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Sam and Dean lacking personal space in every episode - 3/327

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Favorite Shots Per Episode ✩ 1.03 Dead in the Water (1/2)

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spn20rewatch, 1.03: "Kids are strong. You'd be surprised what they can deal with."

The kid in question in this episode is little Lucas, mute after a trauma, and the episode features scene after scene of adults watching him, searching for whatever can be found in his downturned little face. Whatever he saw when his dad drowned holds the key to the case this week, but as we watch the characters watching him we learn a lot that's more interesting than details of who drowned who and why.

The Winchesters got launched into their protagonist life from a place a lot like Lucas's -- something happened to their mother, and then twenty-two years passed in which things were very much Not all right. We find out in this episode that Dean had a period much like Lucas where he didn't want to talk, and in one of the many scenes of watching we see that Sam also clearly finds that out for the first time here. Dean carefully deals with Lucas in a gently brash cool older guy way -- he's been watching, and he can tell that Lucas is very much not okay, and while we watch Dean watch Lucas we can glean a lot from how Dean clearly deals with the victimized and, maybe, how he wishes he'd been treated. (Sam later says, Who are you and what have you done with my brother?, which is another interesting moment of tell/show confusion; we're told that Dean's clumsy with kids, and then shown the exact opposite.) Learning Dean's feelings about how he dealt with Mary's death are tender, bruise-soft, and while everyone carefully watches each other in the quiet you think -- how could they ever be okay.

And yet -- kids are strong, and it is genuinely surprising what they can deal with. Sam and Dean's mother burned on a ceiling and they had years of terror and trauma and warrior training and they should be husks of PTSD and barely functional... but they're not. Dean can be an absolute dork coming onto a young hot mother, and make jokes about his geeky younger brother, and sensitively deal with a traumatized kid, and he's fine. Sam can tamp down his revenge impulses in order to help others, and needle his big brother for failing with a girl, and confidently and competently handle a job, and he's fine. They have gone through traumas and they have been victims, but they're strong, and they have each other, and they got through those traumas and they'll get through more.

DEAN: All right, if you're gonna be talking now, this is a very important phrase, so I want you to repeat it one more time. LUCAS: Zeppelin rules! DEAN: That's right. Up high. DEAN holds his hand up for a high-five. LUCAS obliges, grinning.

There's a lot that they should never have had to deal with. But -- they're okay, at their cores. When you hear the bare facts of what they've gone through you could imagine a kid just like Lucas, white-faced and mute and completely cut off from the world. But -- Lucas gets better, and so did Sam and Dean. Through the whole show, they'll go through horrors, and much, much worse than what's in this episode, and yet they somehow, every time, regain a balance and strength, pulling themselves upright and turning back to the light and standing tall. The kids are strong and it is amazing what they can deal with. And Zeppelin does rule.

#spn #spn20 #spn20rewatch #spn meta #spn 1.03

Rewatched 1x03 Dead in the Water (this is a really long one, so I added a "read more" break)

This episode 100% gobsmacked me in the face with Jensen's beauty all the way through. It's unreal, shocking. There's a simple mystery story, but the real mystery is how anyone can have a normal conversation with that face in the room? Thank you, Kim Manners.

Thank you also for the bleak mood of the story. Several unsolved deaths and a failing dam; the townsfolk seem puzzled and depressed in their dreary surroundings. It has the aura of a deteriorating Rust Belt town already mourning its impending doom.

Sam is impatient to follow the (nonexistent?) trail to Dad. Dean has to persuade Sam to do the monster of the week as this town is vaguely "along the way." Silly excuses for a MOTW aside, I do like that character-wise, pretty consistently throughout the series, Dean is a "trust the process" guy. When he's at a loss, he'll revert to the familiar steps of the hunt till there's another lead or inspiration hits. Very workman-like. (By season 7 it morphs into a more existential "fake it till you make it" survival strategy.)

We move on to them hitting the road in the gleaming Impala. Flirty Dean at the diner becomes flirty Dean at the sheriff's office. Andrea isn't buying what he's selling, and we get a little light comedy. Sam's "Name three children that you even know" is a nice bit of misdirection to imply Dean has no connection to kids. We and Sam are about to learn differently.

Sam's research uncovers that Lucas witnessed his Dad's death, setting up a parallel to Dean's loss of Mary. Dean's attention gravitates to Lucas, and his empathy opens a window for us into Dean's own childhood trauma. When Lucas gives Dean a drawing, I feel like Andrea's look of surprise towards Dean mirrors our own. Maybe there's more to him than that brash beauty.

There's a hint that Lucas has premonitions -- I love that they're laying the groundwork for premonitions, soon to be significant for Sam -- and can give them clues through his drawings. Dean's confession about being scared and thinking his Mom would want him to be brave is delivered with honesty, almost matter-of-fact. It's all the more poignant. I think it easily taps into how we all remember the loneliness of childhood sadness as well as the instinctive desire at that age to make our parents proud. This time instead of Andrea we get to see Sam register surprise at this reveal from Dean.

Giant Sam is able to pull nude Andrea from the haunted bath. I'm a bit distracted by the technical need to not reveal too much of her body, and I can't help but worry about actresses being put into those circumstances during filming. More memorable is Dean saving Lucas because of that emotional connection between them. I love the physicality that J2 imbue into the action, especially when they're clearly doing their own stunts.

The first two episodes seemed to be pulling Sam into a reckoning with his past, and while he's not the emotional center of this episode, he's our proxy. Sam is seeing his brother in a new light. It's the same when you're a young adult, re-examining your childhood memories and finding a new perspective on and context for things you long took for granted to be true.

The two brothers together pulling a dead child's buried bicycle from its grave is a chilling visual on loss of innocence, and a fitting metaphor for how their work is unburying their own past along their way to rediscover Dad, their family. And the message here is that the violence didn't stay dead and buried; it needed to be acknowledged and reckoned with to stop the cycle. Psychologically satisfying.

Some echoes from the previous episodes: bathtub danger, creepy ghost kids, bereft and fatally flawed parents, a grateful pretty woman giving Dean a farewell kiss, a rock song sendoff. Toy green army men are connected to Dean's childhood. It was fun to see Amy Acker, as I really enjoyed her in Angel.

I love the melancholy of this episode. The filming is intimate and assured, full of dark rooms, quiet conversations, and grief. Noir shadows highlight Dean's stunning face, which I continue to gif in attempts to hold onto that wonder a few seconds longer. I love all the groundwork this episode lays for the mytharc while being a satisfying standalone ep. Jensen's acting with Lucas, and Jared and Amy's reactions to Dean bring an unexpected, deeper dimension to Dean. The story has begun to roll on the Getting-to-Know-Dean track, and I'm always ready to hop on this ride.