Supernatural Review: Season 3 Episode 2 "The Kids Are Alright"

 
By: Sera Gamble

**Spoilers**

If you have not yet seen this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.

             The Kids Are Alright is the episode where we are introduced to Dean's love interest, Lisa, and her son Ben. What's the premise of the story? Well basically it's a showcase for the most Creepy Children in one episode and introduces the idea that maybe Dean was a little bit less than protected on one of his escapades. Seriously. That's it. It's a fairly simple story, rooted very deeply in comedy, but it does really play up the child-parent horror with the whole Changeling aspect.


Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- Why did they have to do the bit with the table saw? I knew it was coming...I knew...but it still grossed me out. I'm also very interested to know just how the changelings managed to control that saw. Do they have telekinesis or something? Or was it just due to writing that mandates all accidents must look like a haunting?

- In this episode, Dean has a new nickname for Sam: Weirdy Mcweirderton.

- And Sam...you do realize that restaurants are places you go to eat, right? Not stare broodily at a laptop screen and make cryptic phone calls without even a cup of coffee!

- "Yeah, well, how many dying wishes are you gonna get?" "As many as I can squeeze out..."

- Okay. So I know this episode is supposed to be sad and scary and all that, because of the reminders of Dean's impending date with a Hellhound and the Creepy Kids overdose, but I spend most of my time laughing myself sicker than those kids binging on the birthday cake! Why, you may ask? Because of Ben. Good golly gracious is that kid ever awesome! Aside from the fact that I have a sneaking suspicion that he actually is Dean's kid, the young actor actually does a really good job. Kids on television shows (animated and live-action) can range from extremely badly acted and annoying to extremely over acted and annoying. Very rarely, but on occasion, there will be one that lands in the middle ground, though and manages to be both engaging and non-annoying. Not only is he a cute kid, but he's a pretty good actor and managed to mimic Jensen's mannerisms as Dean perfectly without having it come off as stilted or contrived. That takes skill!

- You've also gotta love Dean's reaction to Lisa's friends and then him doing the math and having a minor freak-out.

- I'm just going to say it right now: I LOVE Lisa! 

- The talk with Dean not-so-subtly trying to find out if Ben is his son or not has to be one of the most awkward moments ever in SPN! 

- Sam meets up with Creepy Stalker Girl again in a diner. Ugh. I don't think I like this version of Ruby. I'm sure Katie Cassidy is doing her best, but at this point Ruby is just insufferable.

- For all that I've snickered about the humor in this episode, it does have a really dark edge to it also. Dark on a psychological level. We see this most prominently in the disturbing scenes with changeling!Katie and her mother. There's just something very wrong with the way that girl monopolizes her mother's time (and her constant calls for 'mommy' calls back to mind The Empty Child from Doctor Who...*shudders*) and the scene where the mother, exhausted and terrified, straps what she thinks is her daughter into a car and lets that car roll into a lake will haunt viewers for a long time to come.

- The true faces of the changelings and the way they feed on their mothers (Does that mean a neighborhood with single fathers would be automatically immune?) is disgusting.

- But enough of the depressing stuff...we have more cute bonding scenes with Dean and Ben to see!

- While I have to admit that it is a little bewildering as to why they went so out on a limb to find a kid who could look and act just like Dean if the endgame was for Lisa to say Ben isn't Dean's son (I'm still not convinced...), I will say that the episode did do a lot to establish the fact that Dean would make a good father. We already knew this (he did raise Sam, after all) because we've seen in the past that Dean is good with kids, even though he doesn't make a point of seeking them out.

- Another thing this episode did was bring up, again, the SPN theme that family doesn't end with blood. It's in who you connect with and who you love, not who you happen to be related to.

- It also did a great job of setting Ben and Dean's relationship up. The scene where Dean teaches Ben how to deal with a gang of bullies is the height of adorable, even if it does get Dean in hot water with Lisa. You can sort of see Dean teaching Sam a similar thing in their younger days. One of the greatest things I mourn in SPN was that Sam and Dean and Ben never really got the opportunity to bond together.


- I want to know why that red dirt they keeping finding at the site of the changeling murders looks so much like blood. I've NEVER seen dirt that red. I know it's supposed to be mistaken for blood, but I have two issues with that. One, whenever blood dries it dries brown, and two, it looks more like someone got hold of mother's lipstick and drew on the house than anything else.

Ugh...that's just nasty!

- LOTS of creepy kids in this episode.

- Whoa. Whenever Dean and Ben left the park...did you notice that the bullies are now changelings? When did that switch happen? While Lisa and Dean were arguing? Yikes!


- The changeling design was clearly modeled after a lamprey. Yuck. Gross. Disgusting!

- And, of course, all of the cute scenes with Dean and Ben were building up to one, inevitable move: Ben gets replaced with a changeling. We all saw this coming. It was just a question of where and when.

- After that the episode builds to a pretty obvious conclusion. Sam and Dean go save Ben and the other kids. Ben proves that he's quite the brave little fellow as he follows Dean's orders to the letter and gets all of the other kids out of the warehouse while Sam and Dean fight with the mother changeling. Which begs the interesting question. If she was the real-estate agent and Katie was already replaced at Ben's party...does that mean that the mother changeling was flirting with Dean?! EWWWW!

         

         This is a fun episode. It's kind of creepy, it's dark, it's hilarious, and it introduces both a new type of monster and two important recurring characters. The story is a bit weak in places, as sometimes the simplicity can work against it and leave a few timeline-flaws exposed, but for the most part it sparkles with charm and just a dash of that classic SPN horror. The Kids Are Alright is a 4/5. 

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?