Supernatural 4.13 After School Special

"There may be three or four big choices that shape someone's whole life."

This is another beautiful episode, following a now well-established tradition of extremely strong flashback episodes, another glimpse into the complex and bleak past of the Winchester brothers providing insight into the men they have become. As so often with this show, appearances are never quite what they seem, the truths hidden beneath those appearances often painful, if not downright brutal, to discern.

Then

This week's then is a real blast from the past.

Way back in the Pilot, Sam grumbled to Dean about their screwed up childhood, citing an incident in which he told their father he was scared of the thing in his closet and was handed a .45, aged just nine. "The weapon training and melting the silver into bullets – man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."

In flashback, John gave ten-year-old Dean a long list of instructions before leaving him to look after Sam alone for several days while John went off to work a hunt. This particular occasion ended badly when a shtriga broken into the motel and attacked little Sam.

Sam railed against the blind faith Dean placed in their father, while Dean argued that it was called being a good son.

In another flashback, eight-year-old Sam worried that John wouldn't make it home in time for Christmas and Dean assured him that he would be there.

"I was just going to college," said Sam of Dean's accusation that he ran away. "It was Dad who said if I was going to go I should stay gone."

"Your brother and me, we needed you," John accused. "You walked away, Sam. You walked away!" While Dean tried to separate the pair, Sam counter-accused that John was the one who told him not to come back. "You're the one who closed that door, not me!"

"This is never the life that I wanted for you," John admitted. It is the life his sons still lead, however.

Twelve-year-old Dean tried to reassure Sam that John would have made it home for Christmas if he could, but Sam was not consoled.

Now

Fairfax, Indiana

High School is hell is the theme of today's episode. Or maybe just kids are cruel. In a high school cafeteria, a group of jocks and cheerleaders gossip bitchily about a girl named Taylor and call her a slut to her face, mocking her mercilessly until she flees to a quieter part of the hall, sitting down across from a rather overweight girl named April, who is surprised to have company. April tries to offer tentative support, but succeeds only in providing Taylor with a target on which to vent her hurt and frustration with great vindictiveness. "Don't you feel sorry for me, you fat ugly pig."

Shocked, April rushes away.

Next day, Taylor is crying in the bathroom when April approaches. Taylor apologises for what she said, but the other girl's face is a blank mask – lights are on, but no one's home.

April abruptly smashes Taylor's head into the mirror, shattering it, and then slams her face into the sink, sending a tooth flying with a spurt of blood. Ouch! Next, with Taylor squealing the entire time, April drags her across the floor by her hair and hauls her into a stall. "I'm. Not. UGLY!" April bellows as she shoves Taylor's face into the toilet and flushes, holding her down until she is well and truly drowned – which doesn't take very long, since the girl keeps trying to scream the whole time and thus inhales water all the faster.

Once Taylor is dead, April drops her to the floor. "You're ugly," she asserts, staring down at the girl's limp corpse, a viscous, thick black fluid dripping grossly from her eye.

Titles

Psychiatric Hospital

Hey, there's Sam in his white surgical scrubs again, a la Houses of the Holy! Fantastic!


Posing as a psych orderly, or whatever, Sam has gained access to April's room and is trying to interview her, although she isn't what you'd call cooperative, since she has already told her story to a lot of people and none of them believed her. Sam gently assures the girl that he is a little more open-minded than most and asks why she told the police she was possessed. April says it doesn't matter. Sam assures her that it matters to him and deploys his absolute sincerest puppy eyes by way of convincing her to talk.

With a big sigh, April caves and tells Sam that when she hurt Taylor she was there, in her head, but she couldn't control her body. She could see what she was doing, but she couldn't stop. "I just wanted to stop," she whimpers.

This is all sounding very familiar to Sam, who has had personal experience of possession and knows exactly how April feels.

April tearfully murmurs that she is sorry, but Sam is quick to assure her that she doesn't need to apologise. He knows that what happened wasn't her fault, but that isn't going to help her now. Then Sam carefully says that some other kids in school told the police April didn't get along with Taylor.

"Well, yeah," April admits, as if it should be obvious. "But I never wanted to kill her. Never. Do you believe me?"

"I do," Sam sincerely assures her. He just can't do anything for her. This kid's life is ruined, for ever, and she will never even know why. All Sam can do is try to prevent it happening to anyone else; it is already too late for April.


Sam has just a couple more questions for April, questions of the kind that are always difficult to ask without sounding odd. On the day that she killed Taylor, he asks, did she notice any unusual smells, like rotten eggs or sulphur? She didn't, no. Did she notice any black smoke? "What, are you crazy?" snorts the girl currently incarcerated on a secure ward of a psychiatric hospital. That would be another no, then.

Outside, Dean and the Impala are waiting. Rejoining his brother in the car, Sam announces that he thinks April is telling the truth. "The way she talked about being there mentally but not physically kinda sounds like demonic possession to me."

Since Sam is the only one of the two who has been possessed, he is the expert of the partnership on this particular subject. Still Dean queries his brother's use of the word 'kinda', and Sam admits that April didn't smell sulphur or see any demon smoke.

"Maybe it's not a demon. Kids can be vicious," Dean offers, and he is not wrong there. They really, really can.


Sam shrugs that since they are here, they might as well check out the school. Dean stares blankly at him for a moment, and then says, "Right, the school," voice dripping with disdain masked as forced enthusiasm. Sam wonders what that's all about. "Truman High, home of the Bombers," says Dean in that same tone of voice, which completely betrays his distaste for the place.

"What's your point?" Sam wonders, nonplussed by his brother's attitude.


"I don't know. We went there for, like, a month, a million years ago," Dean grumbles. "Why are you so jazzed to go back?"

Sam points out that he isn't, he just thinks it is worth looking into, and already their contrasting attitudes toward this school are pretty revealing: Sam clearly has fond or at least neutral memories of the place, while Dean has just as clearly been happy to forget it ever existed.

Dean doesn't bother arguing, because whatever he thinks of the school he knows they need to check it out just to be sure, so instead he asks what their cover is going to be. "FBI, Homeland Security…Swedish exchange students…?"

Sam smiles in a mischievous way that I would find worrying, if I were Dean. "Don't worry," he says. "I've got an idea."

Now at the end of the last episode we saw Sam making the momentous decision to start sneaking around behind Dean's back with Ruby again on some secret quest that has to do with building Sam up to be strong enough to take on Lilith. There is not even a hint of any of that in this episode, no suggestion of what Sam and Ruby are getting up to or that Dean has noticed anything amiss. Sam's state of mind throughout the episode, however, follows on well from what we saw last week.

Truman High School, 1997

The Impala pulls up outside Truman High…but instead of her usual plates, she is bearing the Kansas registration BNQ 9R3, our first hint that we are no longer in the present. The passenger door opens and Dean gets out – 18-year-old Dean, for we are once again in flashback land and are revisiting that brief month the Winchester brothers spent at Truman High.


I love the cinematography of the flashback scenes in this episode: the warmth of the colour saturation is beautiful, providing a stark and effective contrast with the darker and colder colours of the present.

Dean has grown up a lot since the last time we saw him in flashback, and now has his swaggering rebel-without-a-cause attitude down to a fine art. Since Ridge Canipe, who has played Young Dean in past flashbacks, is only 14 still, the role of the 18-year-old Dean has gone instead to one Brock Kelly – who has in common with Jensen Ackles that he once appeared in Days of Our Lives. He doesn't bear much resemblance to the young Ackles, but is fairly well cast as the son of John Winchester and a younger version of the Dean we know today.

Young Sam gets out of the back seat, played again by Colin Ford, who at 12 is two years younger than Sam is in these flashbacks. In the space of a year this child has played Sam at ages 8 and 14, which is quite a leap, but works because he has the character down to such a fine art. So, at 14 Sam is small for his age; small and unsure of himself.

We are used to Sam being the taller of the two brothers, because he has been ever since we met him in the Pilot, but seeing the rather striking height difference between the boys in these flashbacks, Dean already about as tall as he is ever going to get while Sam is still so small, really drives home the fact that Dean truly was the big brother physically as well as chronologically for most of their lives. Sam was clearly a late bloomer, so it must have come as something of a shock to Dean when his baby brother suddenly shot up and overshot him, which leads me to wonder just when Sam had his big growth spurt and whether he had finished growing before he left for Stanford. Certainly it is unlikely that Dean would have had a great deal of time to adjust to little Sammy suddenly being bigger than him before their estrangement, which adds whole new layers to the process of re-learning one another in the early episodes of the show.


Our first look at the boys in this flashback tells us that at 14 and 18 both brothers have already well and truly established their trademark styles. Sam is in multiple layers, wearing a hoodie under his jacket and toting a heavy book bag, complete with that awkward hunch so familiar to us from his adult self – in adult Sam this often seems like a ploy to disguise his height, but seeing it here in his child self reveals it as a much older habit that is less about height and more about desire to melt into the background. Camouflage. Dean, meanwhile, has a plaid flannel shirt over dirt-coloured t-shirt, just as his adult self tends toward, and although he does not yet possess the keys of the Impala he is already wearing his father's old leather jacket, albeit a little loose around the shoulders still as he has not yet filled out.

Dean calls out "thanks, Dad," as the Impala drives away again, and it is very Dean to think of thanking his father for the lift to school. I am greatly amused by the fact that we 'see' John driving the Impala twice in this episode, without actually seeing him, thanks to carefully crafted filming angles. Nice one, director. I'd love to know who they actually got to drive the Impala, as a kind of placeholder, in these scenes.

"Got your lunch?" Dean asks Sam as they head into school, using an offhand tone to mask the motherliness of the question. "Books? Butterfly knife?"


Brock Kelly has a bit of an accent at times that isn't very Dean and is therefore a little off-putting, but that line right there? That was 100% pure Dean, both words and delivery. Dean is so very much the caretaker of the family – the caretaker of Sam.

So. Sam is lugging a heavy school bag, and Dean is clearly concerned that his little brother should have everything he needs for his first day in a new school – including an illicit weapon that is very much against school rules, because being confident that Sam will be able to defend himself in case of attack is more important, from a Winchester point of view, than kowtowing to regulations imposed by ignorant civilians. Dean's own hands are empty, however. He hasn't brought anything for himself, a strong visual clue as to how he is approaching his stint at this school, which is merely the latest in a long, long line. He has given up before he has even started.

Sam glumly assures his brother that he has everything. Picking up on the gloomy tone, Dean immediately asks if he is okay. Sam tries to brush it off, but Dean is not convinced and presses, concerned. "Sammy?"

"Look, this is the third school we've been to this year and it's only November!" Sam's frustration comes spilling out. Some things never change – Sam never needs much persuasion to confide his woes in his big brother. We've seen it so many times: Dean opens the door for Sam to tell him what's wrong, and Sam at first says no but then immediately turns around and spills everything. Having seen it with the adult Sam so often, it's really cool to also see it in his younger self.


If this is the third new school just in this academic year and it is only November, that is pretty much a new school every month, which is a startling rate at which to be picking up and moving on, even compared with what had been implied in the past. No stability at all for these boys, either of home or education. This could explain why Dean is still in school when, if it is November 1997, he is only two months shy of his 19th birthday and should have graduated already. I can't see Dean willingly agreeing to repeat a year if he failed, but he could easily have started school late, or missed so much during his childhood that he has been held back a grade for some years already – and probably Sam, too.

"I'm just sick of always being the new kid," Sam dolefully sighs, and if they are transferring to a new school almost every month, his unhappiness is more than understandable.

"You'll be fine," Dean automatically assures his brother, because pretending that there is nothing wrong with their life is what Dean does. It isn't as if he has any way of actually fixing the root problem here, so instead he tries to gloss over it and deal with the symptoms only. "If anyone gives you any trouble, you let me know."


Sam sighs again, because that wasn't his point. He's been to more than enough new schools already to know how to cope – and already everything about his body language tells us that his coping strategy of choice involves keeping his head down and trying not to stand out. The point is that he doesn't want to have to do it, wants to just stop and find out what it is like to stay in one place long enough to feel at home, to not be new any more.

But Dean refuses to acknowledge this, instead offering his best confident grin. "Relax. Dad said this hunt will take him two weeks, tops. Soon as he gets back, we're out of here."

Two weeks? And the plan is to move on to yet another new school immediately? Sheesh. No wonder Dean doesn't care about this school and Sam is so sullen.

"To another school. Awesome," snarks Sam, because that was pretty much his point.


For Dean, the inevitability of moving on has become a solution in and of itself. Since they are never in any one school long enough to fit in or feel at home, it doesn't really matter how lousy any given school turns out to be because they will be going to another soon enough anyway, so just have to endure for the short term. Thus every new school is treated as strictly temporary, no more than a necessary evil. But Sam doesn't want to do that; he wants to experience stability, to put down roots and discover how it feels to truly be part of an actual community, to have friends and not have to leave them behind. To not have to tough it out as the new kid in a new school every month.

The flicker in Dean's eyes says that he knows full well what point Sam is trying to make, and understands it only too well, but can't acknowledge it because he won't admit even to himself how much the impermanence of this itinerant lifestyle sucks – not least because he feels he always has to back their father up, as co-parent and second-in-command. If he acted the kid by joining Sam in grumbling, it would only make things worse for all of them, as he and Sam would then feed off one another's unhappiness and bring the wrath of their father down on their heads. Instead he presents a unified front for Sam by supporting their father, tries to jolly Sam along…but Dean sees keeping Sam safe and secure as his primary objective in life and so hates not being able to fix things for his little brother.


Scowling his displeasure with this state of affairs, Sam pushes past Dean and stomps on into school. Dean turns and hesitates for a moment, the tiniest glimmer of uncertainty shining through his confidant façade for just a second, but then he takes a deep breath, steels himself, and heads on in.


Sam's class – 8th grade

Sam looks very small, fed up and unsure of himself as he stands before his new classmates to be introduced to them by their teacher, Mr Wyatt.

Sam wants to fit in. The way he goes about it is by keeping his head down and trying not to be noticed, trying to just melt into the background until no one remembers that he wasn't always there, his don't notice me hunch perfected long before he grew into a giant.


Of course, it is difficult not to be noticed when you are standing in front of the entire class with a teacher telling them all to say hello to you.

"Hi, Sam," the class obediently choruses.

Dean's class – 12th grade

Over in 12th grade, Dean is likewise introduced to his new classmates by their teacher. Resounding silence follows, because seniors are far too old and cool to actually say hello to a new classmate when prompted to do so. Undaunted, the teacher turns to Dean and asks if there is anything he would like to tell them about himself.


"Not really, sweetheart," Dean shrugs, much to the amusement of the class. The teacher's lips thin and she tells him to take a seat, negative impression of this ne'er-do-well new student instantly formed.

Dean's arrogance and insouciance toward the teacher grates a little, feeling somewhat overdone, but is very much geared toward persuading her to write him off from the word go as not worth bothering with, and certainly seems to work.

Dean's behaviour in these flashbacks is very much an early version of the typical defensive colouring so familiar to us from his older self, season one especially, before the layers started to be peeled back. He essentially sets himself up to fail right from the start. He knows going in that he isn't going to be at this school longer than a fortnight, so why both making any effort at all? He probably made that decision years ago and follows the same pattern with every move, particularly the very short-term ones. There is no point seeking acceptance from either staff or students, no point trying to make friends, or getting even remotely attached to either the people or the place, because moving on is inevitable and honesty is impossible. So he holds them all at arm's length by passing himself off as the edgy outsider who is too cool for school and pretending not to care about anything.


There will always be people who find the bad boy attitude appealing, of course, and Dean takes great delight in milking that appeal. But any such friendships or relationships born remain superficial, because Dean won't allow anyone to get too close. If you don't allow yourself to care, you can't be hurt as easily. "Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period. […] Like it or not, we are not like other people," Dean told Sam in Skin, and it seems that this opinion was already well cemented in his teenage years. Plus, of course, Dean is deeply insecure about allowing anyone to see the real him, not only because they won't believe the things he knows to be true, but for fear they won't like what they see in him.

So Dean deals with all of the above by presenting the world with this brash, cocksure image, pre-empting rejection, rather than avoiding it, which allows him the illusion of feeling in control and the comfort of (hopefully) keeping his true feelings well hidden, at the expense of largely denying himself even the possibility of acceptance, however temporary it might be.

8th grade

Over in Sam's class, Mr Wyatt asks Sam if there is anything he'd like to tell them about himself.

Sam keeps his head down, looking and sounding depressed as hell as he murmurs, "Not really."

Same words as Dean, and although their intonation is very different, the basic sentiment is much the same. How could they even begin to explain who they are and where they come from? There is too much that they can't talk about, and neither has any desire to remain the centre of attention for any longer than necessary.

One thing that's fascinating about the flashbacks in this episode is the fact that for the first time we get to see the young Dean and Sam interacting largely with outsiders. Previous flashbacks have emphasised their isolation by presenting us with their home life, showing us the two of them left alone for days at a time with no one but each other, hiding from the world. In this episode, however, they are apart more than they are together in the flashbacks, each having to deal with his own issues at their latest new school. Yet in spite of this public interaction, once again their isolation is emphasised. Even in the midst of a whole class full of peers, their unique circumstances mean that each of them is always effectively alone, and always they gravitate back to one another as their only true friend and confidante.

12th grade

Dean strolls cockily to an empty seat, catching the eye of a pretty blonde girl as he passes. She's got a thing for the bad boys, clearly, Dean's insouciance and devil-may-care attitude attractive to her. Dean notices her, too, and also likes what he sees. He may not be interested in trying to fit in here, but he rarely says no to the attention of a pretty girl.

But beneath the swagger and braggadocio, there is relief evident in his eyes and posture as he slings himself into his seat and is no longer the focus of attention in the room.

8th grade

Sam takes his seat, which just happens to be in the exact same spot as the seat Dean found empty over in 12th grade.


However, since this is Sam and not Dean, there are no pretty blondes catching anyone's eye here. Instead, Sam's butterfly knife drops out of his bag as he dumps it on his desk, and the eyes of the dorky little boy sitting alongside him go wide.

Sam, of course, panics ever so slightly, because a) knives are not allowed in school, b) you just know that he has had it impressed upon him for years to keep all secret weapons…well, secret, and knows he faces the wrath of both John and Dean if he is caught with a weapon in school, and c) it is only his first day in this school and he wants to fit in, not immediately get into serious trouble. He hastily stuffs the knife back into his bag, and luckily enough the dorky kid was the only one who saw it and is inclined to be impressed rather than horrified. "Whoa. That's yours? Awesome," he breathes.

12th grade

While Sam is trying hard to keep his head down and avoid drawing attention, over in 12th grade Dean is in trouble already. As already noted, he hasn't brought any books, and the teacher is not impressed. Dean being Dean, he just digs an even deeper hole for himself by playing the smartass. "Don't need them, sugar," he smirks. "Not going to be here long enough anyway."


And that, right there? That was absolute truth wrapped up in Dean's trademark braggadocio. He knows he isn't going to be at this school for more than two weeks, has decided up front that he going to make no effort whatsoever, and so sets out to discourage any teachers from bothering with him. He might not put a toe out of line at home, but John's authority is the only authority he respects, and here at school, knowing that he won't be here long and therefore does not need to create a good impression, he is free to indulge in rebellion.

Since Dean shows such little interest in doing any actual schoolwork during his brief stay at this school, and knowing that all recent school experiences have been similarly brief, I wonder now if he ever managed to graduate at all, and how well he did – or didn't. He is intelligent enough, but not even remotely interested in book-learning, and clearly sees his presence here as more of a waste of time than anything. Having been to so many different schools, and with John no doubt away too much to provide much positive influence of the do your homework variety that you just know Dean provides for Sam, he seems to have given up on his education already. He's just marking time and keeping close to Sam, rather than expecting to get anything out of school.


Once again clearly digging the bad boy, Blondie turns to look at Dean again, and they exchange little smiles of mutual attraction.

8th grade

Back in 8th grade, Mr Wyatt announces a new essay assignment, to the accompaniment of heartfelt groans. They are to write about their 'most memorable family experience', no doubt always a tricky subject for the Winchesters.

Incidentally, I love that Sam's class is studying The Outsiders. It is never mentioned in dialogue, but is written all over the blackboard behind Mr Wyatt, a nice, subtle touch.


While Mr Wyatt lectures the class, the dorky little boy alongside Sam introduces himself as Barry. Sam cautiously introduces himself back, and then frowns as the bigger boy sitting behind Barry leans forward to start flicking his sticky-out ears. Barry flinches and grimaces, but makes no protest, clearly long inured to this kind of treatment.

Sam bridles and tells the bully to leave Barry alone in a world-weary, almost bored, knock it off tone. The bully, whose name we will later learn is Dirk, is unimpressed and keeps flicking Barry's ear, but Sam has never been one to back down. He is not John Winchester's son for nothing. "I said leave him alone," he repeats, more forcefully, and I wonder why the teacher has not noticed this heated little conversation going on in the middle of his class.

Dirk pulls his hand back, more interested now in this new target than in Barry, whose eyes go wide in anticipation of what might happen next. "You want to take his place?" Dirk aggressively asks. "Midget"

Dirk is probably not used to making so little impression. Sam is completely un-intimidated. "Yeah. Sure," is all he says, not prepared to just sit there and watch another child being bullied, but also not interested in picking a fight. He nods his steely resolve, holding the bigger boy's eyes.


Apparently unaccustomed to anyone standing up to him, Dirk simmers down and lets the matter drop, and we cross fade…

…back to the present.

Truman High. Present

In stark contrast to Dean's grand suggestions of possible undercover identities, Sam is in fact posing as a janitor. He passes a classroom door just as the bell rings, glances in, and is startled to see his old teacher Mr Wyatt inside. He hurries on past, keeping his head down, so as not to be seen and recognised.


Mr Wyatt holds the door for his students to exit the room. Twelve years on, he has a little more grey in his hair than he did when he taught Sam, but he has the air of a man who is supremely content with his lot in life, smiles fondly at his students as they file past him.

Gymnasium

Meanwhile in the gym, Dean is posing as a substitute PE teacher.

You know, I can't help but wonder just how the brothers managed to secure positions in a school. Shouldn't there be all kinds of security checks before someone is allowed to work anywhere near children?


It kind of kills me that Sam cast himself as a janitor and Dean as a teacher, and I wonder if that was because he thought Dean might do better with the kids than he would, or simply because he did not want to have to go anywhere near them himself. Past evidence does suggest that Dean is more comfortable around children than Sam – having practically raised his little brother he certainly has more experience in that department than Sam does – but he does not display his usual gentle touch with kids in this scene.

In general, evidence suggests that Dean tends to be good with kids he can relate to, one-on-one, usually kids who are troubled or traumatised in some way. A whole room full of sheltered little brats is another matter entirely, however. We must also bear in mind that Dean has been struggling emotionally for a few episodes now, while trying hard to pretend that nothing is wrong, and that he has bad memories of this school, the cause of which will unfold in continued flashbacks in this episode. He is uncomfortable and overcompensating.

So, this scene in the gym is over-the-top and played for humour and mostly makes me cringe, but does work as an effective contrast to Sam, highlighting the brothers' very different approaches to their stint at this school in both past and present. Having returned to the school, both brothers are remembering their time here as students, and that past experience informs their actions and reactions in the present. Just as he did as a child, Sam keeps his head down and tries to blend in, seeking to avoid drawing any attention to himself. Similarly, having returned to Truman as an adult, the persona Dean has chosen for his fake PE teacher identity is very much informed by the persona he adopted in this school as a teenager: loud and brash, designed to keep the world at arm's length and hide his inner insecurities. Plus, of course, he always enjoys the borrowed power of impersonating an authority figure.

The camera pans up Dean as he paces in front of his class. White knee-high socks and bare knees. Little, little belted red shorts that leave nothing to the imagination. Whistle. Sweatband. Oh, man. Remember way back when, when Dean claimed not to do shorts? This is twice in one season now, albeit the first time not by choice.


"Today, you will have the honour of playing one of the greatest games ever invented," he barks at his students, bending to pick a ball out of a net. "A game of skill. Agility. Cunning. A game with one simple rule. Dodge."

By way of demonstration, Dean flings a ball at the nearest student…nailing the unfortunate and decidedly weedy little thing in the stomach. The student doubles over in pain and Dean is a little taken aback by this outcome, but does not break character. Image is important to him in this school, where, we will later learn, he was deeply humiliated as a teenager, so he does not want to lose face in front of these students now. Having opted for this stern sergeant major persona, he sticks to it, offering only a curt "sorry" as he quickly turns away to continue pacing and instructing the class.

Another student raises a tentative hand and, in broken English, whines that their usual teacher never lets them play dodgeball. Dean points out that their usual teacher is in Massachusetts getting married, so they are playing. The kid indignantly protests that it is dangerous. Dean blows his whistle and tells the kid to take a lap. The kid offers a few feeble "but"s but backs down to the authority of the whistle and starts running.


It occurs to me that between the rigid military training routines John established for his sons, Dean's distance from his school career and his lack of interest while he was there, he wouldn't have any idea what is appropriate or politically correct by way of PE class these days. He was raised extremely tough, expected to just suck up whatever was thrown at him and get on with it. These kids are a lot more sheltered, but Dean's sergeant major persona is not interested in making allowances for them.

Sam enters the gym and nods for Dean to come over and have a word. Instantly losing interest in his class, which is just the beard to his true purpose here, Dean tosses the net of balls in the air, tells the kids to "go nuts" and heads straight on over to his brother.

Sam's eyes flick up and down, taking in his brother's outfit, an amused little smile tugging at the edges of his lips. "Having fun?"

"The whistle makes me their god," Dean cheerfully replies.

"Right." Sam's eyes flick up and down again, still amused. "Nice shorts."

Dean fidgets, because the shorts are ridiculous and he knows it, and gruffly asks if his brother found anything. Sam says that he has been over the entire school twice and found no trace of sulphur.


"No sulphur, no demon. No demon, no case," Dean shrugs, more than willing to chalk this one up to a false alarm and put Truman High School behind him once more.

Sam wrinkles his nose and allows that he might have been wrong, but he doesn't look certain, spidey-senses a-tingling still. Dean shrugs that it happens to the best of us and suggests that they hit the road. "But after lunch. It's Sloppy Joe day."

Eh, Dean's got his appetite back, it seems.


Dean has his back to the kids, but Sam is facing them and cringes in sympathy as a child cries out off-screen, having been hit hard by a ball. The flabby kid Dean had sent to run laps scurries past, clutching at a bloody nose. Dean winces but maintains his hardass coach persona rather than offering sympathy. "Good hustling, Coby. Walk it off," he gruffly calls after the boy, and hey – he might be playing at I don't care about anyone or anything for all he's worth, but he has at least learned the kid's name. Sam pulls a silent bitchface.


Classroom

Elsewhere in school, some kind of home economics class is in progress, the teacher lecturing her bored students on the importance of keeping the Cuisanarts covered while in operation, by way of backdrop to the events about to unfold. One of the jocks previously seen taunting Taylor in the teaser is now harassing a nerdy-looking kid who seems completely spaced out. Jock wants to copy Nerd's algebra homework again, and is annoyed to get so little response.

He is even more annoyed when Nerd very calmly calls him a stupid, brain-dead dick. He threatens to shove his fist down the other boy's throat, just as Nerd quietly throws the switch on his food processor, which is uncovered. Nerd wonders exactly which fist Jock was intending to hit him with…then grabs Jock's left hand and thrusts it into the food processor!

Ick!

This is a gory scene, and I can't quite believe they got it past the censors, so I keep my eyes closed for most of it. Suffice it to say that there is a lot of blood and screaming. The teacher reacts pretty swiftly, though, hauling Nerd and his maniacal grin away before wrapping a towel around the bloody stump of Jock's hand and hurrying him out of the room. The rest of the class follows, shocked and gawping.

As coincidence would have it, Sam was wandering past at exactly the right moment to hear the screams and come running, arriving just in time to see the blood-splattered Nerd collapse to the floor, disregarded by anyone else. Sam hurries over to check on him, and the boy dazedly wonders what happened, a thick, viscous black fluid trickling from one ear.


Hallway

Sam has given up on covert and is openly scanning for EMF but still finds none. Dean joins him, now wearing an eye-catching and loose-fitting tracksuit. As the brothers amble attractively down the hallway, Sam in his institutional green janitor outfit and Dean in his Truman Bombers red, Sam asks how the non-violence assembly is going. Dean snarks that shoving a kid's arm into a Cuisanart is not considered a 'healthy display of anger', and checks with Sam that Nerd really had ectoplasm leaking out of his ear. Sam glumly nods and reminds us that ectoplasm only comes from a really pissed off spirit. We learned this way, way back in No Exit, so the presence of ectoplasm was a Clue planted for the benefit of any viewer clever enough to recognise it.


Sam exposits that the presence of ectoplasm means this must be ghost possession, which Dean says is pretty rare. "Yes, but it happens," Sam informs us. "They get angry enough, they can take control of a person's body."

All of this suggests that there must be a ghost in the building. The problem is that there is no EMF to indicate just where it might be. Sam suggests checking school records to see if anyone died bloody on the premises.

Dean is already way ahead of him. "I had to break into the principal's office to get this," he says, pulling some papers out of a pocket. "Oh, and FYI, three of the cheerleaders are legal. Guess which ones."

You know, however much of a horndog he has always been, Dean is getting a little old to be perving on cheerleaders now…but then again, no matter how serious he is or isn't, the disgusted bitchface he gets from Sam in response is more than enough motivation for him to keep up the sleaze! Dean always has loved winding Sam up, he knows exactly which buttons to press for best effect, and is working very hard at pretending that Nothing Is Wrong in this episode, which means acting like himself to the nth degree. And his social awkwardness is very consistent.

Based on his illicit research, Dean explains that there has only been one death on campus, back in 1998. "Some kid named Barry Cooper."

Recognising the name, Sam freezes and snatches the paper from his brother's hand, deeply dismayed. Realising that something is wrong, Dean asks what. Sam's face creases with sorrow as he skim-reads the papers from Barry's file. "I knew him," he murmurs. "How'd he die?"


Dean's whole attitude shifts the moment he realises that the suspected spirit was someone who meant something to Sam. Up till now he has been largely wrapped up in his own issues, focused intently on putting on a great show of normalcy and on presenting the image he wants to portray to the world. From this point on, though, he drops the brash attitude like a stone and focuses intently on Sam. Dean hates not being able to fix things for his brother just as much now as he did when he was 18.

Barry slit his wrists in the first floor girl's bathroom, Dean quietly explains. "Right where the chick got swirlied to death." That does look like fairly damning evidence, and both brothers take a moment to ponder it, then continue to hypothesise that it appears the ghost is possessing nerds and using them to go after bullies. Dean asks if that sounds like Barry's MO.


Sam looks sorrowful again. "Barry had a hard time," he says, remembering, as the camera pans around…

…and takes us into another flashback. The direction of this episode is fabulous.

Truman High, 1997

'Truman High School. Class of 1997. Good luck 1997 grads', declares a banner across the hallway.

That's something of a glaring continuity error there, having this banner congratulating the class of 1997 when it was established earlier that it is November, so that 1997's graduating class should already be long gone. Perhaps this was originally intended to be earlier in the year, before the summer's graduation, which would make more sense of Dean's age, with the line about it being November added in later without reference to what it would do to the continuity and logic of the episode. Certainly the wires have got crossed somewhere.

Students throng the hallways. Poor doomed Barry, who we now know has less than a year left to live at this point, wanders dolefully along clutching a stack of books, only for a passing jock to knock them all out of his hands. Barry stumbles to his knees, watching his possessions spill across the floor, while passers-by giggle at his expense.

Young Sam sees what happened, hurries over and hurls himself to the floor to help Barry pick up his things. Barry offers weary thanks and Sam snorts. "Great school." He's got plenty to compare it with, as well.


Barry resignedly shrugs that he only has to get through another three years and he's out of here, which is much the same approach Dean tends toward, except that the few short weeks the Winchesters expect to be in town are a mere snip compared to the three years of abuse Barry is bracing himself for. He is planning to go to Michigan State, he explains, because they have the best vet programme in the country. Sam rather redundantly asks if the other boy likes animals, as if he'd be hoping for a career as a vet if he didn't, but it's the obvious question, I suppose, and sets Barry up nicely for his reply. "They're a lot nicer than people." And Sam can't argue with that!

Poor little doomed Barry. His really is a tragic story.

Closet

Meanwhile, Dean and Blondie – otherwise known as Amanda – are getting up close and personal in a handy broom closet. "So," Dean drawls when they come up for air. "Tonight I'm thinking you, me, bucket of popcorn, extra butter…"


"Kinky," Amanda interrupts with a seductive giggle.

"And the midnight screening of I Spit On Your Grave," Dean finishes.

There is a brief pause while I go away and look up I Spit On your Grave, which…not the most romantic film ever! But it very much fits with the image Dean wants to present: that of the edgy outsider living life to the extreme and loving it, not bound by any rules, holding the world at arm's length.

It's interesting to note that Dean is clearly comfortable with the idea of going out at night and leaving Sam alone, with John away, just as he was comfortable stomping out of the motel and leaving Sam alone for a little while in flashback in A Very Supernatural Christmas. Any paranoia from the disaster of Something Wicked clearly did not linger long, at least where any perceived need to never let Sam out of sight is concerned. Of course, by the time Dean was Sam's age, he had been left alone in charge of his little brother for days at a time on a regular basis for years, and if he could manage that before he turned 10, Sam can take care of himself for a few hours at 14. So it seems clear that although Sam certainly was more sheltered than Dean in many ways, that doesn't mean he was as coddled as fandom sometimes tends to assume – John bred both his sons tough and they grew up self-sufficient.

Amanda wrinkles her nose in regret, however, and explains that she can't be going to any midnight viewings of anything because she has an 11 o'clock curfew and if she breaks it her parents will ground her for a month. The whole concept of a curfew is completely alien to Dean, so he doesn't really see what the problem is or why she can't just blow it off. Amanda asks when his curfew is and he proudly shrugs that he doesn't have one, seeing this as enviable, something that will enhance his cool factor – hardly an unreasonable assumption, given how appealing Amanda has found his bad boy image up till now.

To Amanda, however, the concept of not having a curfew is completely alien. "Your parents just let you stay up all night, don't they?" she marvels disbelievingly.

"My Dad's out of town on a job. It's just me and my brother," Dean shrugs, allowing silence on the subject of his mother to speak for itself. Amanda asks how long his dad will be gone and he nonchalantly says it will be a couple of weeks, leaning in to kiss her again.

A couple of weeks? It has long been supposed in fandom that John's absences would have grown longer and longer as the boys got older and more self-sufficient, and now we have confirmation. From John's point of view it would make some kind of sense, during term time especially: he could enrol the boys in school and leave them for a few weeks, secure in the knowledge that Dean could take care of them both, and then go off and pursue whatever hunts he could find in the area without having to worry about his sons. That way the boys would have at least some semblance of stability, even if measured only in weeks rather than months or years – better than mere days, at the very least – and John wouldn't be tied down too much.

But when viewed in terms of responsible childcare rather than practical hunting requirements…man. It is neglect. There is no other word for it. Dean is now effectively playing the role of single parent for weeks at a time, rather than days at a time. At 18 he might now be an adult in the eyes of the law, but he is still in school, still just a kid, and has been carrying this level of responsibility for years now. No wonder he acts out in school – it is the only outlet for rebellion he has.

Amanda is too startled to carry on kissing, much to Dean's dismay. For all her fondness for bad boys, she proves to be a sensible and perceptive girl to whom the idea of two teenagers being left to fend for themselves for weeks at a time with no parental supervision whatsoever is incomprehensible. Dean tries to sell his situation as eminently desirable, bragging that they have a "pretty sweet set-up at The Pines," but Amanda is startled all over again to learn that he lives at a motel.


Now, at 18 Dean must surely have learned long ago that nice girls from respectable families tend not to be impressed at the thought of living out of a motel; he would no doubt have encountered plenty of snobbery in his time from richer kids looking down their noses at him as trailer trash. But his situation is what it is and can't be changed, so he just has to make the best of a bad lot – it isn't as if he can pretend he lives anywhere else. "HBO, magic fingers, free ice…it's great," he boasts, determinedly selling his home life as something to be envied, rather than pitied. Amanda is not convinced, so he becomes a little more insistent. "I do whatever I want whenever I want. It's perfect."

Except that he doesn't really get to do what he wants whenever he wants because he has Sam to look after. No matter how comfortable he is leaving his brother alone while he goes out on dates, you just know that his responsibility to Sam comes first and is taken very, very seriously.

To Amanda, who seems to understand completely that her parents impose a curfew in order too protect her and appreciates that love and concern, none of the freedom and plus points of motel living so resolutely advertised by Dean come close to making up for the parental neglect he has inadvertently admitted to. "But don't you miss your dad?" she asks, looking worried rather than impressed.

And there, of course, she has hit upon a raw nerve. Dean misses and worries about his father every time John is away, but keeps those feelings buried deep. The last thing he wants is to have to face up to them, certainly not now, in front of a girl he wants to impress, not when John's return is still a couple of weeks away and there is nothing he can do to change that.

Amanda's reaction to what she has learned of Dean's home life really drives home his youth, the fact that although he has been caring for Sam for so many years now, he is still just a kid. Dean is so used to being left alone in charge of his brother that he takes it completely for granted, but Amanda's reaction, as a girl of his age, tells its own story: that it is not normal and not okay. She is not impressed; she is concerned.


This is not the reaction Dean was hoping for and he is kind of blindsided by it, realising that he has stumbled, allowed this girl to get too close. He wants to be seen as carefree, and has carefully cultivated his image accordingly, but Amanda is perceptive and is suddenly seeing straight through that image, unearthing uncomfortable truths he had thought were well buried and asking searching questions that he does not want to contemplate.

Hallway

The closet door opens and Dean and Amanda emerge and indulge in another quick but passionate kiss in the doorway. So, Amanda clearly wasn't put off by the revelation of Dean's sucky home life – the sympathy factor probably makes him even more interesting and attractive to her, and as galling as that pity might be, with another round of heavy petting on offer, Dean wouldn't be above taking advantage of it.

At length, Amanda peels away and heads to class. Dean follows, affectionately calling "yo, Sammy," to his little brother, who just happens to be wandering past with Barry at that moment, providing us with a nice little transition from one brother to the other.


I can't imagine that there would be many 18 year old boys, particularly ones that want to be seen as cool and carefree, who would bother to greet their little brother in the school corridor like that. Dean works hard at projecting that devil-may-care image, but Sam is very much an exception to it.

"That's your brother with Amanda Heckerling?" Barry gapes. "He's cool."

"Yeah. He thinks so," Sam snorts, bitchface firmly in place, and suddenly I am reminded of Sam locked in vault with a salivating Dean-fan in Nightshifter, being regaled with his brother's perceived virtues and unable to escape. He really has been in his brother's shadow all his life.

Bully Dirk approaches, smirking nastily when he sees Sam and Barry together. "Hey, tough guy. I've been looking for you," he challenges Sam, who is a hell of a lot smaller than he is. "Still want to take Barry's place?"


Sam tells Barry to get out of there, and Barry gulps that he will get a teacher before scampering away at speed. Sam quickly puts a hand out to stop Dirk pursuing, which only ticks him off all the more. Dirk's pretty aggressive, but Sam dismissively insists that he isn't going to fight. Dirk calls him chicken and starts pushing him around, but Sam says no again and turns to walk away, only for Dirk to grab his shoulder, spin him around and clock him with a hefty right hook that sends him sprawling across the floor, to the accompaniment of delighted gasps from the crowds of fellow students gathered around to gawk.

Dirk yells at Sam to get up, but Mr Wyatt arrives to haul him off before any response is possible. While the teacher deals with the bully, the camera focuses on Sam, as he springs back to his feet looking absolutely furious. It is another expression very familiar to us from his adult self, an expression that promises angry retribution, Sam's vengeful temper now vying with his desire for anonymity.


Cemetery. Night. Present

Back in the here and now, pensive music sets the tone as Dean and Sam prepare to salt-and-burn poor doomed Barry, believing him to be the spirit haunting Truman High. Both brothers look grim as they silently sprinkle salt and pour accelerant over the opened grave of Sam's one-time friend. Then Dean tosses in a lighted matchbook and the brothers stand side by side to watch the bones burn.

It has been pointed out that this is actually an old scene being reused: the footage has been taken from Hollywood Babylon and reversed to appear new – just another sign of the severely limited budget on which this show is made.


"So long, Barry Cook," remarks Dean by way of eulogy as the brothers later dump their shovels back into the Impala's trunk after filling in the grave once more.

Sam remains silent, still choked up with sorrow for the boy he knew for such a short time so long ago, who was the only friend he had in this town.

Impala. Road. Night

Salt'n'burn concluded, the Impala speeds along, presumably heading back to the unseen motel of the week. Pensive piano music continues to set a sombre tone as Sam broods and Dean gruffly asks if he is all right.

It takes Sam a moment to find his voice. "Barry was my friend," he murmurs. "I just burned his bones."


Dean flicks a worried glance at his brother. "Well, he's at peace now, Sam," he offers, and that really is the only comfort it is possible to draw from the situation.

Sam is in no mood to be comforted, however. "If Dad had have just let us stay a little while longer, maybe I could have helped that kid, you know?" he sighs. It's been a while since we heard Sam grumbling against John like that – he worked hard at being more understanding of his father after John's death. It is very Sam to be so sure that he could have helped, and so unhappy that he never got the chance.

Dean is not about to let his brother beat himself – or John – up over this one and points out that Sam has read the coroner's report. "Barry was on every anti-anxiety drug and anti-depressant known to man," he summarises. "School was hell for that kid. His parents had split up…he just wanted out. It's tragic, but it's not your fault."

This is a fabulous little scene of big brother looking after little brother, offering comfort and reassurance. It's something we haven't seen that much of this season, but it's always been the role in which Dean is most comfortable.


Sam does not look convinced, but Dean barrels on regardless. "To tell you the truth, I'm glad we got out of that town. I hated that school." Sam shrugs that it wasn't all bad, but Dean scoffs. "How can you say that after what happened to you?"

What happened to Sam was the bullying we have already seen, rather than anything more serious, it transpires, and it feeds into Dean's memory of the school. Although we will later learn that Dean's dislike of Truman stems principally from his own deeply personal experience of the school, the memory of Sam being bullied here lends further weight to that opinion. He always reacts badly when anyone hurts Sam and even now, 12 years later, the thought of someone hurting his little brother at this school still angers him. He is so locked into his opinion of Truman that he is completely unaware of the positive memories Sam took away from the school.

Lost in memories, Sam doesn't reply.

Sports field, 1997

Back in the past, a glum Sam sits in the bleachers with Dean pacing around before him in fury, having heard about the incident with Dirk. This rage at the thought of someone harming Sam is something we have seen many times in his adult self, an instinctive reaction he has never really grown out of.


"That kid's dead," Dean growls, low and menacing. Sam tries to calm him down, but Dean is having none of it. "I'm going to rip his lungs out!" he rages. Sam insists that it isn't a big deal, but Dean is having none of that, either. "Not a big deal? Sammy, look at yourself! If Dad was here…"

If Dad was here. Therein lies the crux of the issue. John isn't around – he is never around for these flashbacks, which focus intently on how the brothers cope without him, left to raise themselves and each other as best they can.

Also worth pointing out that for all Dean's fury, there isn't actually a mark to be seen on Sam.

Sam points out that John isn't here. "Well, I am, and as soon as I finish with that dick…" Dean seethes. In John's absence, Dean has parental responsibility for Sam, but he is still just a kid himself, lacking the wisdom and maturity to deal with many of the situations life throws at them. That's why children and young people need to have parents looking after them, guiding and protecting them. Dean and Sam both need the support and guidance of their father right now, but they don't have it, and so can only flounder along as best they can alone.


Frustrated, Sam sighs for his brother to just shut up. He is frustrated with just about every aspect of his life right now. Frustrated that his Dad isn't here, frustrated that they always move on so soon, frustrated that he couldn't stand by and watch Barry being picked on, which brought him to the attention of the class bully. And he feels powerless to change any of it. He can't stop Dean being protective of him. He can't stop John from hunting, can't stop his family from moving constantly. As far as his altercation with Dirk is concerned, right now he just wants to forget it ever happened, and he certainly doesn't want Dean making a fuss about it because he doesn't want to be noticed, wants to fly below the radar. He needs to retain control of that situation himself by dealing with it in his own way.

Dean simmers down and Sam draws a deep breath. "I don't need your help," he insists.


This assertion succeeds only in sending Dean off into another rant. "That's right, you don't," he fumes. "You could have torn them apart, so why didn't you?"

For all that Dean's deeply protective instinct is to take care of his little brother and defend him against all comers, he has absolute faith in Sam's ability to look after himself. They have both been trained by their father, after all – Dean knows what Sam is capable of, and can't understand why he wouldn't defend himself when attacked.

"Because I don't want to be the freak for once, Dean!" Sam flails. "I want to be normal!"

Oh, dammit, poor Sam. At 14 being the permanent new kid in a never-ending string of schools is what makes him feel like a freak, so much so that he would rather let a bully beat him up than show himself to be even more of a freak by revealing his highly trained fighting skills if he fought back to defend himself. Seeing that and knowing what we know about where the course of his life will lead him, through dead girlfriends and demon blood, freaky psychic powers, death, resurrection and the Apocalypse…well. 'Nuff said, surely.

"So taking a beating, that's normal?" Dean disbelieves, still furious that anyone would dare lay a finger on his little brother.


But as well as anger at the bully, a lot of Dean's rage, like Sam's frustration, comes from a place of powerlessness. The evidence of this episode makes it clear that however differently he expresses it and however hard he tries to hide it, the constant moving from school to school is every bit as hard on Dean as it is Sam, of course it is, but even at 18 he is no more able to control his own circumstances than his brother is. Unlike Sam, however, he feels unable to openly express his concerns, so does not even have that outlet, plus bears the constant added burden of being responsible for his little brother. Our first glimpse of young Dean in the A Very Supernatural Christmas flashbacks he was staring out of the window, watching anxiously for John's return, as he was late; Dean is a worrier, no doubt worries the whole time John is away, every time, what happens if Dad doesn't come back this time, what if something happens to him? Looking after Sam is his job, his designated role in life, and every time Sam gets hurt in any way – including at the hands of a school bully – Dean takes it as a personal failure and reacts accordingly. It is a lot of stress, and all finds outlet in this fury over Sam's encounter with Dirk.

But even so, Dean does as Sam asks and leaves Dirk alone, lets his brother handle the situation by himself. Dean has never been able to say no to Sam.

Both brothers take a breath by way of winding down and Sam puts his finger on the real crux of the issue by asking if Dean has heard from John. Downcast, Dean pulls a marvellously chunky late-1990s cellphone out of a pocket, glowers dolefully at it and then shoves it away again. "He called this morning, said he's going to be another week," he mutters almost despairingly. "At least! We weren't supposed to be here this long."


And therein lies the heart of Dean's ill temper in this scene, his assured approach to Truman High now crumbling in the face of this change of plans. His entire coping strategy for this school from the moment he arrived was based around the assumption that he would only be here two weeks. Having that timescale extended, with even the newly proposed date for departure only an estimate rather than certainty, means he has to keep up his pretence of normality in front of the same people for much longer than he anticipated, indefinitely, even, as well as maintaining sole parental responsibility for Sam that much longer – and Sam is already being bullied in this school. With the certainty of John's return to relieve him of duty removed, he is starting to unravel.

I can't help but wonder just how often John extended his hunting trips like this, and how well prepared he and the boys were for such an eventuality. How much money might he habitually leave to tide them over during his absence? Would it really stretch to cover extra weeks? How carefully would Dean have to budget, every time, just in case this happened, and how long could the boys last, financially, if one of John's hunting trips were seriously extended – say if he got himself injured? He clearly checks in semi-regularly, at least, and we know from previous flashback episodes that contingency arrangements would be in place in case of emergency. Even so, waiting for those semi-regular phone calls to establish that all is well and, if they lapsed, wondering how long to wait before declaring emergency…it's all a lot of underlying stress. These are all very serious practical issues and all the worry therein would fall very much on Dean's shoulders, with Sam largely oblivious, sheltered by his brother's presence.

Sam eyes his brother glumly. "At least you have Amanda. She's cool," he suggests, managing to sound both reassuring – because although he is years off gaining any real understanding of his brother's vulnerability, he knows enough to know that Dean is unhappy about this extended stay at Truman, and it's cute to see that Sam has always tended to approve of his brother's girlfriends – and envious, because Sam only has poor doomed Barry for company.


Sam's friendship with Barry in these flashbacks is interesting, because it comes across as somewhat one-sided. Barry reaches out to Sam eagerly, desperate for a friend, a kindred spirit, someone to cling to amid the torment that is high school. But although Sam clearly appreciates both the company and acceptance and also feels sorry for the other boy, stands up for him because he is unable to stick up for himself, and remembers him as a friend, he doesn't really reach back in any way, holds himself aloof emotionally in the same way that his adult self tends to hold himself aloof, maybe without even being aware he is doing it. If Barry hadn't made the first move, Sam wouldn't have. It isn't as if he can ever be truly honest with any friends he makes, after all, and however much the date of departure might move around, the one thing Sam can be certain of is that he will be leaving sooner rather than later. He might crave friendship and acceptance, but he doesn't go out of his way to seek it.

Sam doesn't give his heart easily, and that's interesting to consider by way of the character's development. It is clearly as much of a defence mechanism as Dean's braggadocio: if you don't care, you can't be hurt as easily. In the early episodes of season one, however, when he was still grieving for Jessica and railed against what he considered Dean's anti-social attitude, Sam had forgotten that. His years at Stanford had given him exactly what he always wanted: stability. He felt settled there, settled and secure, and so built up for himself a nice, cosy circle of friends, safe in the knowledge that he would not have to move on and leave them – so much so that it came as a shock to go back on the road and be reminded of his brother's isolationist ways. Since returning to the hunt, however, Sam has become more and more aloof, in part internalising Dean's philosophy but also in part remembering his own coping strategies of old, it seems.

Here, in trying to cheer his brother up, Sam has inadvertently hit upon another current source of anxiety for Dean: Amanda. He quirks an eyebrow and shakes his head nervously. "Dude," he frets. "She wants me to meet her parents. I don't do parents."


Dean likes Amanda. She's not only very attractive but also seems to be a very nice girl. But she is getting too complicated for him to deal with, especially after their conversation about parenting methods. She heard the words he said and saw straight through them to the fact that, at the end of the day, he doesn't have anyone looking after him, and, being so secure in the love and protection of her own parents, she felt sorry for him, which was the last thing he wanted. She has got too close, and that kind of proximity leaves Dean feeling emotionally naked, which is just another reason for his frustration at the prospect of not leaving this school as early as originally planned. As much as Dean liked Amanda, she was only ever supposed to be a meaningless fling. Now that she has got so close and found her way behind his defences, he no longer has the escape route of leaving as soon as originally planned, he needs to find another way to establish some distance between them once more.

And, of course, meeting her parents is a definite no. It would be a symbolic gesture that smacked of commitment, something Dean cannot and will not give. Plus, not only are they unlikely to approve of him, but they are very likely to present a stark and unwelcome contrast with his own home life. No, all in all Amanda is fast becoming far too hot for Dean to handle.



I love this scene, which emphasises how isolated the brothers are and how close necessity forces them to be. An outgoing 18 year old and introverted 14 year old are not ideal companions for one another, but who else does either of them have to confide in? There is no one else in either of their lives with whom they can be completely open. They are each surrounded by other people in these flashbacks, located as they are in the high school, and yet that proximity to others serves only to highlight how isolated they are, all alone in their private world full of private issues that cannot be shared with anyone but each other.

Mr Wyatt's class – English studies

The bell rings to signal the end of class, and the little 8th graders all file out. Mr Wyatt calls Sam to stay behind for a chat and Sam is worried, expecting to be in trouble. He tries to explain that he didn't start the fight, but that isn't what Mr Wyatt wants to talk about.


"You know this assignment was non-fiction, right?" the teacher says of that 'most memorable family experience' essay task we saw him giving out earlier, waving Sam's paper.

Sam despondently says yes, clearly expecting the worst.

"So, you and your family killed a werewolf last summer, huh?" says Mr Wyatt, looking amused. Werewolf! In Heart Dean enthused that he and Sam hadn't seen a werewolf since they were kids, so presumably this was the encounter he was remembering, not only memorable enough for Dean to look back on as something special years after the event, but for Sam to make the subject of this essay: his most memorable family experience.


It was clearly a hunt in which Sam was an active participant, then, rather than being left safely at home or to wait in the car, a hunt undertaken by all three Winchesters, as a family. It was during the summer, according to Sam's essay, which makes sense: it would seem practical for John to hunt alone during term time, but involve the boys in his work during school vacations, under his strict supervision of course, by way of training them. He might not have ever intended for them to follow in his footsteps, but 14 years down the line it must be clear to him that he is locked into this life now, and he can see no way out either for himself or his sons. In John's eyes, they are safer learning to hunt at his side than they would be leading normal lives and pretending they don't know what they know.

Sam says nothing, looking abashed. What can he say? The essay called for his most memorable family experience, so that's what he wrote, but to his teacher it looks like fiction. He can't claim it as truth without looking insane and bringing the weight of authority down upon his family.

"Why would you write something like this, Sam?" asks Mr Wyatt, and that is a very good question.

"It doesn't matter," Sam dejectedly shrugs. "As soon as my Dad gets back, we're leaving, so…. You can flunk me if you want to."


And that would be the answer to that very good question. Writing that essay was an expression of Sam's despair over the life in which he is trapped. He has no frame of reference for what 'normal' kids would consider a memorable family experience, so he wrote the truth, expecting to be failed and knowing that it didn't matter because his family would be leaving soon.

In fact, since the family's removal date has been pushed back a week or so from what was originally intended, Sam probably expected to be long gone before the paper was even graded.

But Mr Wyatt startles Sam by announcing that he isn't flunking the essay – in fact he's awarding it an A. Sam is amazed; it's the last thing he was expecting. "Now, aside from the werewolf," says Mr Wyatt. "Is that really how you'd describe your family?"

Sam's eyes are aglow with delight as he nods that yes, it is.


"Well, your brother's quite a character," Mr Wyatt laughs. "And your father, he seems, uh…driven."

From this little summary offered by the teacher, it sounds as if Sam has written about his brother with affection (and probably also a fair degree of eye-rolling exasperation), while describing his father rather more bluntly, focusing on his work-oriented focus. Sam's resentment of his too often absent father runs deep, as the perceived cause of all that is wrong with his life. Dean, on the other hand, for all his flaws, is the one person who has always been there for Sam, no matter what, his primary caregiver and the person with whom he has shared more of his life than anyone else in the world. It would seem that his opinions of the two have shone through in his essay.

"Anyway, it's good, Sam," Mr Wyatt finishes. "It's really good. Have you ever thought about pursuing writing?"

"I can't," Sam resignedly explains. "I have to go into the family business. My Dad's a…Dad's a mechanic. So I have to be a mechanic too."

Now, this is where we realise how significant this conversation is. At 14, Sam has resigned himself to the fact that his life is never going to change. I said earlier that a major source of his frustration is the fact that he feels powerless, unable to control any part of his life. He can't stop his father hunting, can't keep his family from moving around all the time, can't change anything about the way they live their lives. Now we learn that he also believes he has no say in his own future, must follow in his father's footsteps, just as Dean intends to do, because it has never occurred to him to think of his life independently from theirs. As much as he hates it, this is all he has ever known and his family is all that he has.

"Do you want to go in the family business, Sam?" asks the teacher.

Sam is stunned. "No one's ever asked me that before," he realises, a fact that speaks volumes in itself. Mr Wyatt smiles and prompts him to answer the question. The question might have never been asked before, but Sam needs no time at all to come up with an answer. He shakes his head fervently. "More than anything, no."


Mr Wyatt stands to lean against his desk, making this a more informal chat. "I don't want to overstep my bounds here," he begins. "But you don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

Sam does not look convinced, no doubt thinking of his oh-so driven father, who would no doubt argue that life is all about doing things you don't want to do, in the interest of saving lives and ridding the world of evil. Having no way to understand Sam's real home situation and pressures, since he thinks this is all about whether Sam should become a mechanic as opposed to pursuing academia, the teacher tries a little harder, explaining that he knows what it is like – he comes from a family of surgeons but chose to trade in the money and prestige of being a doctor for the glamour of the classroom.

"The point is," he explains. "There may be three or four big choices that shape someone's whole life, and you need to be the one that makes them, not anyone else. You seem like a great kid, Sam. Just live the life you want to."

Sam looks pensive as the scene fades out. This is the significance of this conversation and this teacher, because it was this conversation with this teacher that first set Sam on the path to Stanford. This is the first time it has occurred to Sam that he could have the power to change his own circumstances, maybe not immediately, but as something that he can work toward. The first time it has occurred to him that he can take control of his own life and choose to do something different, whether his father and brother agree with it or not – unaware that the course of his life was already set in motion years before he was even born.


Impala. Road. Night – present

Sam looks just as pensive now as he did back then as he sits in the car remembering those words and weighing them up against the life he has led since that day. He followed the advice Mr Wyatt gave him that day and it took him all the way to Stanford, at the high price of estrangement from his family. And his escape did not last as long as he had hoped, this life and his demon-tainted blood dragging him right back in again, against his will.

There may be three or four big choices that shape someone's whole life, and you need to be the one that makes them, not anyone else, Mr Wyatt told Sam. For Sam, leaving for Stanford was one of those choices, and it brought him into direct and open confrontation with his family. Deciding to work with Ruby to go after Lilith? That would be another of those life-shaping decisions that only he can make – and it is certain that this one will also bring him into direct and open confrontation with what is left of his family, sooner or later.

Was that freedom of choice and destiny worth the price paid back then? Sam always believed that it was, pursued it with single-minded determination regardless of cost. So is it worth the price that must surely be paid now? That is the question. Sam certainly has a lot on his mind these days.

Outside Truman High School. Day

Sitting in the car outside the school, Dean grumps that he can't believe they've come back here just so Sam can talk to an old teacher. Staring out the window, Sam simply says that he is a good guy, because how can he possibly explain to Dean what Mr Wyatt actually meant to him? Dean gives up trying to understand and tells him to go do what he has to do, but to make it quick.

Dean never had a Mr Wyatt to encourage him to think of his own life and future independent of his family, that much seems certain. It is highly unlikely that he would have listened to the advice, even if it had been offered, burdened as he was with responsibility – a problem Sam never had. Dean saw too much too young and it scarred him for life. The kind of freedom and security that Sam always dreamed of, Dean has always considered wholly unattainable, that attitude set in stone far too early in life for any teacher, no matter how caring or perceptive, to make an impression. Keeping the little he has left, at any cost, has always been far too important to him to risk losing it in search of the fool's gold of anything more.

Inside Truman High School

Sam wanders through the hallway toward Mr Wyatt's room, and there is a nifty fade to his 14 year-old self leaving the same room after that fateful conversation with the English teacher. The 14 year old Sam runs his hand through his hair, struggling to process his suddenly broadened horizons, and as the camera spins we fade back to adult Sam also running a hand through his hair as he nervously tries to work out what he is going to say to the teacher whose words had such an impact on him. Gorgeous direction and editing.

Before Sam can enter the classroom, however, a young girl interrupts him to ask how to get to some room or other which, as a student here, she should know a lot better than Sam, since his schooldays are far behind him and he has worked here as a janitor for all of one day. He has no trouble coming up with the directions, though, and is happy to help.

The girl smiles sweetly. "Thanks, Sam," she coos, and Sam freezes, realising something is wrong. Before he has time to summon any further reaction, the girl whips out a compass and stabs him in the chest with it!

Of course, compasses being the size they are, it doesn't actually do that much damage, but is nonetheless painful. Sam doubles over, clutching at his wounded breast, and stares in shock at the girl as she growls "you got tall, Winchester," before kicking him hard in the crotch. Sam doubles over, and the girl slams him into the lockers and onto the floor.

I'm thinking Mr Wyatt isn't in his room, since he doesn't come out to investigate the rumpus, so if this little incident hadn't occurred to blow the case open again, Sam would have had a totally wasted trip.

Ectoplasm drips from the girl's mouth as she advances on the fallen Sam, who manages to think fast even through his pain. He pulls out one of those little silver flasks that usually contain either whisky or holy water. This one, however, is full of salt, which Sam pours into his hand. As the girl reaches for him, he clamps his handful of salt over her mouth and holds on tight.

After struggling violently for a moment or two, the spirit is expelled from the girl and rather niftily disappears into the ceiling with a crackle and spark of the light fitting. Shocked, Sam quickly glances around to make sure there were no witnesses while he gently cradles the girl's unconscious form.


Random Scenic Location. Day

Sometime later, the brothers have found another picturesque spot to park up and discuss this latest turn of events. Stab wound presumably now dressed beneath his bloody shirt, Sam sits looking sore, while Dean pulls a bottle of whisky out of the cooler and hands it to his brother, assuring him that it will help. Sam takes the nice cold bottle and sits it between his thighs by way of icing his abused crotch, which is hilarious.


"That ghost is dead. I'm going to rip its lungs out," Dean growls. It's exactly the same words he used when he found out Sam had been bullied back in 1997, which makes for nice symmetry, especially when we learn that it was the same culprit responsible each time. Dean's protective instinct toward Sam has never faded, no matter how grown up and capable his brother has become, but now as back then other issues also feed into his angry reaction, such as chagrin because they had been so sure the case was resolved already.

Sam squints quizzically at his brother, clearly wondering just how Dean is going to manage this lung extraction, and Dean simmers down. "You know what I mean."

Sam relates that the spirit knew his name, his real name. "We burned Barry's bones," he puzzles. "What the hell?"


Dean has pulled out the case file and, already engrossed in reading, suggests that maybe it wasn't Barry and that they need to go back over everything. Reading through the notes on all three kids to have been possessed so far, he notices something and wonders how they didn't spot it before. "Check it out. 'Martha Dumptruck,' 'Revenge Of The Nerds,' and 'Hello Kitty', they all rode the same bus," he points out. Heh.

Sam suggests that maybe the bus is haunted, then, which Dean agrees would explain why there is no EMF at the school, but doesn't explain why all the attacks are taking place at the school, since ghosts are usually tied to the places they haunt.


"Unless this one can," says Sam. "Dean, there's lore about spirits possessing people and riding them for miles, then whenever they leave the body they're bungeed back to their usual haunt, but until then the ghosts can go wherever they want."

Dean is not thrilled by the idea of a spook that can grab a kid on the bus and walk right into the school, but it fits. "Ghosts getting creative. Well, that's super," he sighs, reaching into the cooler and pulling out another bottle, this one to drink, since Sam is still warming the other with his crotch.

School Bus

There is only one, small school bus serving Truman High? My old high school had a whole fleet of double-deckers!


Anyway, the brothers Winchester have located the school bus and Sam is scanning it for EMF – getting plenty of readings, too – while Dean searches for any trace of the ghost, shotgun in hand. Sam puzzles over how the bus can be haunted in the first place, since no one ever died on it, but Dean shrugs that something is clearly tying the ghost to the location and it could be as little as a flap of skin, hair or hangnail. They'd have a hard time finding and destroying it if it was! I suppose they could always just set fire to the entire bus…

Dean sits himself down in the driver's seat and starts searching the glove compartment. The only thing he can find that stands out is a newly issued driver's permit, issued two weeks ago, just before the first attack, to one Dirk McGregor Senior. Sam recognises the name. "I knew his son," he realises.

Dean blinks a double take. "You know everybody at this school?" Heh.


Of course, the reason Sam knew both ghost suspects so far is because he was connected to both and played a part in the circumstances that built up to the haunting, although he doesn't know it yet. But the fact that he remembers more people at this school than Dean does is also symbolic of the fact that Sam made more of an effort here than Dean did. He wanted to fit in and be part of the community here; Dean didn't.

Truman High, 1997

The bell rings and school is out for the day as we rejoin our flashback adventures of the young Sam and Dean. Wee Sammy wanders outside just in time to see bully Dirk – Dirk McGregor Junior, of course – pushing poor doomed Barry to the ground. Sam strides over to stand between Dirk and his victim and again tells the bigger boy to leave him alone.


"You never learn, do you, midget?" Dirk sneers, and it kills me all over again that wee Sammy was so very wee and then grew into such a giant. Even the spirit he encountered earlier commented on it, which was telling.


Looking exasperated, Sam ignores Dirk and pulls Barry to his feet, telling him to get to the bus, and Barry doesn't need telling twice to scamper away. With one last measured glare at Dirk, Sam begins to follow…only for Dirk to shove him to the ground from behind.

It's the final straw. Dirk starts hollering insults, laughing that Sam is scared and calling him Lose-chester and freak, and it is on the word freak that Sam's temper finally snaps completely. Clearly, Sam has always had a thing about being called a freak even before he knew he had demon blood. Just being different to the other children in school because of being permanently new and living in a string of motels was enough. So now that demon blood and psychic powers have been added to the mix? No wonder he reacts so badly to the word.


Sam hurls himself back into the fray. To Dirk's astonishment, it turns out to be a woefully mismatched fight, since Sam has been thoroughly trained by John Winchester for years. Now that he is actually fighting back rather than turning the other cheek, Sam dodges Dirk's every blow and delivers a comprehensive smackdown with supreme ease.

As an adult, Sam can be extremely dangerous: hard-edged and ruthless, with a cold, vengeful temper. It is fascinating to see, for the first time, the seeds of that facet of his personality in his younger self.

"You're not tough – you're just a jerk!" Sam sneers at his fallen foe. "Dirk the Jerk!"


The nasty nickname is immediately picked up by the crowd of students who'd gathered around to watch the fight, and they chorus it enthusiastically as Dirk beats his humiliated retreat. Kids, as Dean pointed out, can be vicious.

McGregor house, present

"So, you were friends with Dirk?" asks Dirk McGregor Senior as the brothers Winchester arrive to interview him, and Sam lies that he was. Mr McGregor is surprised, as he doesn't remember Dirk having any friends at Truman, which is a sad state of affairs and our first hint that Dirk was, in fact, just as downtrodden and unhappy as his victims.


Dean and Sam gently ask what happened to Dirk. Mr McGregor sadly explains that his son died when he was just 18 years old, after a downward spiral of drink and drugs through his teenage years. "He just slipped through my fingers," the old man mourns, blaming himself for not seeing it coming, explaining that Dirk has his troubles. School was never easy for Dirk, his father tells the brothers. "We didn't have much money, and…kids, they can be cruel. They picked on him."

Sam had been nodding along with practiced sympathy through this little speech, but on hearing Dirk's father claim that his son was bullied, his eyes go wide. This information does not fit with Sam's memory of the other boy at all, because he is remembering Dirk through the eyes of an unhappy 14 year old who knew him only for a few very short weeks and had as little to do with him as possible in that time. "They picked on him?" he queries, trying but not quite succeeding to keep the note of surprise and mild disbelief out of his voice.


Mr McGregor nods, bitterness vying with grief now. "They called him poor. Dirty. Stupid. They even had a nickname for him. 'Dirk the Jerk'."

Sam is appalled to hear the nickname he himself gave Dirk quoted as having followed him for the rest of his miserable life, a major source of his unhappiness and despair. He had been proud of his victory over the bully, seeing it as just that: a victory. Justified. Self defence. It had never occurred to him that his own actions could be interpreted as being every bit as cruel as Dirk's, or that defeat and shame would hit the other boy so hard.


It gets worse. Mr McGregor goes on to explain that his wife Jane, Dirk's mother, died when Dirk was 13 – probably no more than a year before Sam met Dirk, then, so that his grief and anger would have been fairly fresh still. It seems that Jane McGregor died of cancer, and as her husband was working three jobs in an attempt to keep the family solvent, and no doubt also to pay for her treatment, it fell to young Dirk to take care of her.

So, now we know just how depressingly tragic this entire case is. Far from merely being the mindless bully Sam had assumed he was, Dirk's behaviour was in fact a manifestation of his own misery, lashing out at those weaker than he was as an outlet for his despair and grief over his mother's illness and death and his pain over the bullying he had received himself. It isn't an excuse for Dirk's actions, but it is an explanation. His defeat at Sam's hands, then, and the nickname he picked up as a result, was the final straw that triggered a catastrophic downward spiral.

Sam can hardly bear to hear any more, looking up at the photographs of Dirk so proudly displayed on the mantle, a much loved and much missed only son.


Mr McGregor continues that Dirk was a good boy and always made sure his mother got her medicine and cleaned up after her, nursed her right to the end. "Watching somebody die, slow, waste away to nothing…it does things to a person. Horrible things."

Voice thick with emotion, Sam murmurs that he didn't know about Dirk's mother. How could he have known? He was a child himself, wrapped up in his own pain. Still, it's an apology, if only the old man knew it. Mr McGregor nods that Dirk wouldn't talk about her, even to him. Sam looks again at the pictures of, smiling and happy and alive. "Lot of anger in that boy," Mr McGregor sadly concludes.

"I'm sorry," Sam tells him, meaning it completely.

Dean, who didn't know Dirk or what happened between him and Sam, and doesn't know what's going on in Sam's head right now, and is therefore still in practiced faux-sympathy mode, chips in that the brothers would like to pay their respects to Dirk and wonder where he was buried. It turns out, however, that Dirk wasn't buried: he was cremated. Dean twitches a little at this piece of news, which complicates matters somewhat. "All of him?" he awkwardly asks, knowing damn well what a strange and rude question it is to ask but asking it anyway because they need to know. Dirk's spirit is clearly clinging on to something – something on the bus his father drives.


Frowning a little at the odd and rather distasteful question, Mr McGregor admits that he kept a lock of Dirk's hair. Dean clumsily asks just where this hair is kept – and there really is no nice way to ask that question, but again it is information the brothers desperately need if they are going to prevent any more deaths. Puzzled, Mr McGregor says that he keeps it tucked away in his Bible, on the bus he drives.

And that would explain why the spirit suddenly became active when his father started driving the school bus, bringing him back into proximity with teenagers of the variety that made his short life so very miserable.

Road. Night

Later that night, the school bus normally driven by Dirk McGregor Senior is now trundling along through the woods bearing a bunch of bored, sweaty jocks and their coach back home after a game, driven by a substitute driver, Eddie, who the coach thanks for standing in at short notice.

"My pleasure, coach," Eddie crisply replies, thick black ectoplasm trickling from his nose to signal that Dirk has found himself another host.

In fact, it transpires, since his father is not at the wheel Dirk is perhaps thinking in terms of wiping out the entire busload, as the coach nervously asks Eddie to slow down. Eddie smirks that he's got it all under control, and promptly drives across a strip of spikes lying across the road. The tyres burst and the bus goes screeching off the road into a ditch. Not the most impressive accident ever, since everyone inside remains entirely intact.

The Dirk-possessed Eddie steps off the bus, possibly in search of some means of slaughtering everyone aboard, or maybe suspecting a trap of some kind, his slaughtering plans for the evening interrupted. And if the latter, it seems he is entirely right, for Dean and Sam then appear out of nowhere, so it appears that it was they who laid the spikes to force the bus off the road, but we are never really told, and if so it was a very dangerous plan. Pure chance that Eddie wasn't yet going fast enough for the bursting tyres to cause a much more serious accident and kill everyone aboard!


Anyway. Shotgun at the ready, Sam calls to get Dirk's attention. Dirk-Eddie glowers at him. "Winchester. What are you going to do, shoot me?"

Sam replies that he doesn't need to, just as Dean pops up behind Dirk-Eddie and wraps a rope soaked in salt water around him to bind the spirit. With Dirk-Eddie contained, Dean hurries over to the bus to rifle through the glove compartment again, leaving Sam to guard the captive spirit.

Of course, Dean is instantly confronted with a whole bus full of confused students and their coach, so he shouts to them to just stay where they are and that they will be okay. "Aren't you the PE teacher?" asks the puzzled coach.

Distracted from his search, Dean realises he is going to have to come up with some kind of explanation. "Not really. I'm like 21 Jump Street," he claims. "The bus driver sells pot."

Okay, so that's poor Eddie's career in ruins once he is no longer possessed! Mud has a tendency of sticking.

Dean returns his attention to the glove compartment and quickly locates Mr McGregor's Bible, only to find that the lock of hair is missing. Sam asks Dirk-Eddie where it is, but he merely smirks that they won't find it. Sam is fast losing his temper and charges at the man, shoving him up against the side of the bus and waving the shotgun in his face as he demands to know where it is.


"Sam Winchester," Dirk-Eddie mocks. "Still the bully." Sam squirms, and Dirk-Eddie presses home his point, glancing around to include Dean in his assessment of the rest of the world versus him. "You jocks, you popular kids, you always thought you were better than everybody else. To you I was just Dirk the Jerk, right? Now you evil sons of bitches are going to get what's coming to you."

"I'm not evil, Dirk," Sam immediately protests, letting go of the man and stepping back, raw nerve well and truly struck. He looks distraught as he insists, "I'm not. And neither were you. Trust me. I've seen real evil."


There is a rather stunning shot of Dean standing back listening to all this, looking pained as he hears his brother's knee-jerk reaction to the mere word 'evil.


"We were scared and miserable and we took it out on each other," Sam earnestly continues. "Us and everybody else. That's high school. But you suffer through that. And it gets better. I'm just sorry you didn't get a chance to see that. You or Barry."

There are strong parallels here with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Earshot, which dealt with a similar theme: the way that school children can be thoughtlessly cruel to one another, often without even noticing, wrapped up as they tend to be in their own angst. 'Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own,' said the eponymous Buffy in that episode, which is pretty much what Sam is trying to tell Dirk here.

"Nothing is going to get better for me," Dirk-Eddie grits out, and since he's a spirit, long dead, there isn't really any arguing with that assessment. "Not ever."

Turns out, a spirit powerful enough to create ectoplasm is also powerful enough to break through salt water-soaked ropes, and he does so now with consummate ease, much to Sam and Dean's dismay. With the possessed man charging at him, Sam is forced to shoot him in the chest with rock salt, twice. Yeah, that's going to smart – Dean could tell us just how much!

We don't see the spirit leaving the man's body, but inside the bus, one of the jocks jerks as it enters him instead, and his nose drips ectoplasm.

Outside, Dean and Sam exchange anxious glances and peer warily at the fallen Eddie, unsure whether the spirit is still in him or not. Sam takes a step toward the man to get a better look and maybe help him up, only for Dirk-Jock to tackle him to the ground from behind and start pummelling him viciously.


Wow, this is a bad episode for Sam, both emotionally and physically!

Also, shouldn't the coach have stopped the boy leaving the bus, since there has been gunfire outside? Or followed him out to make sure he isn't in danger? He has a duty of care to the students in his charge, after all.

Dean hurriedly grabs the shotgun and fires rock salt into the kid's back, but it has no effect, presumably as an indication of just how angry this particular angry spirit is right now. Sam yells at his brother to find the hair, instead. Frantic, Dean rushes back into the bus to search the glove compartment yet again, but there is no sign of the hair. Meanwhile, Sam is being battered.

Finally Dean has a brainwave and rushes back out of the bus to check on driver Eddie, and his hunch turns out to be correct, for Dirk has concealed the hair about the man's person. Dean scrambles through the man's clothing and then checks his boots, and therein finds the elusive lock of hair.

With the hair acquired at least, Dean pulls out his lighter, which of course promptly refuses to light. But after a couple of attempts, Dean gets it to catch and sets light to the lock of hair tying Dirk to the world. Dirk-Jock rears back and bellows as the spirit is expelled from the body to erupt in flames, and the no-longer-possessed Jock promptly collapses across Sam, smothering him against the asphalt.


"Urgh. He's givin' you the full cowgirl!" Dean musters the energy to chuckle when his brother calls him for a little help, never one to pass up on an opportunity to rag on Sam a little.

And after all this? The brothers really need to get out of town quickly. They've got two civilians with shotgun wounds, albeit rock salt rather than buckshot, and no good explanation. Dean, at least, can be identified by the coach. It won't take long for the feeble cover story he span to be discredited, so the sooner he and Sam get out of town the better at this stage.

Truman High, 1997

Time for one last flashback. Dean's back in the broom closet…but this time making out with a brunette, instead of his pretty blonde Amanda. Of course, Amanda bursts in and finds her supposed boyfriend with another girl, and the jig is up.


Brunette makes a hasty exit – she's going to have to deal with the fallout long after Dean has left town – and Amanda storms back out in the hallway, Dean trailing after her offering weak excuses because he really did like Amanda, but that was the problem right there. The sad thing is that he set himself up for this, too, because she got too close and it freaked him out, confronting him with the prospect of actually having to face up to issues he likes to keep buried. The only way he knew how to handle that was by pushing her away – or, rather, by behaving in a way that would cause her to push him away. And, of course, it backfires on him spectacularly.

Furious, Amanda turns around and gives Dean a piece of her mind right there, in the middle of the hallway, in front of what looks like half the school – students who have already proved they love a bit of live theatre in their midst.

"I'm not mad, Dean," she snits. "I thought maybe underneath your whole I-don't-give-a-crap, bad-boy thing that there was something more going on. I mean, like – the way you are with your brother?"

So she's noticed Dean's care and concern toward Sam, then, and I wonder if this was because she was paying special attention to Dean, as her boyfriend, or if it has been that obvious to everyone else, as well – a little of both, most likely. We saw him openly greeting his little brother in the hallway; know that to Dean, he and Sam are a closed unit, us against the world. It seems safe to say that whatever image of cool Dean endeavours to project, Sam is always an exception to the rule.


It also strikes me that Amanda, rather than loving bad boys because she likes to rebel, is the kind of girl who is attracted to bad boys because she wants to 'fix' them. She saw past the bravado and defence mechanisms and saw the vulnerability that lies behind, saw Dean's care and concern for his brother and wanted to nurture that side of him. Wanted to change him.

But Dean being Dean, he has reacted strongly against those instincts of hers, so instead Amanda takes what she has learned about him and uses it to tear him to shreds. "But I was wrong," she sneers. "You spend so much time trying to convince people that you're cool, but…it's just an act. We both know you're just a sad, lonely little kid. And I feel sorry for you."

Ouch. Way to hit where it really hurts. We have seen young Dean's confidence crumbling as his father's absence grew longer and uncertainty over how long he can expect to stay here has grown. Amanda's attack now, tearing down his carefully constructed image and exposing the sad reality of his life, not just to the watching students but to Dean himself, is the final straw. "You feel sorry for me, huh?" he spits. "Don't feel sorry for me. You don't know anything about me!"

Shaking her head in disgust, Amanda turns and flounces away, not interested in anything Dean has to say now that she has said her piece. Quite a few other students are still glaring in supercilious disapproval, however, as Dean unravels even further, his carefully constructed façade crashing down around him. Flailing desperately in his attempt to save face, he succeeds only in digging an even bigger hole for himself in the regard of his fellow students. "I save lives!" he insists. "I'm a hero! A hero!"


It's awkward dialogue, and a little cringeworthy – hard to believe that Dean would make such an outburst or refer to the secret nature of what his family does in this way. Still we must remember that this Dean is a lot younger than the Dean we know today, and Amanda's vitriolic attack was both unexpected and struck hard at the very core of his self-image, prompting this knee-jerk reaction. With his reputation in tatters, his secret identity as a hunter, someone who saves lives, is the only thing he has left to offer up by way of adding value to his discredited life. But it is not something his peers have any way of understanding or giving him credit for.

The watching students no longer care what Dean has to say. As the last onlookers turn and stalk away, he is left humiliated and alone and with no way to save face, bridges in this school well and truly burnt.

Sam, meanwhile, is making his way through another hallway, positively basking in the completely unprecedented glow of peer approval as he receives the adulation of everyone he meets for taking the school bully down a few pegs. It is a little over-done – Dirk was a bully, yes, but surely only picked on kids smaller and weaker than himself, so it seems a little over-the-top to see such universal delight at his downfall. The point is very clearly made, however, that for the first time in his life Sam feels accepted and wanted by his peers, feels like one of them, rather than the freak outsider. This is how it feels to be popular, and he likes that feeling.


Ironic, though, that Sam resented John's training regime so bitterly, but in the end it was using the skills his father taught him that brought him acceptance and popularity.

Meanwhile, as Sam revels in the glory of his victory, Dean shoulders his way through the hallway hating everyone and everything he sees and longing for the ground to open up and swallow him. To his utter relief, salvation comes in the form of a ringing cellphone. John, of course: announcing the family's immediate departure from town.


So, this, then, is why Sam has happy memories of Truman while Dean remembers it with deep-seated loathing. This school gave Sam a taste of acceptance and popularity, opened his eyes to the possibility of being able to shape and control his own life and set him on the road that would eventually lead him to Stanford. For Dean, on the other hand, this school brought only rejection and shame and the destruction of his carefully maintained self image.

It also seems clear that Dean never learned about the second fight and Sam's victory. Evidently Sam never told him, and he doesn't seem to have ever noticed the change in his brother, or at the very least failed to pinpoint it back to this place and time, which says something about the narrowness of Dean's focus and expectations. It also tells us that however close the brothers were as teenagers, and however much they each had no one to confide in but each other, there was still a lot that Sam chose to keep to himself, rather than telling Dean everything.

Outside

Outside school, Sam sits waiting patiently for John to arrive, pensive, because this school has given him a lot to think about and he regrets leaving. Dean, on the other hand, paces fretfully, anxious to get out of here as quickly as possible.

The sound of a horn announces the arrival of the Impala – once again, John is at the wheel but thanks to careful filming we never get a look at him, because it would have been pointless negotiating for Jeffrey Dean Morgan to travel all the way to Vancouver just to drive the car in two scenes.

Dean rushes to the car without looking back, calling for Sam to hurry up. Sam follows, but turns for one last look at the school. Up in a first floor window, poor doomed Barry sits waving sadly. Sam was probably the only friend that child ever had, and he only had him for a few short weeks. Sam waves back, no doubt believing that, with Dirk taken down a peg or two, life will improve for poor Barry.


Sam gets into the car and they all drive away for good. Or, you know, until 2009, when Sam's fond memories of his time at the school will crumble upon learning what became of his classmates after his departure, his brief stay at the school having had a less positive impact on Barry than Sam might have hoped and a far more catastrophic impact on Dirk than Sam ever could have dreamed. Truman High made a difference to Sam, and he thought he had made a difference there, too. It is always hard to look back as an adult upon situations we encountered as a child and realise how little we understood.

From that upstairs window, Barry watches his first and only friend drive out of his life for good, and is miserable.

Truman High. Present

Back in the present, Sam finally makes it to Mr Wyatt's room for that chat he's been wanting ever since returning to town – hopefully this is the last stop before the brothers make a hasty exit from town. Sam is looking rather battered, after his run-in with Dirk, but Mr Wyatt has the grace not to mention it during the conversation.


Looking a little nervous but eager, Sam allows that Mr Wyatt probably won't remember him – after all, he was only a student here for a month and has grown about three feet since then – but introduces himself with his real name and awkwardly announces that he just wanted to thank the teacher.

Mr Wyatt is going to need a little more than that, so Sam elaborates that he was a student here once and Mr Wyatt gave him some advice.

A rather gorgeous smile lights up Mr Wyatt's face as he puts two and two together and comes up with four. "Winchester. Right. Yeah – you wrote that horror story."


Heh. I love that Sam's werewolf story was so memorable, and that the teacher will never know it was true.

Sam is happy that the teacher remembers him, and snorts that it's kind of all been one long horror story…then has to brush that thoughtless remark off again when Mr Wyatt reasonably enough wonders what he means.


"So what was this advice?" Mr Wyatt wonders. "I might need to plagiarise myself down the line."

"You told me that I didn't have to go into the family business. Said I should make my own choices," Sam explains. It doesn't sound like much, but it meant the world to him and changed his entire life, at least for a while – and he still clings to the promise in those words even now.

Of course, Mr Wyatt assumes that means that Sam managed to do his own thing, then, and Sam has to admit that although he did, it didn't actually last that long. "Yeah. For a while, yeah. I went to college because of you. But, you know…people grow up. Responsibilities. But still, um. You took an interest in me when no one else did. That matters. So…thank you."


It might seem rather strange – silly, even – to come and say thank you for helping him get away when he ended up right back in the same place anyway, and really doesn't have anything to show for having followed the teacher's advice. But Sam hasn't come here to show Mr Wyatt how well he has done for himself, not at all. He has come here because he is floundering and because once upon a time this man threw him a lifeline, showed him that he had more options than he realised. He needs that again now that he is in the position of making one of those life-changing decisions once more, wants to ground himself in what his teacher told him so long ago, to assure himself that he is doing the right thing by making his own decision about what to do.

Mr Wyatt is touched, understanding as much as he can of what Sam is trying to say. "Well, you know the only thing that really matters," he smiles, "is that you're happy." Sam flinches a little too noticeably at those words, and the teacher is a little confused and concerned. "You're happy, Sam?" he prompts.

Because why would someone take the time to come and thank an old teacher for dishing out life-changing advice if they weren't happy with how their life has turned out? But of course Sam is not happy – how could he be, given the situation he and his brother and, in fact, the entire world is in right now. How can he even begin to answer that question?

The camera fades out on Sam's battered face, silent and troubled.

February 2009

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