"Baby"
Original Airdate: October 28, 2015
“Let’s go home.”
After some proud teasing from Dean, and an adorable sing-along to “Night Moves,” the brothers continue on the road again. While Dean stops for gas, Sam catches some sleep in the backseat. But when he “wakes up” to the sound of one of his mother’s old favorite songs, it isn’t Dean who is behind the wheel — it’s his father. More specifically, a younger John Winchester. He knows it isn’t real and that it isn’t really his father, but at the same time, he wonders if this is another vision, like the one given to him after he prayed in the hospital’s chapel. Whether these so-called visions are from God or someone slightly more sinister is still unclear, but Dean merely shrugs it off as some kind of fever dream. He admits that he often dreams about their father, too, leading to a nice little chick-flick moment between him and Sam. The fact that these moments almost always seem to happen in the Impala is even more comforting. In a way, she’s a safe place for them to be free and open about their feelings and the things that they don’t talk about when they’re on the job.
I’ve never been a car-crazy kind of a person. Sure, I’ve occasionally looked at a few that I might like, and of course everyone has their preferences. But for the most part, I never had a “dream” car — one I just absolutely had to have, one that had me fantasizing about what it would be like to sit behind the wheel of such a beauty. As long as the vehicle could get me from point A to point B in one piece, I didn’t particularly care what it was. And then Supernatural came along.
If someone had told me eight years ago (I first started watching around the time season three was just starting) that I would become legitimately emotional, maybe even shed a few genuine tears at the sight of a car literally twice my age, I probably would have laughed in their face. There’s no way. It’s just a car, right? Wrong.
“You know what? We are home.”
Before the first half hour had even passed, this episode had immediately shot up my list of favorites, easily settling possibly amongst the top three — and with good reason. I went into the episode knowing very little about it, only that it focused on the Impala and it was apparently the “first one like it in over ten years.” That last statement couldn’t have been more correct. The whole thing was expertly and cleverly shot from the perspective of Baby, uniquely showing what a day in the life of toting the Winchesters around is really like.
NO CHICK-FLICK MOMENTS
The episode starts off with the Impala getting a good scrub down by the brothers while they discuss their lack of leads regarding Metatron and the Darkness. Like I’d hoped, they leave Cas behind in the comfort of the bunker to heal (and Netflix binge) while they take off to investigate a case that they think will be “probably nothing.” Dead ends happen all the time, and the case itself is thin, so it’s no surprise that at first they merely use it as an excuse just to get out of the bunker. Dean decides to stop at a Roadhouse on the way for some “good times” while Sam finds a diner to look into some lore and keep focused on the case. However, when Dean returns to the car the next morning, he finds that research wasn’t the only thing his little brother was involved with the previous night — the naked blonde in the backseat is proof enough of that.
After some proud teasing from Dean, and an adorable sing-along to “Night Moves,” the brothers continue on the road again. While Dean stops for gas, Sam catches some sleep in the backseat. But when he “wakes up” to the sound of one of his mother’s old favorite songs, it isn’t Dean who is behind the wheel — it’s his father. More specifically, a younger John Winchester. He knows it isn’t real and that it isn’t really his father, but at the same time, he wonders if this is another vision, like the one given to him after he prayed in the hospital’s chapel. Whether these so-called visions are from God or someone slightly more sinister is still unclear, but Dean merely shrugs it off as some kind of fever dream. He admits that he often dreams about their father, too, leading to a nice little chick-flick moment between him and Sam. The fact that these moments almost always seem to happen in the Impala is even more comforting. In a way, she’s a safe place for them to be free and open about their feelings and the things that they don’t talk about when they’re on the job.
What I love the most about this episode is it’s your average “monster of the week” case, but with a twist. Through Baby’s perspective, we’re still able to enjoy the action of the hunt even without it being the sole focus of the entire episode. With help from Castiel over the phone, and little a bit of suspicious luck (i.e. the hair-pin found in the backseat that Dean was able to use to break free of his cuffs, the machete conveniently slid into the back floorboard, and the coin purse left behind by one of the girls who took it for a joyride: all of which were extremely necessary in taking down the “ghoul-pire”) they manage to wrap up the whole situation surprisingly quickly. Unfortunately, Baby takes a major beating throughout all of this, but it’s nothing that Dean can’t fix.
FINAL THOUGHTS
“Three days later, another car rolled off that same line. No one gave two craps about her, but they should’ve. Because this 1967 Chevrolet Impala would turn out to be the most important car... no, the most important object in pretty much the whole universe.”
The toy army man in the ashtray, the Legos in the air vents, and the initials carved into one of the doors. All of these things — like Chuck told us once so many years ago — are all the little things that make the Impala really theirs. It may be “just a car,” to some, but the memories it holds are why it’s important. It’s been through just as much as Sam or Dean, and yet, it still keeps on going, beating after beating. This episode was a fantastic reminder of that. No matter where Sam and Dean crash for the night, be it the bunker or another crappy motel, the Impala always has been and always will be their true home. I don’t care if it sounds silly to say, but she’s practically family. She’s been there for them through everything, after all.
Stuff & Things:
- “What is that?” “It’s a smoothie.” *loud slurping continues*
- “Where’s the beer?” “Under the smoothies.” “Where’s the rest of the beer?”
- “Try and relax. Read a book. Watch some Netflix.” “What’s a Netflix?” An extremely powerful angel, but he still doesn’t know what Netflix is. He’s in for a wonderful new discovery.
- “First of all, never use Swayze’s name in vain. Okay? Ever.”
- “Digging into the lore? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
- “Is EVERYTHING a Bob Seger song to you?” “Yes.”
- “For starters, he told me everything I wanted to hear.” “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like dad.” OUCH. Sad, but true.
- “Goodnight jerk.” “Goodnight, bitch.”
- “Say it with me! A were-pire!” “No.” “Come on!” “I’m not saying it.”
- “I’m mostly confused. I’m not sure how orange correlates with black in a way that’s new...” Can we please have an entire episode focused on Castiel binging Orange Is The New Black while the brothers are gone?
- “Turns out I DID shoot the deputy.” A joke literally eight years in the making.
- “People who don’t join are food.” Okay, Hannibal.
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