As Time Goes By was a weird episode for me. I adored having the brothers working together, on the same page and not fighting again. From the opening credits until the end it felt like classic Supernatural. In fact, Sam was in character the entire episode. Yippee! It only took 12 episodes to get there. I've missed the small things like the silent conversations the brothers have and how they know instinctively what the other is thinking. I missed family and all the little ways the brothers showed that they care for each other. In this episode I finally got that back. Unfortunately I also got a lot of canon-breaking, unanswered questions, and Henry too. For me, this episode will hinge on what happens next so it's really too soon to tell overall. In the end I was glad Henry was dead, the brothers were still human, and I rekindled my love of Supernatural a bit.
The quotes below are of course my opinion and nothing else. Your mileage can and most likely will vary, especially in the eye-rolling quote section where I despised the most popular quote of the night. Also last week I completely forget to add the quote nomination forms so here's three weeks worth to catch up. We'll do the big quotes contest over summer hellatus so get your nominations in and as always feel free to share them in the comments section.
Funny/Snarky quotes:10. Dean: "Sorry about that." Henry: "No you're not. You've wanted to do that since we met."
9. Dean: "So you're like Yodas to our Jedis….Never mind. You'll get there."
8. Dean: "Well this has been touching. Why don't we figure out how to clean up your mess, huh?"
7. Dean: "Okay. Enough with the decoder talk."
6. Henry: "Hand me your walkie talkie." Sam: "You mean my phone?" Henry: "Even better. Operator, I need Delta 457." Dean: "Who are you NOT calling?"
5. Henry: "2013. My God. I guess the Mayans were wrong."
4. Dean: "Yeah well now that you are done blowing chunks, you want to tell us who the hell Betty Crocker was?"
3. Henry: "That's the problem with you hunters. You're all shortsighted." Dean: "Yeah well at least we're not extinct."
2. Dean: "What level?" Henry: "Level of knowledge. You're men of letters correct?" Dean: "Um, I'm a little rusty on my boy bands. Men of what?"
1. Sam: "I'll tell you what. When one of us falls out of your closet, then you can ask the questions."
Story-moving quotes:13. Dean: "What are the chances that place is still standing?"
12. Abaddon: "Good boy. Now listen up. I want to make a good old-fashioned horse trade. Henry and the key for you brother or he dies. Am I clear?" Dean: "Crystal."
11. Henry: "You're more than that actually. My father and his father before him were both Men of Letters, as John and you two should have been. We're preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that which man does not understand. We share our findings with a few trusted hunters. The very elite. They do the rest."
10. Dean: "Nice taste in wheels." Henry: "Yours I presume."
9. Dean: "That demon trap in your noggin is going to keep you from smoking out. We're going to cut you into little steaks and bury each strip under cement. You might not be dead but you'll wish you were."
8. Dean: "Yeah right. Seriously. Dudes time traveling through motel room closets. That's what we've come to."
7. Larry: "Abaddon was a hired gun. She killed us all in one night."
6. Sam: "Okay but if you guys were such a big deal, then why haven't we or anyone we know ever heard of you?" Henry: "Abaddon."
5. Dean: "And how come she didn't die when I stabbed her?" Henry: "Because demons can't be killed by run of the mill cutlery. At the very least you'd need an ancient demon killing knife of the Kurds." Dean: "That's what this is."
4. Sam: "So how do we stop her? How do we stop Abaddon?" Larry: "You don't. If you know where the key is, then take it to these coordinates. Throw it in. Shut the door forever and walk away." Sam: "Wait. Why would I do that?" Larry: "Because it is the safest place on earth. Warded against any evil ever created. It is impervious to any entry except the key." Sam: "Right but then all that knowledge would be…would be lost and gone forever." Larry: "And that is the price we have to pay for keeping it away from Abaddon."
3. Sam: "Okay what's that?" Henry: "I wish I knew. Abaddon attacked us the night of my initiation. All secrets were to be revealed then." Dean: "Let me get this straight. You traveled through time to protect something that does…you don't know what….from a demon that you know nothing about?...Good."
2. Dean: "A devil's trap carved into the bullet. You're going to have to get close and close means it could get ugly." Henry: "I know. We do that for blood."
1. Larry: "In the box is the key to every object, scroll, spell ever collected in a thousand years under one roof. It is the supernatural mother load."
Emotional quotes:8. Henry: "I can't abandon my son Dean. Not again. I need to do this. I'm sorry." (Henry starts chanting.) Dean: "Then I'm sorry too."
7. Dean: "I'm just saying before we break out the warm and toasties, let's not forget that uh H. G. Wells over there left dad high and dry when he was a kid." Sam: "But maybe he didn't run out on dad. I mean not on purpose. Maybe he time traveled and…I don't know, got stuck."
6. Henry: "What did he think happened to me?" Dean: "He thought you ran out on him." Henry: "John was a legacy. I was supposed to teach him the ways of the letters." Dean: "Well he learned things a little differently." Henry: "How?" Dean: "The hard way. Surviving a lonely childhood, a stinking war, only to get married and to have his wife taken by a demon and later killed by one himself. That man got a bum rap around every turn but you know what? He kept going and in the end he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad."
5. Sam: "You think it would have made a difference?" Dean: "What?" Sam: "Dad. If he'd had his own father around." Dean: "What? In how he raised us. Sammy he did the best he could." Sam: "I know that. I do. They all did."
4. Dean: "Listen I understand that this is not your idea of a happy ending okay, and….that…that you're disappointed that me and Sam are mouth breathing hunters, but you know what? We stopped the Apocalypse." Henry: "If this works the way I plan, there will never be an Apocalypse to stop."
3. Henry: "If I could just go back. Stop this all from happening." Dean: "And what if you can't? I can't take that risk. Not with Sammy on the hook now."
2. Henry: "It's the price we pay for upholding great responsibility. We know that." Dean: "Your responsibility was to your family, not some glorified book club." Henry: "I was a legacy. I had no choice." Dean: "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."
1. Dean: "Henry you need to understand something. When my dad died, I couldn't save him no matter how bad I wanted to. I never want that to happen to Sam. Ever. If there's a chance that I can save him, I'm gonna do it. He's my brother; he's the only family I've got."
Eye-Rollingly Bad Dialogue / Lines Better Left Out:
7. Sam: "Our father taught us how to be hunters." Henry: "You're not are you? Hunters? Well hunters are….hunters are apes. You're supposed to…you're legacies."
6. Lady: "How rude. You haven't finished your tea Sam."
5. Dean: "Kind of makes you wish he knew the truth huh? I mean all those years thinking his old man ditched him, when the poor SOB really came here and saved our bacon. Freaking time travel man."
-Not sure how Henry being the person who let Abaddon into the present day world equals him coming to the future to save their bacon. "Their bacon" wouldn't have needed saving if Henry hadn't brought the problem there in the first place.
4. Henry: "You're also Winchesters. As long as we're alive, there's always hope. I didn't know my son as a man, but having met you too, I know I would have been proud of him."
-Yeah, yeah I know I'm the only person in the fandom that thought this quote was not only downright cheesy but also vainglorious. Saying your family is the world's only hope is about as cocky and self-absorbed as you can get. Grandpa Douchey to the very end.
3. Sam: "That's a chance we've got to take I guess. I mean we are legacies right."
-Urgh! Legacies? Men of Letters? This vocabulary was ripped off a bad comic book world. Why not just give Dean and Sam spandex and affix the handy symbol to their chests. Glass, your comic book leanings are showing.
2. Henry: "I'm quite certain this is all beyond your understanding, my alpha male monkey friend, and violence will not help you comprehend this any easier."
1. Henry: "I'm aware that time is a delicate mistress, but I'm willing to bet on this being for the best."
2. Dean: "He broke into the trunk. Stole an angel feather. I'm guessing he's going to whip up another one of those blood spells and Marty McFly himself back to the 1950's."
1. Dean: "I'll call Garth."
Say What? Canon-Breaking Dialogue:
-And Dean has an issue with this why? In The Song Remains the Same he practically begs Mary to stay away from John and not have Sam or him. The brothers gave their "never being born is not the same as dying" speech.
5. Sam: "I get it now. What Cupid said about heaven busting a** to get mom and dad together. The Winchesters and the Campbells, the brains and the brawn."
-Say what you will about Grandpa Creepy and the Campbell Soup Kids, but they were not stupid. Grandpa Creepy's library of knowledge was better than Bobby's. He knew how to gather an army and lead them successfully. The Campbells were a wealth of information so to insinuate that they were only brawn makes no sense. Likewise, Sam knows what an awesome hunter his dad was and he's admired his hunting skills before. John was as much about the brawn as the brains and many times he was more about the brawn. This brawn vs. brains theme was way overplayed here. More likely the angels were uniting two families with a strong background in the supernatural more than anything.
4. Henry: "I'm beginning to gather I don't make it back from this time do I?" Sam: "We don't know for sure. All we do know is that dad never saw you again." Henry: "What did he think happened to me?" Dean: "He thought you ran out on him."
-Yep, I'm bringing it up. This John didn't know his dad. During In the Beginning John did. Now maybe it was his stepdad they were talking about but I'm still calling retcon. Besides John was 7 when his dad disappeared. That's certainly old enough to know he wasn't a mechanic from a long line of mechanics.
3. . Henry: "Knights of hell are handpicked by Lucifer himself. They were of the first fallen, first born demons." Sam: "So very pure, very strong." Henry: "Legend has it that archangels had killed all of them, which as we have witnessed is not the case."
-So now we have super demons. Why didn't Lucifer reach out to Abaddon and any other archdemons that got away during the Apocalypse? Surely they would have been useful when fighting against archangels. Also if these super demons are first born of Satan that would make Lilith one too. She sure didn't have these nifty powers.
2. Dean: "Look dad had his issues but he was always there for us. I freaking hate time travel man."
-Always is a big stretch there Dean. He was always there for you in Home? What about Faith? The man didn't call when his son was dying. He doesn't get points here. Not to mention, Dean seems to like time travel. He certainly didn't quibble when he got to go back to the west or the 1940's. I'm the one with issues about time travel.
1. Sam: "You tapped the power of your soul to get here. I thought only angels could do that."
-Souls have always been a conflicting business on Supernatural. Now humans can soul power? Who needs angels then? We can all time travel back and fix things anytime we want. Plus apparently humans time travel so much easier than angels do. Henry had a nose bleed. Cas was completely drained.
Screencaps by Home of the Nutty
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