Winchesters’ world, doesn’t it?
I would be remiss in not pointing
out the original music in this episode by Jay Gruska as we hear the familiar
chords of “Dean’s Theme” throughout the episode. This theme has signaled family
throughout the series. There are musical motifs that run throughout the seasons
of the show that are just as familiar as the classic rock chords of “Carry on
My Wayward Son” to viewers.
A quick word about the two guest
stars: Gil McKinney as Henry Winchester and Alaina Huffman as Abaddon were both
fantastic. Huffman, who many of you may remember from the too-soon-cancelled Stargate Universe, made Abaddon an
elegant, urbane, and sexy Knight of Hell demon. And who knew she could scream
like that? Creepy! McKinney brought so many layers to Henry Winchester in a
very, very (read much too) short time. He seems at first to be a stuck up,
pompous, condescending elitist, but by the end of the episode, he is obviously
a Winchester as he puts family before everything, including his life. It’s easy
to forget that Henry is about the same age as his “grand kids” and expect him
to have all the answers, so it was good characterization for him not to be in total
control despite his obvious high level of training.
Dean is harder for Henry to win over
than Sam. Dean refuses to warm up to him because he abandoned John and John
hated him. Sam’s response to Dean is that John didn’t make up for Henry’s
absence “by being father of the year.” As always, Dean is quick to come to John’s
defence and insist that John had always been there for them. Henry tries to be
happy that at least he’s getting to meet his grandsons.
We learn that Henry was part of a
society of Men of Letters and that John should have been trained as one too and
trained Dean and Sam in their own turn. Henry has a very low opinion of
hunters: “Hunters are apes.” He is quick to write Sam and Dean off as “shoot
first and ask questions later.” Of course, Dean has described himself in
exactly those words in the past – and has also described Sam that way on
occasion, mainly when he was calling Sam out on acting out of character – as Sam
has always been the thinking man on their team. Sam points out to Henry that
they are also John’s kids in addition to being hunters, and Henry concedes that
they are more than that, they are “legacies.”
Henry describes the Men of Letters
as preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that which man does not
understand. He explains that they only share their knowledge with a select few
hunters. Possibly the best line of the episode – possibly the entire series –
is when in typical Dean fashion, Dean sums up the relationship between Men of
Letters and hunters: “You’re Yodas to our Jedis.” The Star Wars reference is
perfect, given that Eric Kripke always described the show in those terms – Sam as
Luke and Dean as Han Solo. And this is where this entire episode becomes so
exciting for the entire mythology of the series. It really opens up so many possibilities
because Sam seems custom made to be one of the Men of Letters – and wouldn’t
Bobby have been a great fit there too? Could we see a future where Sam was head
of the Men of Letters and Dean the head of the hunting elite?
John’s journal plays an integral
part in the episode. Henry notices it and asks to look at it. Sam explains it’s
a hunter’s journal and wonders if as a Man of Letters whether Henry had kept
one too. Henry says he’d ordered one just before he left, and sure enough, when
he flips to the inside cover, we discover the initials HW there. John had kept
and used his father’s journal and then passed it on to his boys. Ackles is
outstanding in this scene. He is visibly uncomfortable at Sam letting Henry
look at the journal, and it’s clear that Dean is still deeply troubled by John’s
death. Dean insists that Henry had a responsibility to his family – always Dean’s
first priority – while Henry insists he had no choice because he was a legacy. Once
again, we are brought back to the issue of free will and destiny: whether one
is free to make those choices or not.
Henry is moved by Dean’s words and
the words in John’s journal. He tells Dean he was right. That he had let John
down and he was going to return and set things right. He was going to make sure
that John got the life he deserved not the one he was forced to live. It’s a
nice parallel to Dean’s belief that he’d let his father down. Dean won’t let
Henry sacrifice Sam, however, and he chokes Henry unconscious to trade him for
Sam: the prime directive of looking after his brother in full force. Dean tells
Henry that Sam’s “his brother, he’s the only family I’ve got left.” Even after
having been to Hell for the crossroads deal, Dean is still frighteningly
willing to do anything to save his brother and he tells Henry that much.
In the end, Henry proves he is a
Winchester by being willing to give his life to save his grandsons. He
apologizes for having judged them so harshly as hunters because they are also Winchesters
and as long as they’re alive there’s always hope. He says that he knows he
would have been proud of John based on how his sons turned out. Both Sam and
Dean are crushed by Henry’s death. Given all the talk of legacies and keeping
hope alive through the bloodline, I was beginning to wonder if some groundwork
wasn’t being laid for at least one of the brothers to be doing something to
extend that bloodline. I know there’s a theory being floated that Amelia is
pregnant, but I have greater faith in the creative team than to go there, but
it would be interesting if Sam was able to make some kind of normal work at
some point. So, to be clear, I don’t support the Amelia might be back with a
bun in the oven theory – but I do think the legacy question is an interesting
one.
The brothers’ final conversation
over Henry’s grave is typical of their different viewpoints and draws heavily
on past episodes and conversations. Sam refers back to 5.14 “My Bloody
Valentine” (also seen in the montage at the beginning) when he says he gets why
cupid was so keen to get John and Mary together. The marriage of Campbells and
Winchesters is the perfect marriage of brains and braun – also very much as how
Sam and Dean are seen: Dean’s bruan to Sam’s brains – though each has some of
the other as well. Dean’s response is typically more pessimistic and less
esoteric as he says all he sees is death in their family tree. Sam wonders if
John would have been different if he’d had his own father around. Dean
immediately takes this as a slur against John, once again defending him as
having done the best he could. Sam quickly agrees. The phrasing is interesting
considering some have thrown up red flags at Henry disappearing. In 4.03, “In
the Beginning”, Dean is back in the past with his parents. He overhears someone
in the diner say to John to “Say hi to your old man for me” implying that John’s
father is around. It’s possible that John’s mother re-married and he was, in
fact, raised by someone else. Interesting theories, which may be explored in
the future.
The boys immediate future would seem
to be to find a door for the key that Henry brought with him. Did anyone else
keep thinking about “The French Mistake” with all the talk of a key? In
interviews, Robert Singer and Jeremy Carver have both been very excited with
where what we learn in this episode will take the brothers. Singer has
indicated that the door the key unlocks will contain riches of information and
also be a new homebase for the brothers. I can’t wait to see it!
A few final points. I loved that we
got a new way to kill a very high level demon – by creating a devil’s trap
right in her noggin’ by etching the devil’s trap on the bullet. When Henry
discovers it’s 2013 and remarks the Mayans were wrong, I laughed, but it was a
nice touch to demonstrate that he’s widely read in the supernatural. Albertus
Magnus was a real person who lived in the Middle Ages. He was a well-known
magician and alchemist and is purported to have discovered the Philosopher’s
Stone. He also advocated for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion.
He is linked to Dante’s theory of free will and was mentioned in Frankenstein.
I don’t think the Men of Letters could have picked a better alias! He really
was their version of a rock star.
This episode sets up so many
possibilities for the brothers going forward. Certainly, the information found
with the key is likely to be helpful in finding and deciphering the tablets, so
while this episode may not have appeared to forward the season’s mytharc, I’m
betting it does. Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments.
