Hey everyone and welcome to this week’s review for the “Teen Dean,” episode as I like to call it.
Honestly I expected to hate this episode, especially since the promos insisted on presenting it as teen Dean being hilariously confused about puberty, something that made absolutely no sense. Thank goodness that wasn’t the case.
Instead I had split feelings about the episode. Not ‘mixed’ feelings, ‘split’ feelings, as in half and half. I liked everything up to minute 27:30, and disliked everything after that.
The episode started out well. We got to see the full toll the mark was taking on Dean. He had locked himself up inside the bunker constantly searching for a cure to the tune of melancholy soundtracks. This must have been a recent development seeing as it was just last week he was traveling from town to town eager to help Charlie.
Speaking of Charlie, she got a mention. Apparently Dean beating Dark!Charlie up last week wasn’t to hold her back from getting to Good!Charlie. It was an effect of the mark. I didn’t get that watching the episode, or it wasn’t the case and Adam Glass decided to make it so. Either way we got to hear, one more time, how generously forgiving she was toward Dean. Maybe next week they'll build a shrine to her in the bunker.
Sam tells Dean about a case and they decide to check it out. What I liked about this part of the epiosde is that it had the look and feel of old Supernatural circa season 2-3. Though I was never a big fan of Monster of the Week episodes, the ones we got back then were better than the mythology episodes we get now. It was refreshing to see shades of that in season 10 instead of the amalgamations of meta and mockery these types of episodes have become these days.
The case was intriguing too. Adults disappeared with their clothes left behind. Since it was revealed, right off the bat, that aliens and fairies were not possible suspects I anticipated something unpredictable, a mystery worth investigating.
And investigate they do. They go to the bar where the victim was last seen. I liked how the issue of the Mark was kept alive throughout. After talking to the witness, Sam suggests they split up so Dean could check out the bar while Sam goes to the victim’s home. That gives Dean a pause, just a small hesitation but enough to ping Sam that his brother isn't confident going alone. Dean was obviously worried about what he might do alone and Sam understood that. That bit was a nice touch for me. Standalone episodes that address the main mythology, and incorporate it in their story, are a cut above the rest. That’s why I liked them in seasons 4 & 5. No matter what monster or mystery the boys tackled, it either had to do with the seals or somehow referenced the apocalypse, which made the episodes part of a whole as opposed to throwaway plots you could take out of the narrative and not miss anything. This episode almost followed that style. Almost.
Something else that was good about the first part of the episode was that the interviews weren’t dragged out. At the bar we quickly meet Tina, who is an interesting character. I enjoyed her conversation with Dean, and thought they were a good match had they chosen to go down that path. They seemed to have more in common than whatever Dean had with his last fling. But alas, she chose to leave him.
At this point I was so engrossed in the story I almost forget Dean was supposed to turn into a teenager. By the time I remembered, I began to dread it. The show had been so good so far I worried once we got to teen Dean and his puberty issues it would get ruined.
Luckily it didn’t. Teen Dean wasn’t what I expected. On the contrary, he was a much better young version of Dean than any of the previous ones. Dylan is a promising young actor who did a good job imitating Jensen. I wouldn’t mind seeing him again (for flashbacks) if they chose to bring him back.
But as good as teen Dean was, he was outmatched by young Tina. I’m willing to go as far as to say she was the best part of the episode for me. Both the character and the actress were extremely likable and multidimensional. She wasn’t the typical annoying teenage girl we saw in Claire, Marie, Krissy or Becky. She was brave, smart and highly resourceful and I enjoyed every second she was on screen. Of course that was probably why they gagged and hogtied her for the second part of the episode when everything went down the drain.
So what happened after 27:30?
Once Sam and teen Dean come back to the lair to rescue Tina something happens to the script that makes it go from edge-of-your-seat exciting mystery to Exposition in the Kitchen. I can’t say I know what happened but I have this theory that Adam Glass was writing the episode when Robbie and his other friends showed up to take him out for drinks. He first resisted, saying he had to write a script, but Robbie told him to fudge the ending and join them anyway (yes, I’m blaming this one on Robbie too. I’m evil.) So Adam slapped every character with a stupidity spell, forced them all to stand around in a kitchen, and wrapped things up with long-winded, expository dialogue.
Here is a summary of how it all went down:
My name is Hansel
Wait, what? Why are we bumping into fairytale characters? This is not Grimm or Once Upon a Time. Supernatural’s mythology has always been about urban legends or biblical prophecies. The few times it delved into fairytales the monster turned out to be something else. This, and the extensive focus on Oz as a real place in the previous Charlie episodes, worries me. I don’t mind the writers exploring new boundaries but every show has a preconceived universe its characters live in. That’s why aliens didn’t appear in season 6's X-files episode and we got monsters posing as fairies instead. If fairytale characters didn’t exist on a show for nearly ten years, expect us to be surprised when you suddenly start throwing them at us in random episodes. I dread to think who is going to be next. Sleeping Beauty? Cinderella? The Lion King? Anna and Elsa from Frozen?
Hansel, aside from being out of this world, is also the first to show us the effects of the stupidity spell. When he is knocked to the ground by Sam and teen Dean he immediately starts to babble. He talks about his past, the main villain, and the secret of how he turns people into teenagers and back. Why doesn't he turn Sam into a teen right away and use the element of surprise to overpower both of them? I don't know. Instead he decides to put on an act and take them to the witch, with the promise of turning Dean back once they defeat her. That’s such an obvious lie I can't believe he expected the Winchesters to fall for it.
We are hunters
But fall for it they do. When the scheming Hansel claims they can’t kill the witch because they’re ‘just men’ (wanna guess why he says something like that?) Sam gleefully tells him they are hunters. They actually believe the bald-faced mofo and decide to go with him! Of course there was the option to tie him up, take the pouch from his neck, turn Dean back to his normal size, then go after the witch. Why didn't they do it that way? Because...stupidity, I guess?
The mysterious monster is…Mrs. Patmore?
When the teens were trapped in the basement, and the scary kidnapper came for them one by one, I found it quite unnerving. The fact that I didn’t know where he was taking them made the situation that much scarier and closer to a horror movie.
But when Hansel took the boys to see the witch, and we finally got a peek behind the curtain, it is almost anticlimactic. We find out the menacing threat hovering over the kids is a replica of the old cook from Downton Abbey.
I’m not saying the idea of a witch making stew out of children is something to sniff at. But in this episode that's the only thing it is: an idea. On camera the witch is simply a cook throwing vegetables into a pot. Tina is tied to a chair in a corner, but she is unharmed, and the witch doesn’t look any more threatening than a yammering old lady in a kitchen, Mrs. Patmore really. She's certainly not as intimidating as the sound of Hansel’s footsteps coming down the stairs in the chilling parts of the first half of the episode.
Scary or not, Mrs. Patmore is confident enough in the power she and Hansel wield that neither of them bothers to kill the Winchesters, or tie them up, or...I don't know, turn Sam into a teenager perhaps? Why is it that no one is threatened by the 6 foot tall, muscular man in the room? The witch starts monologuing as soon as they arrive -which is standard trade for all small fry villains on this show - and it lasts five minutes. She explains her motivations, answers all their questions, even gives them info about why she was sent there by her coven. Why does she do all that? Because we need to know it and because... stupidity.
Oops, there goes the pouch
Of course once all explanations are out of the way Sam goes for the witch, but she throws him around – doesn’t kill him though, they never do - and it’s actually teen Dean who saves the day. That’s twice in a row Sam has been ineffective in a fight. Last week he was in a room with a wounded baby-bird Charlie and she was the one who fried the villain. The writers really should start giving the tallest, strongest person around something to do or else he'll look real bad.
Teen Dean steals the pouch and finally, finally uses it to turn himself back to big Dean. But then he throws it into the furnace along with the witch, forgetting that there’s still Tina out there who needs it to become big and strong.
Never mind, I want to stay 16
In a not-so-unforeseen twist, consistent with the flood of stupidity sweeping through this part of the episode, Tina decides to remain a teen, saying that she has three ex-husbands and 50 grand in debt, and that it is a good idea to get out of town and get a fresh start. Yes, until you get picked up by the cops, or other authorities, who ask you who/where your parents are, and when you don't have a believable answer to give them, stick you in a youth home where a sadistic social worker locks you up in a room and won't let you go even when your father magically shows up. Don't believe me? Ask Claire.
In fact this is one of the more ridiculous oversights of the show. It’s bad enough that none of the adults has a source of income (Sam, Dean, Castiel, even Charlie,) now we have a gang of homeless teens who also miraculously can take care of themselves. I hope Tina won’t be another angry teen next time Glass decides to bring her back. The last thing we need is the lot of them coming after our main characters for causing them their current situations. If that happens I volunteer to testify that Tina at least chose the runaway teenage life herself, so whatever happened to her afterward was her own damn fault.
Feel free to chat me up in the comments, or if you like, hypothesize about how Tina plans to eat, get around, or find shelter once Sam and Dean's pocket money runs out. And what about Sam, Dean? How do they find money to pump gas into their car, or food into their bellies? How does Castiel? And since there are so many stray teens in the world of Supernatural, why did Hansel and the witch go through all that trouble turning adults into teenagers when they could’ve just picked one from the pile? I would've been willing to give them all their names.
Told you I was evil.
Tessa
tessa-marlene.tumblr.com/
twitter.com/tessa_marlene
