Daddy's Blunt Little Instrument: Supernatural - Dream a Little Dream

Previously on Supernatural: Dean and Sam had bad stuff happen to them. Constantly. Without end. Frankly, hell is going to be a letdown for Dean.

Tonight's fun and games begin with Bobby asleep in a hotel bed. Quite a chintzy and decidedly atypical-for-Supernatural hotel room. Well, he's not so much asleep as in a coma, but whatever. Meanwhile, we see flashbacks of him in a violent and extremely loud fight with a woman. Back in the hotel, the chambermaid frantically shakes him and shouts desperately at him to wake up. When I worked in a hotel, my friend walked in on a dead guy, took one look and ran straight out again, screaming blue murder and scaring us all half to death. Point is, I think that's a more likely reaction.

Crappy new credits. Meh. Sam's getting drunk in a bar which bears a resemblence to Ellen's roadhouse, but isn't, God damn it. Anyway, Sam informs Dean that he's getting drunk at 2 in the afternoon and picking up girls, although Dean points out a) Sam doesn't drink whiskey b) there aren't any girls. Sam, deciding that any time is a good time to throw Dean's impending doom into the conversation, bleats: "I tried. I tried to save you." Dean looks sad and sits down. Yeah. Poor wickle Sammy. Oh, wait. He's the one that isn't facing hellfire, isn't he? Dean orders whiskey and tells Sam he's drunk, as Sam declares he's "beginning to think no one can save you." Like, NICE one little brother. God! Dean accepts that this is true, rather than ramming his fist down Sam's throat. Sam, looking victimised and bitchy, says "you don't want to be saved. How can you care so little about yourself? What's wrong with you?" Dean finally looks fucked off by this last bit, and Dean, HIT HIM NOW. Except he doesn't, because his phone rings.

Dean and Sam stand by Bobby's bedside looking annoyed that this scene isn't about their personal pain. The doctor says he's "perfectly healthy" apart from the coma thing. "We don't know what's causing it, so we don't know how to treat it. He's just going to sleep, and then wake up." Sounds exactly like NHS Direct advice to me.

At Bobby's unlikely hotel room, Sam's wondering what he's doing in Pittsburgh apart from having "a really lame vacation." Uh - cheap shot, guys. But, okay. Dean's staggered there isn't even "a pizza box or beer can" in the room, much less signs of research. Except it's in the cupboard. Dean's impressed by this, I just can't work out why the boys aren't as careful. Also, Dean? There's such a thing as a wastepaper basket. They find an obit of a neurosurgeon who had what Bobby had. Sam sticks around to examine the research, Dean heads off to find out more about Doctor Death.

The Doc's lab assistant chinwags to Detective Dean, and sends him packing. Dean threatens to make it "official", and the assistant spills about the doc's sleep experiments. She gives him the research, and he motors off to find one of the participants, a spacedout young man. Said young man can't dream. The doc gives him yellow tea, which makes him have a "super intense" dream. He dropped out. "It kind of scared me."

Back in the hospital room, Sam introduces Dean to dreamroot, an African thing that you eat, along with someone's DNA, and then "if you believe the legends, it's used for dreamwalking, entering someone else's dreams, messing about in their heads..." Dean: "I take it we believe the legends?" Sam: "When don't we?" When it's angels and unicorns, I think you'll find. With enough of it, you become "a regular Freddy Krueger," able to kill people in their dreams. Sounds awesome. Is it available on eBay? Poor Bobby's having a humdinger of a nightmare being chased by this crazy woman, as they wonder about suspects. As Sam laments their inability to talk to Bobby about their problems, Dean decides to do just that, via "tripping on some dreamroot." Sam bitches that they don't know what's in there, and they don't have any dreamroot. But hey, Bela will have it. Oh goody, goody gumdrops. Bela.

In Bobby's Unlikely Hotel Room, Bela turns up to Sam's non-delight. She's wearing a mac, and says she turned up for Sam. She reveals a negligee beneath said mac and gives Sam a smacker. Is this's Sam's nightmare, Bela's, or mine? They go to it. This is definately my nightmare. But it's Sam's dream, as Dean wakes him up. Ew, please no love interest. "You were making some serious happy noises." He asks who Sam was dreaming about. "Angelina Jolie? Brad Pitt?" Heh. Anyway, Dean says Bela won't help them. Yay!

Boo! Bela shows, and Sam's brilliantly sheepish. Hee. She says she's doing it for Bobby . "I screwed up and he saved me, okay?" She demands. She then invites herself along for the trip, Dean says no, Bela leaves. "Nice s-s-seeing you," stammers Sam. Okay, Sam's making up for a bad start. Dean cottons on, and looks freaked. I don't like her, Dean, but even I'll admit she's hot.
Dean and Sam brew up African dreamroot and Bobby's hair. Nice. Or not, judging by their expressions. Sam: "when did it start raining?" Dean: "when did it start raining upwards?" isn't that from somewhere? Anyway, they end up in Bobby's house, only tidier. Man, I dream of a tidy house, too. Sam goes outside to look for Bobby. The door slams shut behind him and he's now cut off from Dean. Have these guys ever SEEN an episode of Supernatural before? Or The X-Files? Dean can't hear Sam's yells inside. He finally comes across a very freaked Bobby. Bobby knows nothing about dreamroot, Dean explains it's all a dream. But a very real, yet very ghostly, blood splattered woman is approaching: "it's my wife," explains Bobby.

She's pissed off because Bobby repeatedly stabbed her to death. Like, fair play, really. "How could you?" She asks. Quite simple: "You were possessed baby, you were rabid." Niice. Anyway, Bobby explains he didn't know what to do then. "If you'd loved me, you would have found a way!" she screams. Man. What a guilt trip.

Meanwhile, Sam is outside, in an Ariel commercial, or at least so it appears from the floating white linen on the washing line. This sylvian mood is abruptly broken by Dreamless Young Man taking a baseball bat to him. I have to say, Sam kind of deserves it. Dreamless Young Man insists that Bobby was hunting him down. Sam believes this may be to do with Dreamless Young Man's homicidal tendencies. Dreamless Young Man is unfazed. "Here you're an insect. I'm a god," he says. Sam's all, whatever - have you SEEN my face?

Back in the house, Mrs Bobby is doing a Jack Nicholson-Shining style on the door, behind which Dean is proclaiming to Bobby that "your house, your wife, is a nightmare!" No one spares feelings in this episode. Dean keeps on with the episode recap, but Bobby's still mooning over the murdered wife thing, and tells Dean to leave him alone so he can be murdered too. Or something. Jesus, this show is a bundle of fun. Dean grabs hold of him, voice breaking, "I'm not going to let you die! You're like a father to me!" Dude. Issues! "I'm dreaming?" enquires Bobby. Me and Dean: "YES!"

The wife stops screaming. As Dean and Bobby stick their noses out, and she's gone. Bobby can't believe it. Dean's all, would you wake up? Outside, Dreamless Young Man goes to hit Sam again. Sam, Dean and Bobby wake up. The end. Or not.

In the hospital, Dean begins fishing for the deal with Bobby's wife. Jensen Ackles looks really, really pale in this episode. I know everyone always looks washed out on this show, but seriously. Boy needs to eat his vegetables. "Everybody gets into hunting somehow," sighs Bobby. Did it have to be in the same way as John, though? How about variety? Bobby thanks Dean for saving him.

Sam appears, and says Deamless Young Man's skipped off. Turns out Dreamless Young Man is a genius, whose father used to beat him with a baseball bat. He died when DYM was a kid. Is anyone else reminded of that Buffy episode where everyone has to live their nightmares because a kid was beaten to a coma by his baseball coach? Just wondering.

Anyway, DYM got Bobby's DNA - and therefore into his head- because he offered him a drink and Bobby accepted. "Dumbest thing," sighs Bobby. Dean: "Not that dumb." Sam: "Dean, you didn't!" Me: "I didn't even mention that Dean drank with DYM in their first scene together, because I am as stupid as Dean." "That's great!" snaps Sam, "Now he can come after either one of you!" God, Sam, sorry if that's an inconvenience for you.

They decide they have to hunt him down, and can't sleep until they do. Two days later, Dean's getting mad. Sam wonders if he should be driving. Really, cram it, tragedy magnet. Bobby rings to check in, the last lead (a strip club) has been exhausted. Dean: "Goddamn it Bobby!" Bobby, drawling: "Don't yell at me, boy! I'm working my ass off here." Hah! Dean apologises. Bela is with Bobby, she doesn't have anything. "I'm just going to blow my brains out now!" bitches Dean, and hangs up. Brat.

Bobby asks Bela why she's helping him. Bela reminds him of Flagstaff. What the fuck ever.

Dean pulls the Impala up in one of those quintessential dark, treelined roads once frequented by Mulder and Scully, now the natural habitat of the Winchester brothers. Is there just the one just outside of Vancouver? Dean decides to take a nap and take on DYM in his head. Sam snatches some of his hair. Dean objects to Sam entering his head. I wouldn't like it, and I don't have half the shit that Dean has. I think Jensen Ackles probably had a cold - he's still pale here, but his nose is redder. Anyway, they go to sleep.

And wake up in the Impala. They take a wander in the woods, where a creepy version of "Dream A Little Dream" is playing. They come across that girl who Dean thought he may have knocked up 9 years ago to produce proto-Dean. She greets him, in that glassy-eyed way the unreal have on TV, and reminds him about proto-Dean's football practice while laying out a picnic. "I've never had this dream before," Dean completely unconvincingly tells Sam. I begin to sniffle. Sam begins to walk towards him, probably as moved as I am. "Stop looking at me like that," says Dean, without looking at him. "Sorry," says Sam sincerely. I sniffle some more. Whatever you say against those two, they do make very good brothers.

"Dean." Says the girl, "I love you." She says it in this completely vacant way, like Dean has never heard a girl say it to him before. Dean's heart breaks in two, and though you can't see his face, Sam's does too. Anyway, the girl vanishes. That's how we do romance on Supernatural, kids! They see DYM lurking in the woods, and chase him, but get seperated. Oh, boys.

Dean's suddenly in a house. He finds...another Dean! Woohoo! And this one isn't homicidal! I love that the show keeps replicating Dean in a Battlestar-Galactica-stylee manner. Anyway DeanTwo has got a face on. This scene forcefully reminded me of Dark Angel, it's something about the lighting, camera angles and Jensen Ackles evil face. The conversation between the Deans takes place entirely in head shots, which is jarring and quite a strain on the Ackles' acting, but he shapes up okay.

"Aren't you a handsome son of a gun," observes DeanTwo. Like, yeah. Why do you think I watch this? "I get it. I'm my own worst nightmare," self-pities RealDean. He blathers something about Superman 3, of which, I'm relieved to say, I am completely ignorant. "Talk all you want, smartass," says DeanTwo. "I know how dead you are inside." Good heavens. We ALL know that. Sam "All About Me" Winchester even knows that. "How worthless you feel. I know how you look into a mirror and hate what you see." He's the only one. "You're not real," says RealDean. DeanTwo's like, sure I am. I'm like, WHATEVER. RealDean tries snapping his fingers to make DeanTwo go, but "I'm not going anywhere." Okay, really, we know Dean is full of self-loathing. Is this really necessary? DeanTwo produces a gun.

Here's where I'm confused. Sam wakes up in the Impala, but it's DYM next to him, not Dean. DYM whacks Sam again. I applaud the sentiment, so will carry on despite my confuzzlement. "You're a psycho!" Sam correctly identifies. DYM explains the doc got him hooked on the root, and took it away. "Do you know what it's like not to dream?" asks DYM and funnily enough, I do, because I have never in all my life remembered any dream whatsoever. So I have little sympathy for going bonkers over it, sorry, DYM. I'm perfectly sane. I think. I certianly don't take baseball bats to people on a regular basis. DYM just wants to be left alone to dream, and manages pins Sam to the ground with honking great camping pegs while standing above him with a bat. Damn it, Demon Prince, what the fuck?! DYM explains he's getting stronger, but the Winchesters aren't going to wake up. Kid, they live a nightmare anyway. It's really not going to make much difference.

Elsewhere, DeanTwo is blathering on about RealDean not being bothered about dying. "It's not really a life worth saving, is it?" ponders DeanTwo. Is DeanTwo a fanfic writer? He's lust for torturing Dean certainly suggests he may be. "You've got nothing outside of Sam. You are nothing. You are as mindless and obedient as an attack dog." But here's the killer. RealDean juts out his jaw and assumes an agonising, almost maternal, upbeat: "That's not true." It's exactly the tone a mother uses to a pained child, except Dean's using it to himself. Tears in my eyes, and no joke. Seriously, nice one, Jensen Ackles. "Your car, that's dad's. Your favourite leather jacket? Dad's. Your music? Dad's. Do you even have an original thought?" Ouch ouch ouch. Dean's issues just stopped being a subject of mockery for me, right there. RealDean is actually rendered speechless and tries to laugh it off, but can't make a sound. Dean! Dude!

DeanTwo says all that's left his John's voice telling him to look after Sam. He says that all John did was train up Dean, but Sam he loved. RealDean's struggling here. "Dad knew who you were," mused DeanTwo, "a good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. Your own father didn't care if you lived or died. Why should you?" RealDean finally snaps and throws him to a wall.

Just a break to say that that last line really didn't work for me. Didn't the whole going to hell thing sort out that John did care whether Dean died?

"My father was an obsessed bastard!" Smack! "All that crap he dumped on me about protecting Sam! That was his crap! He was the one who couldn't protect his family!" Thump! "He was the one who let Mom die! Who wasn't there for Sam...I don't deserve what he put on me! And I don't deserve to go to hell!" Bang! Dean's shot his other self. Thank God.

Sam's still being beaten by the baseball stick. I think it isn't DeanTwo whose the fanfic writer, I think it's the scriptwriter.

As RealDean examines DeanTwo, DeanTwo suddenly snaps forward with the black demon eyes. It's actually quite shocking. "This is what you'll become!" he yells. Nooo!

Sam and DYM are confusing me by both being in each other's head at once. Or maybe it's that Sam's in Dean's head, and so is DYM, but Sam is also in DYM's head? Whatever. Sam conjures up DYM's baseball wielding father. Amusingly, for a second I thought it was John Winchester. Bad fathers all look alike to me. Sam beats up DYM, Dean beats up DemonDean; both awake in the Impala. Jensen Ackles really looks dog rough. Poor guy.

Back in the hotel, Bobby wonders if Sam managed to conjure up the dad by his psychic abilities. Sam doesn't think so. I don't care particularly. Bobby dismisses the thing in Flagstaff with Bela as nothing. Interesting. Dean's looking for Bela, and Bobby advises checking their pockets. "Not literally," he growls in despair as they do just that. The boys instead check thier safe, to find that their beloved Colt has gone. I love how they carefully articulate "Colt" to prevent mishearings. "We're going to hunt the bitch down!" announces Dean. Must you? Couldn't you go and find Ruby and steal her dagger instead? It works much better than the Colt, and Ruby seems to actually have some narrative point.

In the car, Dean wonders what Sam saw in Dean's head. Nothing. Sam asks what Dean saw. "Nothing," lies Dean. And then we go into an exchange which sums up why I adore this programme. The tone is completely casual throughout, understated, offhand:
Dean: I've been doing some thinking and...the thing is, I don't want to die. I don't want to go to hell.
Sam: All right, yeah. We'll find a way to save you.
Dean: Okay, good.

I love this show.

We end with a quick flash of DemonDean and RealDean clicking his fingers with a sexy smile. I'm wondering if DemonDean may become a fixture. After all, if Ruby can retain some humanity, why not Dean? It'd be like Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, only cool.

Nice one, Supernatural. I liked.