Supernatural – Recap & Review – I Believe the Children Are Our Future

photo: cw

Supernatural
I Believe the Children Are Our Future

Original Air Date: Oct 15, 2009

Nicola – Associate Staff Writer
nicola@thetwocentscorp.com

Kids, you know what they say: bad things happen if you sit too close to the TV. Case in point: a babysitter sits brushing her hair in front of the television. When the parents come home to relieve her of her duties, they find her brains on the outside of her skull. Gross.

Enter Agents Plant and Page (I think they need to diversify. Their covers would be so much safer if Dean was an indie fan). They come to take a look at the medical report and find evidence that she scratched her way through her own skull. When Dean and Sam head back to talk to the family of the kid she was babysitting for, little Jimmy confesses that he might have put itching powder on her hairbrush. Which I’m sure brings back uncomfortable memories for Sam from season one. Dean… do you have any idea what you could have DONE to your brother? THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED IN SAM’S PANTS.

Another report comes in of a man being electrocuted, so the brothers head back to the hospital to check it out. The perpetrator is a little old man with a joy buzzer.

Dean and Sam head back to the motel to play Mythbusters with the joy buzzer and a large ham. Dean cooks it quite thoroughly and sits down for a meal. Typical.

It looks kind of like someone’s messing with old joke shop gags and… what a surprise! There’s a joke shop in town (why do these dinky little towns always have convenient specialty shops?)! They head in to get the owner to confess to why he’s doing this but when Dean melts a rubber chicken in front of him it becomes pretty obvious he’s not their guy.

Meanwhile, a smart little girl tells her father she wants nothing to do with the Tooth Fairy (I mean, come on – anyone who collects other people’s teeth has to be a little off, right?), so the Tooth Fairy goes after Dad instead. But this Tooth Fairy’s not quite the petite little Tinker Bell that most people think of.

Back at the hospital, Sam talks to the gummy dad and hears about the hairy fairy. Dean does a bit more prodding around the place and discovers several kids with stomach ulcers after eating Pop Rocks and drinking coke and a kid whose face just got… stuck. I’ll bet Dean heard that all the time growing up. It sounds like all the lies that kids believe are coming true.

Sam goes off to do some research and Dean sits down for another meal. Okay, you can totally tell they’re back to normal now. It’s so reassuring! Sam shows Dean that there’s a blast radius of weirdness that seems to have a central point at a lonely old house. Dean is somewhat dismayed to discover that their motel is included, and Sam is somewhat DISGUSTED when he sees Dean’s hairy palms. Just… ew.

And now to the root of their problems – they head out to the house in the middle of nowhere to interrogate

They check out the house at the center of the zone and find a smart kid who doesn’t want to let them in. He finally does after they flash some badges. He’s making soup and seems to be quite alone.

Let me just say here: this kid is adorable. He doesn’t even have a HINT of devil spawn about him (and when I say devil spawn I am referring to Dakota Fanning, the girl queen of creepy children. Just so you know). And they should have found him earlier, because if there was ever a kid to play Dean’s potential son, it’s this kid. With the freckles and the ‘tude… At any rate, Dean and Sam seem to think Jesse’s pretty freaking adorable too. But he seems to have some pretty definitive ideas about things like itching powder and joy buzzers, such as they’ll make you scratch your brains out or you can electrocute someone with them. Dean tells Jesse that that’s not true and jolts his little bro just to prove it. Sam is not pleased and puts his bitchface on just to prove it.

So Sam goes back to what he does best (besides channeling kicked puppies, that is) and researches Jesse, finding out that he was adopted and no father was listed on his birth certificate. He does find a mother though and they drive across the state to visit Julia Wright.

She’s a paranoid broad, and when they start asking questions about her son she flips out and douses them in salt. Turns out she’d been possessed the entire time she was pregnant with her son, that Jesse is half-human, half-demon. She managed to push the demon out after she gave birth but she couldn’t bear to keep Jesse. She was a virgin – Antichrist, anyone?

After that fun and exciting field trip the brothers Winchester return to their motel to find everyone’s favorite angel waiting. Could Castiel be any more awesome? The answer is no. However, for the time being his awesomeness has strayed into the arena of killing small children, because he tells Dean and Sam in no uncertain terms that Jesse’s gotta die. He’s demon spawn – more powerful than a human or a demon. All he needs is a little prodding in the wrong – or right – direction and he could be putty in Lucifer’s hands, destroying angels left and right. And the demons are looking for him.

None of this various serious conversation is diminished at all by the fact that Castiel happens to sit down on Dean’s whoopee cushion. Huh-uh. Nope. Not at all. Reason #6,754 why I love this show: it makes me laugh out loud by myself, and it’s not even a comedy. And yes, maybe my sense of humor is only as developed as Dean’s. So sue me.

Dean and Sam tell Castiel that there’s no way they’re going to kill this kid. Dean suggests they kidnap Jesse and take him to Bobby’s, but Castiel thinks this is a dumb idea. Sam thinks they should tell Jesse the truth and let him make his own decision. Castiel thinks this is an even DUMBER idea, particularly coming from Sam, who was in a similar situation and made the wrong choice.

And yes, this is where the Sam Girls take up their arms and go gunning for Castiel. I am not a Sam Girl – but that was harsh, dude. It’s about time we let that go.

While those three are bickering, Julia is revisited by her squatter and taken over again. She heads after Jesse.

As does Cas. But when he enters his house, knife poised, Jesse uses his super powers and turns Castiel into a doll.

And thousands of Misha’s Minions scream into the night: I WANT ONE.

By this time Jesse understandably wants some answers. Dean starts with a steaming pile of bull about Jesse being a superhero and that he needs to go to superhero academy to hone his powers, and then Julia comes in and calls Dean a dirty liar. She also pins him and Sam to the wall.

But she’s not allowed to really hurt Sam (Lucifer doesn’t want his vessel damaged, bitch!), and when Jesse says he wants to hear what Sam says she complies. Sam tells him the truth – the whole awful truth about his birth and what he could be. He also tells Jesse that he needs to make the right choice and succeed where Sam failed.

See Cas? No one can beat Sam up more than he does himself.

Jesse makes a choice and gets rid of the demon in Julia. Well, that was easy. He wants Dean and Sam to tell him what to do but they won’t, of course. Jesse says he wants to go with them and goes upstairs to say goodbye to his parents. When he doesn’t come down again they go up to investigate and find him gone. But Cas is life sized again at least.

That’s certainly not going to be the last we see of Jesse, I think. But it will all end in tears as it usually does on this show. However, he’s got the potential to do what Sam couldn’t, given that he’s got all the information in front of him. Maybe he’ll run for now, but he’ll be back.

And yeah, it’s time to lay off Sam. How often does Dean get blamed for breaking the first seal? Yes, it’s a different situation, one that was even more out of his control and knowledge than Sam’s. But Sam’s heart was in the same place, and as far as I’m concerned if Dean’s forgiven him then everyone else should.

And that includes you, Angel-who-can-do-almost-no-wrong-in-Nicola’s-eyes.

Good episode. It’s satisfying to see that they can tie in the “monster of the week” formula with the advancing storyline without it getting too angsty. Way to walk the line, Kripke & Co.