Heh.
I love this episode for 2 reasons – I adore young Sam and want an entire spin-off just with young Dean and Sam: Supernatural, the kiddie wars, just because they are unbelievably awesome. Young Sam has the snarl, the woe-is-me look down pat. He’s brilliant.
And secondly? I love this episode because we see Dean in little red shorts. Ooh, down girl! Ha ha.
So, here we have the boys returning to one of the high schools they attended as kids, following a spate of murders/accidents were kids seemed to turn on their bullies…and then have no recollection of it afterwards. While the boys get undercover roles, Sam as a janitor and Dean as the football coach, Sam has flashbacks to their first time here and how it changed him. And wow, Dean shot up and lost the baby fat fairly quickly. And became hot. And man, could that kid look anymore like a young Dean? Whoever the casting director is for this episode, damn! Did they do a good job or what?
So in the past they get dropped off and dad leaves for a hunt. Dean immediately proves how he didn’t care about school at this stage, walking in with his rebellious drop-out attitude and no books, talking back to the teachers and obviously catching the attention of every damn girl in the room. He also manages to make good use of the supply closet. Until he gets caught macking with another girl, and the first one draws him out for the person he really is…or at least how he sees himself as a no-hoper with zero social skills, no future and an overall loser. Ouch. High school can be brutal…particularly when you already have severe self-esteem issues and a dead-end future. Poor Dean. What a big woobie he is.
Sam, on the other hand, walks in already being picked on, befriending the abused victim of the class and standing up for him. While he doesn’t fight back and allows himself to get bullied (At which point Dean does attempt to swoop in and whoop the little bully’s ass, but Sam stops him, wanting to deal with it on his own), it gets to the point he fights back and just becomes the abuser himself. He wallops the bully one and becomes the champion of the school. And wow- anvils! Poor little victim Sammy become the executioner…why am I seeing parallels with what will happen? Sam is so the puppy – kick him when he’s down but then he’ll bite. Sam also has a discussion with his teacher who lets him know he doesn’t need to follow in the family footsteps, he can do whatever he wants, be whoever he wants to be, and you can see this is where the rebellion began. Before this, Sam was a mopey kid who followed along with his dad sullenly, but this is the point he thought hell, no I’ll do what I damn well please….and it’s so awesome of our show to provide us with this moment!
Anyway, so let’s stick with the present for now, as the boys investigate and Sam realises his English teacher still teaches here. They investigate and Sam finds out the boy he befriended killed himself not too long after they left. Ouch. Heartbreaking. But I guess he wasn’t strong enough to deal with it all and decided that was the easy way out.
But the killings continue to happen, until they realise it has something to do with the school bus. They find the bus driver, whose new, and was the bully’s father. The bully, who had only recently lost his mother to cancer and was lashing out, and also ended up killing himself later on. And damn, Sam’s expression here just about kills me! So the bully’s ghost is still lashing out, as daddy keeps a lock of his hair on the bus…the bus which is now driving the football team to another town. Our boys stop the bus, and as Sam has a little tussle with another possessed kid, Dean finds the hair and burns it and peace is restored to the world. Sam does have a little chat with his teacher, wanting to let him know how did it, he broke out and became his own person…until it finally sinks in that he didn’t, because ultimately he’s hunting. He became exactly what he ran away from all those years.
And damn – depressing episode! But a really, really good one! Just needed a bit more Castiel, that’s all.
