The Winchesters 1x3: Bullet Point Rambles
When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, Boris and Natasha actually get to watch The Winchesters live and create...Bullet Point Rambles <3
My heart is so warmed by the cold open before I remember that this is Supernatural The Winchesters. UGH hands emerge from a bag and snatch a little girl. NO. Just no. NOOOOOOO (Boris: I’ve been watching horror movies all month and I’m desensitized to this)
Lata nudges John to ask Mary out on a daaaate and lord, everyone’s slow on the uptake. Nice try, Lata!
Carlos’s bell bottoms ARE AMAZING
It turns out the kid (Carrie) was Mary’s neighbor and at the crime scene, John reconnects with Betty (oooOOOoo), a cop to whom he awkwardly introduces Mary to as his “friend” “a friend” um
While investigating, Mary wonders what life as a normal kid would have been like. “Being a kid who killed monsters was my only option.”
John wanted to play pro baseball as a kid. (Boris: John never once took his sons to a baseball game. Uh, except for Adam. Can’t forget Adam! John sure didn’t…)
In the Boogeyman lair, it’s a blanket fort filled with children’s toys. Not creepy at all! (Very C R E E P Y)
The girl’s brother Ford is spiraling Dean Winchester style - he was supposed to look after his sister and she got taken. He wants to go after the monster!
Mary and John set out protection charms around the house and tell him they’re part of a monster hunting club and…First rule of monster club: Nobody talks about monster club
A demon tries to get the jump on Carlos and Ada (they’re doing a stakeout) and Carlos gleefully squirts him with his holy water squirt gun. Love him.
Ada convinces Carlos to take the trapped demon “someplace quiet” - smelling some torture in the air tonight
Lata identifies the monster. Bori Baba - the Sack Man (a North Indian monster). He gives people what they were looking for and then steals them. Mary thinks it’s odd that they are encountering more monsters out of the usual North American boogie oogies
John asks if Lata can ask her parents for more lore - we learn that both her parents are dead. John. Foot. Mouth
The sack thwacks down on Ford’s porch and he leaves the protection of the house to check out the sack. The monster drags him inside.
During the commercial break, we talk about how much we’re enjoying The Winchesters. They’re doing a very good job of capturing the Supernatural monster of the week vibe, with engaging characters and humor
We lay out our bets. Boris thinks Cas or possibly all of TFW will appear on the series by episode 13. Natasha thinks we’ll only see Dean in flashbacks, but we’ll get teased with a future crossover IF ONLY WE BUY MORE EPISODES
John and Mary are back investigating. John awkwardly chats with Betty while Mary checks for Ford at his house. She finds the piece of the Bori Baba’s bag and knows what happened…
John’s SO awkward with Betty. He reminds us very strongly of young Sam. He tells her he got wrapped up with drama about this dad. (Boris hisses, “it’s been fifteen years…”)
Mary calls up John via CB radio and she tells him she’s ready to climb into Bori Baba’s sack. “I’ll kill Bori Baba, you get us outta the sack.” John races for Mary to try to stop her. (Boris: Ooo Dean gets jumping over fences from his dad)
Mary finds her dad’s hat in the sack (Indiana Jones ALWAYS saves the hat). When John gets there, she’s gone and the sack is empty
It’s demon time with Ada and Carlos. She sets the bonsai down before the demon and we learn that demons can be forced to inhabit…plants? I think Ada is playing the demon but anyway, the demon is too scared by the threat of bonsai eternity and spills the info
The Akrida leader is hiding inside a human, a woman
Ada drops a bit of blood in front of the demon and sucks him into the bonsai (DANG) New lore!
John flails at Lata and begs for a way to help Mary. “None of this works without Mary”
Down in the monster’s blanket fort, siblings flee the monster. Suddenly, limbs get hacked off! The monster falls to reveal Mary behind him with a knife and her dad’s hat. LOVE THAT SHOT
Boris is loving the monster! YOU DID IT, show!
We go back to talking about the show and what to expect. We both think a twist is coming but WHAT WHAT IS IT TELL US BUT ALSO DON’T TELL US. Natasha keeps obsessing about Dean’s conversation in Baby about John teaching him to drive in a world where he wasn’t raised as a hunter
Lata talks to someone on the phone and tells them that they can tell her MOM that she’s okay. Well well well
The bag monster leaves pieces of its sack behind and if it all gets destroyed, that’s how to kill it. But first they have to get the kids and Mary out of its lair. To escape, the kids and Mary have to willingly give up the item they thought they lost. (I’m reminded of Charlie having to let go of her mother when she was trapped by the djinn)
John and Lata decide to use a CB radio to try to reach Mary - she hears him in the air … and tracks the radio to a storage compartment. They get the low-down on how to escape
The kids are AMAZING. Carrie rips the head off her bunny and Ford breaks the charm. They immediately disappear. LOL love it. (We literally laughed out loud)
Mary tries to burn her dad’s hat but the lighter won’t work. CURSED with malfunctioning monster lighters, her whole line!
John and Mary speculate on why she can’t burn the hat. John thinks that there’s another thing holding her back. Mary worries that finding her dad means she’s done hunting and “hunting is all I have” She never dreamed she could do anything else. John talks her through it. “It’s time to start dreaming about what’s next”
Mary finally escapes. They all celebrate with hugs and joy when the monster emerges! Lata shoves it, John beheads it, and Carrie kicks it and calls it a “stupid monster”
Betty shows up to close up the police report. She gives him back A RING which is a lot to unpack for us. (Boris: What was he, like 16 when he proposed???)
Mary tells John she’s going to take the evening off of the hunt and we cheer for her. (Boris: My god why are they so cute)
Mary heads to the movie alone. Some random guy hits on Mary at the ticket window and they decide to watch a movie “alone together” -__-
In the background later, Rocket Roxy, a DJ, tells viewers that hellraisers are on their way to Lawrence. In the closing scenes, a scorpion monster from last week creeps in and grabs the bag man’s sack before it burns! It delivers the bag to the DJ. She sucks a red light from the bag into her vial. Dun dun DUN
We love that Mary wasn’t supposed to have agency in Supernatural but this show is allll about exploring that. What did Mary want to do with her life instead of hunting? This was NEVER answered in SPN and we are here for it!
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1x03 You’re Lost, Little Girl - Alternate Dimensions in Time and Space (The Winchesters)
How about this tribute to Kim Manners?
Manners was the director of the third episode of Supernatural Season One - 1x03 Dead in the Water (his directorial debut on SPN).
Looks as if it might be worth paying attention to numerological correspondences between Season One SPN and Season One of The Winchesters.
In 1x03 Sam and Dean save a child, Lucas, from an avenging spirit in the water.
In 1x03 The Winchesters, Mary, John and Lata save two children, Carrie and Ford, from a monster, the Bori Baba, which traps people with nostalgic objects:
Is that a message for SPN fans? You gotta rip the head off the bunny of your old loved object to get home?
The children’s names, Carrie and Ford, together with Mary’s nostalgic object, her Dad’s hat, really reminded me of Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford). And Carrie Fisher, of course famously played opposite Ford in Star Wars.
Mary’s Indiana Jones hat:
But Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981) are both in the future in Mary and John’s (apparent) timeline.
Is that another little hint, like the reference to Slaughterhouse 5 in SPNWin 1x01 that time is not strictly linear in The Winchesters, with reference to Universe One Supernatural?
Hello over the rainbow, another Wizard of Oz symbol? Again pointing to an AU?
And is that an Axis Mundi symbol on the door Mary runs through towards the Bori Baba’s sack? The Axis Mundi is the path that runs through Heaven in SPN 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon.
Ahhh, an old fashioned salt and smoke, baby:
But wait, Ada has trapped Slick-the-demon in an evil bonsai tree:
There’s a bit of a theme of shifting dimensions in this episode. The sack of the Bori Baba leads to its lost-property-centre alternate universe, and Lata explicitly says that it, “Can’t survive in our world”.
And here is a big ol’ demon, minaturised in a tiny tree.
Similarly the mysterious, palm-of-the-hand size Box is capable of chowing down on seemingly too large for it demons.
And in the previous episode, 1x02 Teach the Children Well, La Tunda swallowed her youthful victims into the alternate space of her lair.
Have the Akrida come to cleanse the time-line, undoing the tragic fate we know awaits John and Mary in Universe One?
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The Winchesters 1x03: You’re Lost Little Girl
Lawrence, Kansas
Big Rig Mama and Twinkle Star have a heart to heart over the CB radio about lost toys and being brave while parents are away. After signing off Twinkle Star Carrie finds a mysterious bag on her bedroom floor, and her favorite toy inside! Mystery solved. Let’s pack this episode up for the night!
Oh wait, the CREEPY FUCKING HANDS crawling out of the bag on the floor are telling me a different story!
“There’s no map to being a hunter. No playbook. You gotta follow your gut. But that can only take you so far. Truth is you can’t do it all on your own. You need other people to help guide the way. Your friends, your family, otherwise you’ll just end up lost.”
Mary Campbell’s MOTHER is now missing. This girl has officially run out of parents to lose. Also, the Parents’ Campbell are separated. Well, they must get back together before they’re both killed in a year. Fun times.
Mary is also still bummed they have no lead on her missing father. John gives her a little pep talk. And Mary confesses that the last time they talked they had a huge fight about her quitting hunting. Mary feels like she’s getting the silent treatment. Lata suggests that maybe he’s proving to her that he can do this without her. Then she suggests Mary and John go see a movie *wink, wink*.
Team Prequel checks in with Ada and her trance doodles. She informs them that the demons want the demon killing box. And it is still not working. They need to find the demon that attacked them. Ada has an address.
They’re interrupted by Carlos who has come to tell Mary cops are swarming her neighbor's house. Mary and John head out together to check it out. Ada and Carlos head out to check out the address. Lata is their Bobby and is going to hang out with the lore.
Once at Mary’s house, John runs into an old friend, Betty. They hug and Mary’s side-eye is killer. (She’s always been one to figure out the meaning behind a hug *coughseason12cough*)
Then Betty tells Mary that Ford is here and she’s supposed to watch after him. Carrie is missing.
John and Betty reconnect (well, John lies about joining a study group for the community college he isn’t in, and Betty is just happy he made it home alive.)
Meanwhile, Ford tells Mary that he saw the monster that took Carrie. He saw the bag and what grabbed her disappear into nothing.
John and Mary head to Carrie’s room to investigate. They banter a bit before John hits on a mighty important detail: Who is Mary Campbell? What does she want to do if she’s not a hunter? What did she dream about being as a kid? Mary dismisses it all because she didn’t have a normal childhood and hunting was her only option. Then they find a piece of the sack.
Meanwhile, inside the bag, the delightfully creepy monster stalks children’s toys but can’t find one well hidden Carrie.
*Exposition for the newbies Alert*
Ford’s chilling at Casa Campbell while Mary tells John about hex bags and protection. Ford asks John about “that lady cop”. John stumbles but redirects to making sure Ford is safe. Ford gets angry (at himself) because he was in charge. He was supposed to watch out for his little sister. Lolololol, Love me some parallels, show. Mary breaks the cardinal rule of hunting and tells Ford about their little monster club.
Ada and Carlos are busy staking out the address, while pirate DJ Rockin’ Roxy entertains them on the radio. Carlos wants to bust open the place but the demon finds them first! Carlos shoots him with his holy water gun (and why is it so funny?!) and then tosses him into the back of the demon trapped van.
Carlos thinks they should tell the others what they have but Ada wants to talk to him alone first.
Mary and John check in with Lata, who has identified the writing on the scrap of bag. It’s North Indian and over 1,000 years old. They’re dealing with Bori Baba, or Father Sack. Bori Baba lures people with well-loved missing items. Mary thinks there’s a connection to their latest cases to the Akrida. John reminds her they still need to find the kids. Lata doesn’t have too much more to go on, as Bori Baba was mainly an oral story passed down through the generations. Her father told her the story when she was young. John tells her to contact her parents. Mary tells John Lata’s parents died years ago. Awkward. More absent parents!
Ford hears a knock at the door and ANSWERS IT!?? Kid! Anyway, there’s a bag! SURPRISE! And the promise of finding his sister. Cue creepy hands dragging him into the bag!
Mary and John come back to an empty house. There’s a knock at the door and it’s Betty! I just have to say that John lying about the study group reminded me of Sam sooooo much. Awkward, dumb moose. Betty reminds John that they promised to talk when he got home. He tells her that some things about his dad came up but there’s no hard feelings on his end. Mary, meanwhile, finds the open door and a bit of sack left behind.
After Betty leaves, John hears Mary’s voice coming out of the CB radio in her house. Mary’s over at Ford’s house, and reports that the boy disappeared, taken by Bori Baba. She’s planning to get herself trapped by Bori Baba so she can save the kids. As John races over to stop Mary, she pictures her missing dad and pulls out his hat. Foreboding hands shadow her face and– John arrives to find nothing but a wriggling bit of sack cloth on the floor.
Cut to Bori Baba’s lair, where we open up on a Dean Winchester set design easter egg. (Yes, he IS my lost thing! This looks like Dean wearing a colander like a helmet, though some have proposed it’s a lamp.)
The blanket fort is crammed full of missing objects and blankets. Mary settles her dad’s hat on her head - SO INDIANA JONES - and heads off to save the day.
Back with Ada and Carlos, the demon seethes and taunts Ada for attempting to be a witch. She ignores him and carefully marks her bonsai tree. We learn that demons can possess non-human living things, like plants. (This firmly cements me as a whale and dinosaur!Cas truther.)
The demon panics, and talks. The box is too small, too insignificant to make a dent in the Akrida threat. However, the demon still made a deal with the Akrida to purloin the box for them. And the leader is hiding inside a human. Instead of sending the demon back to Hell where it can hobnob with others, Ada finishes her spell and sucks the demon right into…….the bonsai tree. I’ll be honest, I thought she was bluffing but I am utterly DELIGHTED to get new lore. For your homework, class, I want at least twenty fanfics of demon-possessed ancient trees on my desk by the end of the week.
Back with the A plot, John paces while Lata researches Bori Baba. She has to talk him out of hurling himself into the sack as well. “I can’t lose her,” he says VERY INTENTLY. It’s sweet but also, you know, dial it down a notch, loverboy. You and Mary are still newly acquainted. Lata thinks of one other person back home that she hasn’t tried, implying some serious burned bridges - but she’ll try if it means they can save Mary Campbell and, er, the kids.
Back in Bori Baba’s lair, the two children have found each other and are on the run, pursued through his maze. Bori Baba corners them, but (in a seriously great shot) Mary slices him apart, piece by piece. He falls, to reveal Mary with a machete, her dad’s hat, and a give ‘em hell attitude!
Mary connects with the kids (“Monster club sucks.” “Tell me about it.”). They flee as Bori Baba re-forms.
Lata makes her phone call, and we learn that her mom is NOT dead. But Lata and her mother are definitely estranged. She tells John that Bori Baba can be destroyed by burning all the sack remnants the monster leaves behind. However, first they have to free Mary and the kids, or they all go up in smoke. The good news is that everyone trapped in the sack is pinned inside by their attachment to the item they lost. If they give it up, they’ll poof back into the real world. John decides to try to use a CB radio to contact Mary, deciding that if Bori Baba had been collecting stuff for centuries, there may very well be one in his lair.
John starts calling for Mary via radio. Down below, Mary hears John’s voice. She and the kids follow it to a storage bin with a metal door, and she closes them inside to talk to John. He tells them to willingly let go of their objects to escape. Mary turns around, prepared to cajole Carrie into letting go of her stuffed rabbit. But Carrie ruthlessly rips her bunny in two, declaring, “it’s time to go home!”
Ford snaps his sister’s charm in half, and both the kids zap back into the bedroom. Mary pulls out a lighter and her dad’s hat, but it won’t burn. Bori Baba finds his way to her hideaway and tries to claw his way to her under the door. On the radio, John tries to talk Mary through a quick therapy session about her dad’s hat. He realizes that she’s hung up on what life might look like after hunting.
“Hunting is all I have. I’m not like you, John,” she realizes. “I never dreamed I could do anything else. I was raised to hunt, and if I give up hunting I don’t know who I am.” I take a tiny break from this recap to angrily hurl myself out a lighthouse window to the churning sea below. When I get back, dripping wet and worse for wear, Mary and John bond further. John tells her that letting the hat burn is a way to take her first step towards figuring out a new life post-hunting. As Bori Baba finds its way inside, Mary learns how to make the hat burn.
Back in Carrie’s bedroom, Monster Club celebrates. They’re reunited! The story’s over! Except…Bori Baba emerges while they’re celebrating.
Lata gives the monster an angry shove, and John beheads the monster swiftly. Okay, NOW it’s time to celebrate. The childrens’ mom returns home with a tearful reunion. John looks on alongside Betty, and feeds her a story about Carrie wandering off to look for a stuffed bunny.
Betty pulls out something John’s been missing - it’s an ENGAGEMENT RING. We learn that Betty was the one who put their relationship on hold. “We were too young. I was moving too fast,” John confesses. I compare this to John’s declarations to Lata about desperately needing Mary to continue his new life’s work, and I shake my head. John “Fast Moves but Not in a Good Way” Winchester promises to always be friends with Betty.
Mary stumbles her way towards thanking John for his help, but he tosses the accolades back at her. She tells John that she plans to take the night off from searching for her dad. I assume that it’s John and Mary’s first date time…but instead Mary ends up going to the theater alone.
She meets a young man there, and flirting is exchanged. They decide to watch The Omega Man together, but not TOGETHER together. (Or DO they?)
Back in the clubhouse, John and Lata decompress, when Carlos and Ada finally return. They tell them about the new Akrida intell. In the background, Rockin’ Roxy slips her smooth song introductions across the airwaves. She promises all manner of hell-raisers heading for Lawrence. While Percy Sledge’s “Spooky” plays, John starts to burn Bori Baba’s sack. He walks away for a moment (no, John, BAD), when the little scorpion monster from the previous episode scuttles in to steal the sack. The scorpion heads to an old warehouse where a redhead waits for it. She opens a flask over Bori Baba’s bag, and another red spark flows up into her vial.
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Playing Over the Quotewaves:
What did Mary Campbell want to be when she grew up? Doctor? Lawyer? Astronaut?
The first rule: monster club is a secret
You found me once, John Winchester. I have faith that you’ll do it again
Demons can possess non-human living things too. Even bonsai trees
You are a deep mystery, Ada Monroe, and honestly? I kinda dig that about you
None of this works without Mary. I need her.
Monster club sucks!
Happy endings aren’t always a part of the job, you know?
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