SUPERNATURAL: Home is Where the Car Is

Episode 11.4 :”Baby”

[photos: Diyah Pera/The CW]

I loved this episode. Loved it. The blurb said that it was done from Dean’s Impala’s perspective. Don’t worry, the car doesn’t become a talking car or get possessed or grow a little face and become alive like a Disney cartoon. It is literally from the car’s perspective. The entire story is told only from what we can see from or in the car. It must have been quite a challenge for the writers.

What makes this so entirely delightful is that some of the best moments on Supernatural are on the road, and we have been getting fewer of them since the boys now have a permanent residence. I have always been curious as to what happens in between (do they ever stop to see the world’s largest ball of twine?) and I enjoy the intimate moments that happen when you’re riding with someone and have nothing else to do but talk. And we get that in the episode — arguing, having fun, and talking about some very real stuff. But that’s not all that happens. We see why the car is so important and it is portrayed as another character (without being overly anthropomorphized). I was also right in that it was a lighter episode — at least it was lighter in the sense that we don’t see hide nor hair of the Darkness, although it is still looming in the background.

After a brief description of the car’s birth, the story opens with a slow pan over the Impala. We can see shattered glass and blood on the windows and on a knife on the floor. The knife looks like a machete, although you can’t see how long the blade is. It also shows us where Sam and Dean carved their initials into the car and what looks like LEGO bricks stuck in the air vents. Then we see Dean unconscious on the seat, handcuffed. With the abandoned cars behind them, the sound of a train going by and train whistles, I was sure that the car was on the tracks and that “Baby” was in danger as well as Dean.

Then we flash back to seeing Dean washing the Impala. Sam comes in and joins him. “Guitar Man” is playing. Dean says that he has cabin fever and has washed all the cars twice. Since he probably started on the Impala, it must be her third time around. Sam says there’s no word on Metatron or the Darkness, but he might have a case. It’s thin. Thin is good enough for them to decide to drive to Oregon. Sam also mentions that Dean is wearing shorts. Because of the height of the perspective from the Impala, we can’t see that. Drat.

The possible case is the animal mauling of a sheriff, which Dean finds out when they get on the road. Sam pulls a smoothie that is undoubtedly made out of something obnoxiously healthy out of the old looking cooler in the back and Dean asks where the beer is. Under the smoothies. Dean wants to know where the rest of the beer is. I assume that he had originally had the cooler stuffed full of beer before Sam put his smoothies in. Cas calls, says has nothing, and Sam tells him to go watch Netflix. Dean pulls up at a Roadhouse called Roadhouse. He says that time heals all wounds, especially good times (like he isn’t going to get in trouble if he goes in there). Sam goes off to a diner to dig into the lore. Daylight breaks and Dean comes back and settles into the driver’s seat, “Mistakes were made.” We will never know what those mistakes were, because we only see things from the perspective of the car and it isn’t talked about again.

A naked girl pops up from the back seat. We hear Sam’s voice from the back as well. She puts on a shirt with a name tag: Sam undoubtedly met her at the diner. Dean skedaddles from the car and she leaves, leaving a butterfly hair clip behind, and Sam climbs in the front. Dean turns “Night Moves” on to tease Sam and there’s a montage of them singing with the music, eating, etc. Dean is happy that Sam got laid. It must be a guy thing. Sam confesses that Piper, the girl from the diner, didn’t want to take his phone number. Finally they have a bit of serious conversation where Sam asks if Dean ever wanted anything more in the way of relationships, and Dean tells him that  it’s not possible.

Sam takes a nap. He is awakened, he thinks, by the song “Someday Soon”.  I had never heard it before but it seems very appropriate for this family. His father is in the driver’s seat. The young version of his father, the one that Dean met in the past. He says that they’ve taken good care of the car and the car has taken care of them. That he never wanted this life for the boys. Sam denies he is his father. The father (or figure of his father) says that he never could fool Sam, something that implies a long and easy relationship. There is a message to give Sam and it boils down to this: Darkness is coming. Well, we knew that.

Only you boys can stop it. We kinda figured that.

God helps those who helps themselves. This is the part that, while seemingly meaningless, may be the important part.

Sam really wakes up and tells Dean about his dream, and that he had a vision before. He has to spill the beans about having gotten infected and not telling Dean. Dean is not happy but doesn’t yell at him. Dean tries to convince Sam that it’s not a vision, and that they aren’t going to get any help, and will do it themselves like they always do. Then he tells Sam that he has a recurrent dream of his dad teaching him to drive, not like he really did, but like normal life. Sam says that he has the same kind of dreams about their mom. It’s a scene that is poignant and real.

Sam is not convinced, though, that there isn’t a being on their side as a counterpoint to the darkness. Sam has an essentially more hopeful and optimistic outlook than Dean. I think it’s because he’s always had Dean to take care of him. Yes, they had their father while growing up but they were often left alone and Dean took on the parental role, but had no one to take care of him.

All this has happened and we haven’t even gotten to Oregon!

When they do get to Oregon, they find that the sheriff’s heart is missing and the body is drained of blood. Dean speculates that it’s a hybrid and wants to call it a werepyre. Sam is not amused. The deputy directs them to the best steakhouse in town. It has terrible parking but it has valet service, which Dean is not thrilled with. The valet takes Baby for a spin, literally, with a friend who leaves her purse in the car. She returns the car with Dean none the wiser.

Dean heads off to the crime scene and Sam goes to interview the sheriff’s widow. The crime scene is out in the woods but the body has been moved, probably to make it look like an animal attack. Cas calls and says he’s confused because he doesn’t understand how orange could be the new black. Dean tells him to step away from the Netflix. He tries to convince Cas to call the possible monster a werepyre — Cas is also not impressed. He says it might be a whisperer. A truck pulls up behind Dean and it’s the deputy, so Dean steps out of the car and leaves Cas talking. It makes me wonder how many times Dean does that, just leaves the phone. While Cas is talking, we see Dean get jumped by the deputy. We hear gunshots and a great spray of blood comes over the passenger side window. Cas concludes that it can’t be a whisperer, because they only attack during solar eclipses. Dean returns to the phone and says the silver bullets worked but the deputy rises while he’s talking. Dean goes to the trunk and gets out a machete and hacks the deputy’s head off. It lands on the front windshield. He returns to the phone to report that beheading worked, but then the head starts growling and snarling. He reaches over and turns on the windshield wipers, tossing the head off the windshield.

He shoots the body a few more times, then takes the cooler from the back, tosses the beers out of it, dumps the melted ice on the ground and puts the still snarling head in it. What else can you do? He then takes a picture to send to Cas. Sam calls and Dean runs to get him because he’s been jumped. The machete slides onto the floor of the backseat. Sam is fine but the sheriff’s widow has been beaten unconscious. They put her in the car next to the vintage cooler with the deputy’s head in it. Cas calls and says it’s a nachzehrer, a creature that’s like a ghoul and vampire — Dean promptly names it a ghoulpyre. No one is impressed with the name.  Nachzehrers are already dead, and need the fare for the ferryman placed under their tongue. Dean and Sam don’t have any pennies, so they stop at a convenience store and Sam charms the clerk into letting him look at the pennies since he needs one minted before 1982. The blood is still on the passenger’s side window when they pull up. You’d think someone would notice.

I didn’t think it was a great idea to put the widow in the car and it wasn’t. She acts very oddly when she wakes up, including being horrified by the living head, but not horrified enough. Sure enough, she’s one of them and attacks Dean. They only beat her up because she failed to hide her husband’s body right.  We know she’s a monster but she looks normal so we see Dean get beaten up by a middle-aged soccer mom. Sam sees her drive off and runs after them. He shoots out the back window of the Impala.

The sheriff’s widow takes the head back to the scene of the crime and puts it back on the body. I don’t know if she uses superglue, or sews it on, or just places it there. We can’t see. But it works, and this is the scene at the beginning — Dean in handcuffs in the back of the car. Thank goodness it is not what I thought it was going to be.

The deputy drives off with the widow and Dean in the car. Like most villains, he tells Dean his plans and that he has laid a trap for Sam. He says he’s been turning people because he needs an army to protect himself against the Darkness. Dean finds the butterfly hair clip and uses it to unlock his cuffs. He jumps the deputy and crashes the Impala into some road construction. The deputy goes through the front windshield, taking out the front windshield. The widow is unconscious again in the back seat. Dean finds the machete and then finds the purse and looks through it for pennies. There is a terrific fight between Dean and the nachzehrer. He stuffs coins in the guys mouth and cuts his head off, using the door of the Impala. Poor baby. Dean apologizes to the car. The widow wakes up but she is herself again and worried about her kids. The car doesn’t start at first and Dean has that same look of prayer that everyone has when they desperately need their car to start. Baby starts and Dean speeds off to make sure Sam is okay.

Everyone is okay because they have all reverted back to normal after the head ghoulpyre is killed. Sam looks like Dean, like he’s been beaten to a pulp. This is a battle that they would normally have shown us, but we didn’t see it because it took place out of sight of the car. They get into the car. Dean says “Let’s go home,” and Sam says “We are home.” The car has trouble starting again, but she does, and they limp off bloody and beaten. The Impala is missing her front and back windshield, her grill is staved in and the hood won’t close. She’s covered in blood. All three of them are in the same sorry shape as they drive off.

Despite the beatings, it’s a win, though. They saved everyone except the sheriff who was killed in the beginning.

“Night Moves” is playing as they drive off but it trails off until the only sound is the engine running.

The question raised about whether there is a God who cares may never be answered. One presumes that there is a God. There are angels and demons, heaven and hell, and the angels remember God. Death has a personification and reapers take souls away. Souls are definitely real. But on Supernatural, everything that is supernatural is evil. Angels are jerks. Demons are demons. Perfectly nice people who die and refuse to go on to their heavenly rewards become evil ghosts. Cupids are fat naked men who ruin your life. Witches are evil and unsanitary. Lesser gods all feed on humans in some way. And I wish that I had never seen the episode with the unicorn.

There are individuals who may be good who are not human, but it is largely a measure of how human they become. So they may not have a definitive answer about God, or have proof that the boys have received any help from a supernatural entity. Dean may be right that they are on their own. It would be a real departure from the norm for Supernatural for the boys to receive any divine help.

Great episode. It was funny, smart, and had those little character touches that make Supernatural more than a monster of the week show. Next week they tour Lizzie Borden’s house. That should be fun.

Supernatural airs on the CW on Wed. 9PM/8 Central.