Hi, me again.
Most shows wouldn't be ballsy enough to have an episode titled Jump the Shark. That Supernatural does makes me extraordinarily happy, because (as if The Monster at the End of the Book didn't prove that) they can still poke occasional fun at themselves, and I feel like that's been missing a lot this season. However, I tribute a lot of that to Kim Manners' untimely death because (and I've noticed this from watching not only Supernatural, but his X-Files episodes and his Adventures of Brisco County, Jr episodes) that he brings a real flair even to dry scripts, and this episode could've definitely benefited from his magic touch.
That's not to say that it's a terrible episode, no. It had some really decent parts, and I'm still digesting how it makes me feel about Dean in particular (although I'm really, really leaning towards "DUDE, STFU ALREADY, JESUS!") so all in all, it gets about a B- from me.
My biggest question is why. Why assassinate John Winchester's character (more than he's already done himself?) and contradict everything we've come to know about him?
I agree with what Sam said in the diner; John was no monk. Nobody can be. But on the flip side of that coin, most of John's strength came from his solitude. Even in Home he was feeling that; sitting on Missouri's couch he was heartbroken, sad, miserable because he'd left his wife's ghost trapped in their Lawrence house and even (at least, because remember Dean said "I'm 26, dude!" in the pilot? And he's born in January?) twenty-seven years later he's still wearing his dead wife's wedding ring.
I'm not saying that after Mary died he never ever had sex again. I mean, c'mon. John is a full-on hottie, and we've seen from four years of hunting that Dean and Sam have gotten their fair share of "grateful girls" as Sam put it, so it'd be ridiculous to believe that John never dipped his wick again. (Personally, I'm of the belief that he knocked boots with Ellen. But that's just my personal belief.) But that he would father a child, that soon after Mary's death--because Adam was obviously Sam's equivalent, hell, they were even in the same places in school--is just... horrifying.
That soon. 1990, y'all. Which would make Adam... 19 now. Sam would've been 7, Dean 11, so we're looking at roughly (give or take a year) the time frame of Something Wicked (which is also referenced in this episode) and we saw in that episode just how cavalierly John felt about his family (and yes, that was sarcasm.) Dean tells us, in fact, that John dropped them off with Pastor Jim and went back to Wisconsin to finish off the Shtriga, but it was gone, so I assume he just popped on over to Minnesota, knocked up another woman while his kids were terrified and hanging out with Jim? Sorry, that doesn't wash with me.
Considering that Meg and YED both knew all about John's friends (including Caleb and Pastor Jim) and killed them, it makes absolutely no sense that they didn't know about this kid, too, and didn't kill the woman and kid when they were killing their way through everyone else John knew and cared about. And don't even hand me that line, John was trying to protect them, because he was still visiting them. He bought Adam a beer when he was fifteen--that'd be four years ago. Oh, wait. He couldn't have, because that's the time when Dean went to get Sam and Jessica died. That's when they started the hunt for John and the YED because John had gone underground hunting it. So I'm supposed to believe that in the middle of all that, John went to his secret love shack and knocked back a brew with his kid? That, too, doesn't wash with me.
I also don't believe that John would have been stupid enough to do something like have unprotected sex. I mean, he's obviously a smart guy, and one would think (especially in his line of work) that he'd be smart enough to know he can't go around leaving kids in every town. Sure, condoms rip, pills fail, but really, that's stretching my believability a bit.
Lastly? All those pictures of John around the kid's house? His picture on the mother's bedside table? That would really indicate that he was around a lot more than just periodically, and the mother must've had a real hang-up on John. I just... how are we supposed to believe this? How are we supposed to fit this into what we know about John and not go "Huh? We ARE talking about John Winchester, right?"
Irked. That's about the best word I can think of for this episode. It really left me feeling irked, angry, and kind of insulted. On my own behalf and on John's. Because the John I've come to know through the previous four years wouldn't have done this. Bad form, Eric. Bad form.
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