Supernatural Review: Season 4 Episode 13 "After School Special"

By: Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin

**Spoilers**

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

           Now THIS is how you do flashbacks! Take note, Season 8! Also a bit of Weechesters never goes amiss, especially in the dark days of Season 4. It is nice to take a look back to whenever Sam and Dean were still young and innocent. Well. More innocent than they are now, that is.

        I got really excited whenever the recap for this episode showed clip after clip of Sam and Dean have dropped over the years about their childhood and even a few of John. I figured it meant John was coming back as a cameo, but I wasn't disappointed whenever he didn't. Don't get me wrong, I like John as a character, but no one can deny that any episode he is in ends up being a bit of a downer. Baby Sam and Dean, though? Yeah. That's always a plus. Even if it is rather sad in a nostalgic kind of way. I love the way this show has carefully fleshed out the main characters just enough to make us fall in love with them all over again but not so much that we know everything there is to know. There's still things about Sam and Dean to figure out. It was fun to see Sam and Dean go back to the school they had attended as kids too. Episodes where they meet someone from their past are always interesting not only because they help to make the sometimes-claustrophobic world of the Winchesters to feel larger and more realistic but because it gives us that valuable Outsider POV of the boys that helps to showcase them in a new light and keep things fresh. It was great that we got to meet the teacher who first gave Sam the idea of going to college. It was wonderful that we got to see Dean be the big brother again. It was just a lovely breather in all the issues they have been having recently to remind us that yes, they are still brothers who will do anything for each other. 

Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- This episode starts out feeling eerily reminiscent of Mean Girls. I know a lot of teen highschool movies have this sort of teasing scene, but it REALLY reminded me of Mean Girls. I wonder if that was intentional...

- The supernatural swirly of death, though. Not sure if I should be laughing...

- Naturally such an unusual death catches the eye of Sam and Dean, hunters extraordinaire, and they set out to investigate...starting by sending Sam in to the mental institute to interview the girl who administered the swirly. She claims she was possessed, but didn't smell any sulfur or see any black smoke. Clearly this is not a run-of-the-mill trap-and-exorcise case. (Is it bad that we have those?)

- "All right, well, what's our cover? FBI? Homeland Security? Swedish exchange students?"  Funny thing...whenever Dean was asking Sam about their cover for being in the school, I thought he said 'sweetest' instead of 'Swedish'. I think I kind of like the line my way better...

- And with that we get the transition into our first flashback. We know it's a flashback because the Kansas plates are back on the Impala.

- The use of Foreigner in this episode really helps to set the scene and get us all hyped up and ready for what is to come. In fact, it even earned a place on my list of best SPN music moments.

- So apparently Sam didn't get his growth spurt until at least after freshman year of high school because here he is RADICALLY shorter than Dean. We also can assume that shortly after this Dean dropped out, since we know he didn't finish his senior year.

- Very similar answer, but delivered in very different ways.

- Young Dean calls his teacher sugar and didn't bother with any books because they're only going to be there for two weeks. Somehow I get the awful feeling that he didn't drop out because of John (or at least not totally because of him). I get the feeling that he was counselled out...maybe by a lousy guidance councillor or something. Which is a shame because Dean is every bit as smart as Sam. He's rebuilt the Impala from scratch, made an EMF detector out of a Walkman, and seems to have a near photographic memory for sigils. He could have done well.

- Sam, on the other hand, starts his first day at the new school off by standing up for the class nerd and dog-to-be-kicked, Barry rather than smart-mouthing teachers and eyeing up cheerleaders.

- "Okay, now, I want three pages of your most memorable family experience. Just a reminder though, this is going to be worth half your final grade…" I really like Mr. Wyatt. He's very much like the mentor English teacher Mr. Symes from The Outsiders who more or less takes Ponyboy under his wing for a while. See? Parallels everywhere! 

- After that we segue back to grown up Sam and Dean as they investigate the school. Sam is skulking about, dressed as a janitor (I'm surprised his old costume still fit him...or did he steal a new one?) while Dean is hiding in plain sight dressed as...well...it has to be seen to be believed.

- Oh my gosh the shorts. The very red, VERY FITTING shorts! And the headband! And the socks! And the whistle! HAHAHA! Oh this is just priceless! There are numerous counts of Jared recounting how this is his favorite costume of Dean's because it's just so embarrassing. Apparently he had a hard time interacting with Jensen while filming because he really wanted to crack up and just laugh. And it's not hard to see why. Aside from the fact that Dean is a terrible P.E. teacher...THE SHORTS! It's only made funnier by the fact that, back in Season 1, he swore up one side and down the other that he didn't wear shorts. That they weren't his thing. And yet here he is in a pair of cherry red, tight shorts with striped knee socks. Excuse me while I go laugh some more...

- "Today, you will have the honor of playing one of the greatest games ever invented. A game of skill, agility, cunning. A game with one simple rule... dodge." *throws the dodgeball hard as he can...kid doesn't dodge* 

- Ewww. WHY did they have to do the hand in the blender? That's one of my No Zones when it comes to this sort of thing. I'm a violinist. I treasure my hands. Just...EWWWW!

- It makes me laugh that, even at 18, Dean was already addicted to bad horror films and Magic Fingers. Guess growing up in hotels will do that to you.

- Can I just rant and rave (again) about how wonderful the casting director is? At how wonderful these young actors are? I am COMPLETELY convinced that Colin Ford and Brock Kelley are the younger versions of Sam and Dean. They look the part and they do an amazing job of mimicking all of the ticks and quirks that Jensen and Jared have incorporated into their characters over the years. Colin played Sam before, back in A Very Supernatural Christmas, but this is Brock's first time in his role. And they both hit it out of the park, as it's said.

- It's very sweet (in a very Winchestery way) that Dean, after hearing what Dirk did to Sam, threatens to rip his lungs out only to have the same threat repeated in modern days by older Dean about the ghost whenever it possesses some girl and has her kick Sam in the family jewels before stabbing him in the stomach. Yeah. He hasn't changed a bit, not really. Despite John dying, despite Hell, despite all of the other crap that has been flung at him, Dean is still an overprotective big brother at heart (What d'you think keeps getting him in trouble?) ready to rip the lungs out of whoever dares to mess with his kid. We needed a reminder of that.

- I rather think Sam needed a reminder too. Things have been so tense between him and Dean during this season.

- In the flashback you'll find it is interesting that Dean reminds Sam he could have torn Dirk apart easily enough. These aren't kids just drifting from school to school and being outcasts and picked on and everything else. They let it happen because they could very well accidentally kill someone. We know that John has been training them both for years (helped by Bobby and occasionally Pastor Jim) and so they have more knowledge about Latin and hand-to-hand combat stored away in their heads than you could believe. It's the old adage about great power and great responsibility. Sam doesn't want to use his hunter skills because he knows he could hurt someone and he doesn't want to be seen as a freak. Guess those feelings went back pretty far, huh.

- It's almost a tearjerker whenever Sam has to burn Barry's bones because they think he's the restless spirit. Salt-and-burns are pretty much par for the course when you're a hunter (they're the kind of jobs you look forward to as 'easy', actually) but usually you're not having to burn a former friend because you think they've gone all wrong.

- I find it hilarious that Dean and Sam have apparently had the same haircuts their entire lives. Sam's, though, just keeps evolving into something longer with every season. Is it in his contract not to cut it or something?

- It is also very childishly satisfying to see Sam finally lose it and beat the snot out of Dirk because he just wouldn't leave Barry alone.

- One thing I would very much like to know, though, is why on earth Sam wrote the nonfiction paper about his family hunting a werewolf. He knows that the family secret is (at the risk of invoking Winchester Logic) a secret. So what was up with that? Did he and Dean spend too much time messing around at home so he didn't have time to properly write up a fake one that sounded genuine? Sure we think that Sam always was a bit more worried about school than Dean was, but I just wonder.

- "Well... I don't want to overstep my bounds here, but... you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Look, I mean, I know what it's like. I come from a family of surgeons, and that wasn't me. So, you know, I traded in the money and prestige of being a doctor for all the glamour you see around you. But the point is... there may be three or four big choices that shape someone's whole life, and you need to be the one that makes them, not anyone else. You seem like a great kid, Sam. Just live the life you want to live." Thank you, Mr. Wyatt. Life advice to live by!

- The scene where Sam and Dean investigate the possibly haunted school bus is just precious.

- Not only are they professional hunters, but they're the freakin' Winchesters. John was pretty well known in the Hunter community and we KNOW that rumors of his boys have gotten around (especially with Dean's death and subsequent resurrection) and you just have to wonder how they ever became such legends whenever they're such unprofessional loons.

- Long story short, it was actually Dirk who was the angry spirit. He too had committed suicide in the years since Sam had known him and, unlike Barry, had stayed behind angry and vengeful.

- Now I have to say that Dirk's story is the weak point of this episode. It's a typical 'don't judge a book by its over' and 'bullies have issues too' tale that we hear in any old PSA or morality tale. (Maybe that's the point...this episode is called 'After School Special' after all and that name has to be something aside impossible to make a polite acronym out of.)

- It is Jared Padalecki's performance, though, that really sells the whole thing. Whenever Sam hears that it was the nickname 'Dirk the jerk' that he carelessly coined in a moment of annoyance that pushed Dirk over the edge, you can just see the guilt literally well up in his eyes. Sure maybe Dirk was annoying and awful and a bully...but he didn't deserve to be driven to that. It's a moment that could have been so corny and unbearable, but Jared makes it work.

- And of course Dirk possesses a big, heavy, quarterback to beat the crap out of Sam while Dean searches for the right thing to burn to send him into the bright hereafter. Poetic justice? Yeah. Awesome scene when the scrap of hair burns? YEAH! Funny joke from Dean? Of course.

            It's always a lot of fun to get a peek back into the mysterious childhood of Sam and Dean and it's fun that the show now can say it's had its Highschool AU episode. There were a lot of great characters here. Barry and Dirk were a bit stereotypical, but worked well. Young Sam and Dean were awesome, as usual. And Mr. Wyatt was just wonderful. He's that teacher that everyone hopes to get and the scene where he asks the now adult Sam if he's happy will bring a wistful tear to the driest of eyes. After School Special is a 4/5.



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