Supernatural Review: Season 2 Episode 1 "In My Time Of Dying"

By: Eric Kripke

**Spoilers**

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

       "Why, John, you're a sentimentalist. If only your boys knew how much their daddy loved them." 

         

I was not prepared for this, really I wasn't. John's dead? John Winchester is DEAD?! WHAT? WHAT KIND OF A SEASON OPENER IS THAT????

After so much of last season was spent with Sam and Dean searching for their father, this episode could have really felt like a cheat and a let-down. We just found Daddy Winchester and now he's gone? What a scam! It could have been very disappointing. However, due to a clever piece of writing that sets Dean as an audience avatar and a disembodied spirit, the episode was both interesting and touching.

Tessa the Reaper was also quite interesting. I like that they're bringing back the Reapers from Faith and incorporating them into the recurring mythology of the show. The fact that at first she masqueraded as a fellow out-of-body patient in order to gain Dean's trust was interesting and certainly the scene where she is possessed (How does that even work if she's a spirit too?) and we see her yellow eyes was just chilling.

I really liked both Dean and then later Sam saying that all they have to do is "...find some witch doctor and lay some hoodoo on me/him" in order to cure Dean. Turns out, in the end, the Winchesters did have to resort to magic in order to save Dean from the Reaper sent to collect him...except it was John who ended up summoning the YED and trading his soul for Dean's. 

There actually wasn't a whole lot of action that happened in this episode. It really was just a whole lot of Sam and John looking sad/arguing and then Dean wandering around the halls, trying to figure out what was going on. I did like the scene where Dean and Sam talk through the board, but the rest of it has the family very much separated. John even goes off on his own little side quest where he summons the YED and demands that the demon cures Dean.

Of course, the feels really ramp up right at the end of the episode. Dean is mysteriously cured and he and Sam reunite happily, but then John returns and sends Sam off for some coffee so he can have some words with Dean. He whispers something in Dean's ear, tells him that he's so proud, and then leaves. We find out, mere moments later, that this was his last words to Dean because Sam, returning with the coffee, finds his father sprawled out on the floor. Dead.

5/5