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Edvard's Supernatural Guide: 2x05 Simon Said

Spoilers up to SPN 5x05 Fallen Idols

Supernatural’s 27th episode is the first episode by Ben Edlund, a favourite among fans of the show for his unusual, quirky concepts, his peculiar yet usually-fantastic execution, and for being one of the biggest pushers of bi!Dean and DeanCas,

Edlund was a producer on both Firefly and for the last year and a half of Angel, making him one of several connections between Supernatural and Joss Whedon’s work. Another connection is the actor Ridge Canipe who played poco!Dean in 1x18 Something Wicked and 3x08 A Very Supernatural Christmas. He also played Doomed Teaser Child in Angel 5x14 Smile Time which was written by Ben Edlund.

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Speaking of Firefly, Jensen was cast as one of the leads for the 2003 show Still Life of which only an unaired pilot was made. Starring with him was Morena Baccarin as his dead brother’s ex-girlfriend and his apparent love interest. Morena Baccarin, as I am sure you know, played Inara in Firefly and Serenity.

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Quite a few fan-favourite episodes were written by Edlund, including 2x18 Hollywood Babylon, 3x03 Bad Day at Black Rock, 3x13 Ghostfacers, 4x05 Monster Movie, 4x08 Wishful Thinking, 4x16 On the Head of a Pin, 5x04 The End, and 6x20 The Man Who Would be King. However, in spite of Edlund’s reputation among the fans, his first episode of Supernatural is far from being a stand-out. It hurries the plot along, lets us conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Sam’s visions have something to do with Azazel (Yellow-Eyed Demon), and foreshadow the possible end to Dean and Sam’s story, but it does not do any of it in a way which personally entertains or interests me. Edlund’s next offering, 2x11 Nightshifter, leaves me similarly cool.

One thing which series two does better than series one is plot: more happens in series two which is relevant than in series one. The set-up for this began already in episode 2x01 In My Time of Dying, with John telling Dean he might have to kill Sam (though this is not revealed to the viewer straightaway), but the main plot of series two is the psychic children and Sam’s psychic abilities. Funnily enough, though the plot of series three is trying to free Dean from his contractual obligations with the crossroads demon, the story is actually about Sam. Even in a plotline about himself, Dean gets shunted aside in favour of Kripke’s self-insert. Anyway, not much significant has happened in relation to Sam’s psychic powers since 1x14 Nightmare, but 2x05 lights a metaphorical fire under its proverbial derrière. The episode’s story of one brother becoming a monster and the other being forced to kill him is clearly foreshadowing Dean and Sam’s story.

On the subject thereof, the show has made numerous references to Stephen King’s works, namely IT in 2x02 Everybody Loves a Clown, Pet Sematary in 2x04 Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, and the upcoming 2x09 Croatoan and 2x11 Playthings make reference to The Shining. I am far from an expert on Stephen King, having read only about 20-25 of his books, but even after reading only that I can see parallels with the story of the psychic children. Allow me to explain:

Stephen King’s novels take place in a multiverse very much like Supernatural, and many themes, references, and places link the novels together. The axis mundi of the Kingverse is The Dark Tower series of novels, a story inspired in large part by The Lord of the Rings but which is drastically different and does its own thing completely (Dean would love it: cowboy iconography everywhere! In fact, I can see Dean having quite the soft spot for Roland…).

The dark tower in question is the axis mundi of the multiverse, the pin keeping everything in place. Beams of power are emitted from the tower, each one named after an animal such as the bear or the turtle (whom readers of IT might recognise). These twelve beams transverse time, space, and different universes, holding everything in place. However, the Crimson King wants to destroy the multiverse completely, just because he likes destroying things, and his plan to topple the dark tower might sound familiar to Supernatural viewers.

Psychic children play a significant role in Stephen King’s novels, such as Carrie, The Shining, Doctor Sleep, Firestarter, and The Institute. Part of the Crimson King’s plan is to gather as many of these children together as possible into an institution and harness their psychic power to attack each beam until they fail and the worlds begin to die. By the time the story begins, many of the beams have already been destroyed, and it is a race against time for Roland and his ka-tet to get to the dark tower and save the multiverse.

It is no secret that Eric Kripke is a big fan of Neil Gaiman, especially American Gods and The Sandman, but he also appears to be quite the Stephen King fan, and this is apparent in the psychic kids storyline. Sam’s story is not a copy of King’s psychic children, but it is similar enough to warrant comparison and for there to likely have been inspiration taken from King.

Returning to the episode, the story begins with a middle-aged doctor taking a phone call, then shooting a man in a hardware shop somewhere in small-town Oklahoma before turning the rifle on himself. It turns out that this is a vision Sam is having, and Sam uses the name of the bus line he saw in his premonition to locate the town. This leads them to a case involving not one but two psychics and a lot of incestuous subtext.

And no, Winc*sties, I am not referring to Dean and Sam, but Weber and Andy, or specifically, Weber. From the beginning of the episode, there is something off about him, something strongly reminiscent of Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew in Buffy, or even Ed and Harry. They are utterly incompetent at social interaction and try their hardest to cover it up with something which is clearly an act adopted from television shows and rap/hip hop music. Far be it from me to judge somebody for trying to fill in a missing part of their personality, but the result is that Weber comes across as trying too hard.

As hinted at, this suggests either a ‘sheltered’ childhood which denied him the opportunity to learn how to socialise, a neurodivergence such as autism , or quite probably a mix of both. Some people might be tempted to use the demon blood to explain his mental instability, but Weber’s desperation to fill a gaping void with his brother (not a pun), his resentment and murder of those responsible for his adoption, and the fact he appears to be a serial rapist and killer of women strongly implies abuse at the hands of his mother.

A slight sidetrack to Jensen’s new show, Big Sky. The first series and a half revolved around a human trafficking ring, and one of the main antagonists was Ronald. In the scene he was introduced, his mother was shaming him for not being as successful as her friends’ children and treating him like an eight year old. This very scene set alarm bells ringing in my head, and I was right. It turns out Ronald kidnapped women and trafficked them into prostitution in Canada. The ultimate cause of this was his mother’s mistreatment of him as both a child and an adult, involving perverted intrusions into his sex life (reminiscent of Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter (see 1x06 Skin), and ‘allowing’ or encouraging him to sleep in her bed with her. This last could possibly have been as a ‘replacement’ for the husband whom she killed when Ronald was a boy. That puts me in mind of the role poco!Dean had to take on as almost an ersatz wife and life partner for John as discussed in 2x01 In My Time of Dying.

She was clearly a Jocasta of the highest order, and while Ronald was responsible for ruining the lives of countless women and girls, his mother was responsible for making him the kind of person who would do that.

Returning to Weber, he serves another purpose in this episode as being an insight into Sam’s possible future. Whatever happened to him at his adoptive home, it seems the awakening of his psychic abilities was a catalyst to a change in behaviour for Weber, allowing the monster loose. Sam is scared that this will happen to him as his powers develop.

However, Weber is relatively insignificant in the overall story of the show, serving to showcase a possibility and reveal Sam’s fears. Whilst I can have sympathy for whatever must have happened to him, and whilst the demon blood might have been responsible for the monster he became, he was indeed a monster and got what was coming to him. At least the manner of Weber’s death would have pleased him had he been alive long enough to appreciate it: getting blasted from behind by his brother.

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Sam is terrified in this episode because he is seeing one of his possible futures. Dean tries to reassure him, but to anybody with ears, Dean’s protestations that Sam ‘doesn’t have it in him to be a monster’ sound like desperate denial: he knows what Sam might become, but does not want to accept it.

Dean is trying to be supportive of Sam, and even gets hostile with Ellen at the end of the episode as an attempt to keep Sam's psychic abilities secret from other hunters. But there is something about Sam’s behaviour in this episode as well as the way he generally talks about himself from 1x14 Nightmare onwards which suggests fatalism and even self-destructive tendencies. In 5x05 False Idols, Sam will go on to blame Dean’s ‘controlling nature’ for driving him to Ruby, but this is an attempt to absolve himself of responsibility and ignore a deeper issue. Dean tries his hardest to support Sam as a brother and friend, but Sam does not let him get through. That is Sam’s problem and Sam’s responsibility.

Further to the subject of Sam (usually I discuss Dean at length like this, but this is mostly a Sam episode), I mentioned a few analyses ago (1x19, perhaps?) that he has many traits of bipolar disorder, or manic depression. He certainly views himself as scum of the Earth sometimes, but he also has what could be the ‘manic’ aspect on display in this episode. That is his refusal to even entertain the notion he could be wrong about Andy because Sam just knows so much better, and he certainly knows better than Dean (like with the patch of dead grass in a graveyard in 2x04 Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things).

Of course, there are other factors at play, such as Sam’s dislike of Dean and his apparent need for sureties such as Andy being the killer and even the surety that he will become a monster. Sam’s touchiness at being referred to as a ‘freak’, for example, indicates he is already struggling with this view of himself and feels Dean’s use of the word is ‘confirmation’ of his insecurities.

Another part of him on display in this episode is his hope that saving people will stop him going bad. Sam has seen people die before, but he was especially broken up after the doctor he thought he had saved from shooting himself with the rifle got the Regina George treatment. Other than the fact that watching somebody get run over right in front of you is the opposite of fun, his inability to save the doctor perhaps confirmed to Sam that he cannot save people, and if he cannot save them, he cannot save himself.

Returning to the very beginning of the episode, the music over the recap reminded me that the show once had a real vibe about it, something lost somewhere around series four. It reminded me a lot of The X-Files in that there was something very early 1990s genre show about it, as well as the fact I am sure there is an episode of The X-Files filmed in the same location.

A bit of a culture shock is how easy it is to acquire firearms in America. In Britain, it is possible to go into certain shops to acquire hunting knives, Swiss Army Knives, and similar things, but as far as I am aware guns are not available to the general public. Things are different here in Finland, where primary school children are allowed access to sharp hunting knives (under teacher supervision) whilst preparing food outdoors, gunshots can be heard frequently during hunting season, and where pistols are available to buy in some outdoor and sports shops as well as a specialist weapon shop or two (although licenses and permits are required).

We meet Jo, Ellen, and Ash again in this episode. Jo is, as always, being Bad Ass, by which I mean adults act stupid around her to make her look good. Of course, some middle aged men would act silly around a pretty young woman like Jo, but given how easily and she ‘beat’ Dean (who conveniently did not fight back because men shouldn’t hit women) in 2x02 Everybody Loves a Clown, she comes across as an attempt to write a Bad Ass Chick. If I can call out the fact that almost all the baddies on Big Sky are men and almost all the victims are women and girls, I can call out Jo as a bit of a Mary Sue, surely.

A female sometimes being better than a male at ‘man things’ is not the issue, nor is a tiny female being able to best a large male at physical combat an issue. It makes complete sense, for example, that Mary in The Winchesters is able to go hand-to-hand with the demon in 1x01 Pilot because she had been groomed her whole life to do just that, in the same way Dean had. My younger sister plays more video games than I do, but whereas I am quite content with Pokémon, Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter, and Spyro the Dragon, she likes more ‘serious’ games such as Fallout, Halo, and Assassin’s Creed and is much better at them than I am. My third sister was in army cadets for about five or six years and could have joined the actual army as a lieutenant (I think) whilst I had the hand-eye coördination of a thing which has no hands or eyes and barely passed my tae kwon do and kickboxing gradings.

Dean also seems to have the same general opinion of Jo as I do: that she is a little girl trying too hard to act like a woman. She clearly wants to enjoy physical intimacy with Dean, but he is not into it at all. This is something acknowledged later in the show, and in Jo’s defence she does grow up a bit later in the show, though I do not understand people who think Dean should have ‘ended up with her’.

Dean and Ash’s ‘relationship’ could have benefited from further exploration. In fact, something which would have vastly improved series two would have been for Ash to take on a more prominent role and to coördinate Dean and Sam’s hunts whilst searching for more psychic children. The Roadhouse could even have functioned as a safehouse for psychic children, but the Harvelles were only introduced because the executives wanted Dean and Sam to have a base of operations and Kripke used them as little as possible.

That said, there are people who saw more between Dean and Ash than a working relationship, and it did not come out of nowhere. Other than the fact that Ash completely ignores Sam when Sam knocks on the door at the beginning of the episode, but opens the door immediately naked when Dean calls for him...

Dean recognises Ash’s burnt remains by his watch in 2x21 All Hell Breaks Loose Part I. Unless I am mistaken, Ash’s watch was new then, meaning Dean had seen him off-screen enough times to get familiar with the timepiece.

Further to the discussion of Dean, his disgust as Jo puts REO Speedwagon on the jukebox is gold.

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However, nobody likes music snobbery. John enforced conformity on Dean through control and shame, but Dean is unfortunately passing some of that on without realising. He does the same with Sam’s hair: Sam’s hair does eventually get utterly ridiculous, especially with the mutton chops in series seven, but men are allowed to do whatever they want with their hair.

I have not had my hair cut for about thirteen years and one thing I learnt pretty fast is that people – men AND women – are very fond of telling men what we can and cannot do with our hair. One of the reasons I refused to cave to people’s comments, jokes, and attempts at shame was because I wanted to flip them the metaphorical bird. While I agree with Dean that Sam’s hair is ridiculous, it is not because Sam is a man with long hair; it is because it is a bad hairstyle. A ponytail or braid would have been great, but that has the downside of it being a handhold for opponents in combat. A topknot would have been cool, though.

This behaviour from Dean should have been something the show seriously addressed as it is second-hand abuse. When Dean mocks Sam for something, it is John speaking through Dean. Dean is far from stupid, but Sam has more education and should be able to call this kind of thing out for what it is. Imagine the scene:

Dean: You gonna get rid of your female hair anytime? It’s staring at me.

Sam: [frowns] You gonna stop passing off Dad’s abuse of you onto me anytime soon, Deano?

Dean: [stares speechless for five seconds] ...I believe I’ve made a mistake.

Sam: Thank Dad’s paramilitaristic parenting for that. And besides, female hair? Two words: Classic. Rock.

There could have been growth, healing, recovery, becoming better brothers, friends, and a better team instead of spending the next fourteen years with Sam as narcissistic abuser and Dean occasionally taking potshots. Alas, some writers and loads of fans seemed to like their narcissistic-co-dependent Chinese finger trap and refused to free them from it.

Anyway, Dean’s ‘disgust’ is perhaps not quite as genuine as one might think, given that he sings the same song in the car afterwards.

...And Sam, once again, refuses to let Dean have his fun. He also neglected to explain to Ellen that Dean's hostility and rudeness to her was on Sam's account. Yes, Dean 'chose' to behave like that, but he did it for Sam who, once again, let Dean take it. Not very 'heroic protagonist' behaviour.

Thus concludeth my analysis of this episode.