Supernatural
CW, Thursday, 9PM
“After School Special”
Written by Eric Kripke, Daniel Loflin, and Andrew Dabb
Directed by Adam Kane
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the story is going to include, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
Last week’s episode of Supernatural was a real “After School Special” in which the Winchester brothers take a walk down memory lane while investigating the murder of a popular high school cheerleader. On the surface, this is an average Supernatural ghost hunt with Sam and Dean hot on the trail of a nasty ghost that has a predilection for preying on popular kids in high school.
By combining two storylines, one from the past and one from the present, this episode manages to rise above the average Supernatural hunting episode. However, it feels like the series is drifting away from the season’s Armageddon story arc with the noticeable trend toward relationship-building episodes for the brothers. Since so much focus has been put on showing the strength of the Winchesters’ brotherly bond, it can only mean that at some point in the future that bond will be tested. In the meantime, the hunting episodes continue to entertain, and “After School Special” is no exception.
Suspecting that there is more to the murder of a high school cheerleader than meets the eye, Sam interviews the girl’s killer and is convinced that the signs of possession are too strong to be ignored. Moaning and groaning the whole way there, Dean agrees to return to their old high school in order to investigate the case. However, the school turns out to be a dead end with no trace of a haunting or a lurking demon to be found.
The Winchesters decide to head out of town, but before they leave, the ghost strikes again. Possessing a timid and shy boy, the ghost claims yet another victim and maims the local high school football star. Sam arrives on the scene just in time to see a faint trace of black goo leak out from the boy’s ear before it disappears. A sure sign of ghostly possession.
The ghost possession storyline isn’t impressive; we’ve seen it before. The real drama comes from the flashbacks of Sam and Dean as young boys who are condemned to spend a month attending high school while their dad is out on a job. The actors who play young Dean and young Sam are remarkably well cast. Young Dean walks into class wearing his tough guy leather jacket and chatting up the teacher. It doesn’t take long before young Dean is dating the prettiest girl in school and flashing his bad boy smile all over campus. For once, Dean finds himself connecting with a girl, only to sabotage the relationship to protect himself from making a commitment that he can’t keep.
Meanwhile, young Sam is tired of being the school freak and decides to make friends with a geeky boy who is constantly picked on by the school bully. When Sam defends his new friend, he unwittingly becomes the focus of the bully’s attention. In addition, Sam is pulled aside by a teacher who encourages him to make his decisions in life—advice that steers him toward college and away from hunting, at least for a while. Then the flashback ends with Sam putting the school bully in his place, an act that earns the boy the nickname “Dirk the Jerk.”
Back in real-time, Sam and Dean continue the investigation, uncovering clues that lead them to discover that the ghost is actually haunting the school bus, which is driven by Dirk’s dad. While interviewing Dirk’s father, Sam learns that the bully was tortured through high school with the nickname that Sam had unwittingly given him, until he finally killed himself with an overdose of drugs. Eventually, the Winchesters track down the hair that is keeping Dirk in the physical works and vanquish him.
Overall, the episode was entertaining and continued to show the impressive strength of the bond between the brothers, both in the past and the present. However, the season is in danger of losing too much momentum, if it continues to stray away from the Armageddon storyline with too many more of these little hunting episodes.
If the season is going to maintain the powerful themes that it has so artfully crafted during the first half of the season, the second half has got to refocus on the battle with the angels and demons. After all, this is the heart of the season and the reason that Dean was brought back from Hell. Even though the season has lost some steam, it’s still a powerfully written series that consistently delivers solid episodes that are as enjoyable as they are exciting.