anxiousOk, it's later than usual, and I'm drunker than usual...obviously I lost track of both time and alcohol consumption tonight.
So, I believe that means it's the perfect time for me to try to remember this episode...
BOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh GOD, BOBBY! This episode was brilliant. I loved it from start to finish. I didn't even talk during commercials because I was so engaged and hanging on every word.
Let's attempt to begin at the beginning....
Dean asking Sam if Bobby is dead...Sam saying "I'm not stupid, I know how to treat a gunshot wound to the head!"...brilliant. I love that our boys were probably raised knowing how to treat a gunshot wound to the head...I love EVERYTHING. Oh god...I am a little beyond tipsy. Forgive me, I had a rough week and seem to have compensated by drinking....
And then we enter Bobby's mind...and I love that Bobby knows right away that he's in his own mind. He doesn't need any other part of his psyche to tell him, as Sam did. He just knows. And he knows that the boys he is seeing aren't the boys that he needs to communicate with...and damn, but I love Bobby. I can't help it. I love him because he loves Sam and Dean, and he's smart and brilliant, and Bobby.
And RUFUS! I was not expecting Rufus. He was a nice surprise. Ok, I'm jumping all over the place, but I think that's fair given the episode. We get the boys and then we get Rufus...or do we get Karen first? Maybe Karen comes before Rufus. But we get Bobby bringing a glass of red wine to Karen in bed, and she is beautiful and loves Bobby...
And we get the boy in the ballcap, which I assumed right away - based on the ballcap alone - was Bobby. "God is going to punish you." No, Bobby, I'm pretty sure God is going to reward you....and that's coming from an atheist.
Which, along with the spilled milk, is an early sign as to what memory is his way out - even before we know that there is a way out.
I love that we got to see Rufus and Bobby on a hunt in the old days...I like that Bobby treated Rufus as Rufus rather than a memory... I love the fact that Sam and Dean argue about Jet Li vs. Chuck Norris and Peanut Butter and Banana vs. Licorice. (Personally, I'm with Dean on that last one...though, for the record, Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches were Elvis's favourite) (I grew up near an Elvis-themed restaurant...don't ask.)
And Rufus, apparently, when conked in the head by a ghost, discovered the way out of a coma - through your worst memory. And Bobby tries. We get some great character information when we discover that Bobby didn't want kids (or was afraid of having kids) and didn't tell Karen BEFORE they got married (NOTE: ALWAYS HAVE THE KID CONVERSATION BEFORE MARRIAGE). And that Karen and he had the fight only 3 days before she was possessed...that Bobby didn't regret killing her, but regret the fact that they hadn't fully recovered from the fight...that her heart was still broken when she passed. SAD TIMES FOREVER.
But still, that's not the worst...as the boy in the ball-cap keeps pointing too...and that the Leviathan way back in 7x03 pointed to, when he mentioned Bobby's daddy-issues.
We also get to see Bobby sneak Dean out to throw a ball rather than fire a rifle or whatever...and yeah, the kid they got doesn't look much like Jensen or Ridge Canipe, but seriously, who the hell looks like Jensen? (and Ridge Canipe is too old now). And it's a nice memory...and they gave me a year!! 1989. Oh god, I love when they give me years.
Meanwhile, in the real world...Dean and Sam are in the hospital. You know what I love about these parts (excluding the Dick scene, which I like for different reasons and will get to)?? I love the fact that it's not ANYTHING to do with the Supernatural. We get to see Sam and Dean reacting to a situation that could happen to ANYONE. Their loved one is seriously injured, and somebody is trying to talk to them about organ donation....and man, Dean kills me in that scene...KILLS ME. When he punches the glass-covered info-board and then just says "walk away!"...man...
And then, we get the Dick scene...which is so good...because there IS a downside to impersonating a famous person and having your #1 rule be "There is no such thing as monsters" because it means you CAN'T kill your enemy in broad daylight with 5 camera-phones on you.
"You're either laughing because you're scared, or you're laughing because you're stupid" - AWESOME LINE.
Meanwhile, Sam is TRYING to face reality...he's trying to prepare himself...and Dean won't have it, because for Dean (as I'm sure it is for many of us, it feels as though if he gives up hope, than Bobby won't make it....even though at this point, Dean hopes has nothing to do with Bobby's fight.) And I love how subtle Jared always is with Sam...how he's devastated in an understated way...how the simple fact of looking at a fixed point and rubbing his palm can mean SO MUCH. Sam is hanging by a thread and that thread is about to snap...and Dean isn't prepared for it, and Sam is terrified of it and is not going to be the one to mention it to Dean.....but the fact remains that NO GOOD WILL COME OF THIS.
And we get Bobby trapping a Reaper WHILE UNCONSCIOUS! If that doesn't make Bobby the BAMFiest BAMF that ever BAMFed, I don't know what does...
But the signs are all there...things going blank..the bullet and wound slowly eating away at everything Bobby is and was....
And still, Bobby confronts his very worst memory - the night he killed his own father, to save his mother....but he didn't really save her, not really..."and this is the night we learn that we don't always save the people we save"...and Bobby is the first genetic gun-shot-wound-to-the-head. But that doesn't matter, because Bobby did it all because unlike his father said, he doesn't break anything he touches - he "adopted two boys and they grew up to be heroes!" and OH MY GOD, IF I HAD A SOUL I WOULD BE CRYING.
Unfortunately, my heart is nothing more than an engine formed from remnants of a dead star.
And this is the first time that Bobby has taken full ownership of Sam and Dean - the fact that he fully adopted them when they were adults is inconsequential. They are his boys as much as they are John's....and in good old Supernatural fashion, it's out of his love for them that he returns long enough to write a message on Sam's palm.
And seriously, what is with Sam's palms being so goddamn important this year?
It's a sequence of numbers - that HOPEFULLY Sam and Dean know how to decipher.
And then Bobby is once again lost to us...as long as he had that information, I knew he would survive, but now that he doesn't?
We get Bobby in the last surviving memory...the Chuck Norris marathon night with Sam and Dean arguing about snacks and using the word "scoot" and being BROTHERS....and then...and then Bobby is given the choice to leave or stay...but the Reaper insists that he's dying either way....
Credits.
SUCH A GOOD EPISODE. Oh man. Like I said, if I had a heart, it would be broken and dolphins could swim in my tears.
It was filled with Bobby being a BAMF and Sam and Dean being real people...and SO MUCH GODDAMN LOVE.
Is it January yet?
