Supernatural – 6.01 – Exile on Main Street - Recap

Hey guys, welcome back for another season of Supernatural recapping! I'm very excited to be back and I hope you all had an awesome summer. Well I don't know about you but I'm ready to get into some rehashing of last week's season 6 premiere, because the show has finally returned and it was off to a good start, so let's take a look at what happened...



ONE YEAR AGO...

…Sam died. Very sad smiley face. Loved the black and white montage though. I have to say I really enjoyed the opening of the episode. My Supernatural-watching friends all seemed to dislike this episode and I do agree with some of their points, but I thought the first part was stellar at the least. I much prefer the new black and blue logo to the red and white one last year – less clinical (it always kind of reminded me of a medical show opening), and wayyy more edgy and awesome. Anyone agree/disagree with me on this one? I’d love to hear some rebuttals from the red/white camp if there’s anyone out there who cares? ;)

I also loved the montage showing how Dean has been adapting to “normal life”. The sequence in which his normal, every day actions were juxtaposed with those from his hunting days was not only moving but also showing a solid grasp on Dean’s character right from the get-go: the reality is that whether or not Dean has had a month, a year or five years to adapt to this new existence, he has always been a hunter. It’s been his life, and while the idea of a normal life might have been his deepest desire (which it sometimes was, and sometimes I will argue that it was the last thing he wanted), it was always something he’d been looking in on from the outside. His reality was salting ghosts, shooting monsters. Savin ppl huntin thingz, family bizness. That will stay with him forever, haunting him. Calling out to him, even, as being what he’s meant to do. But more on that later.

It’s clear though, from the very moment Dean wakes up Lost-style in the bed, that he's not good, of course he's not. After spending his whole life hunting, how could he be? All his issues are still there, of course, as we are reminded of through the likeness montage. And the most notable absence from his new life is Sam.


“You have no idea what’s in some people’s walls. It could eat them alive.”

Well we had rats once, so I’ll believe it.

So we find out that Dean has been living there for a year, adapting to normal life. And after a year of hanging out together at a dead-end bar, Dean’s neighbour finally decides to ask him something personal…. kind of makes you wonder what the hell they’ve been taking about all this time, doesn’t it? That’s men for you. They just sit there and drink their beer, but can you ever get a word out of them psssh. That guy struck me as unbelievably slow on the uptake though, good riddance he died. Oops, spoiler alert.

Aaaand the girls still love them some Deeeean. Can't argue with that one. Remind me to share some Dean Winchester aka Chuck Norris jokes with you guys on a slow week. ;)


DJ Sam. Really foreshadowers? Really?

So Dean hears a SCREAM! - and instincts kick in. He storms an abandoned building where, as will be revealed in a future episode, Sam has been moonlighting as a DJ for the past year, but now the place is shut down so he figured he might as well go see how Dean’s been doing.

Allegedly though, the great big bad of the week was a pigeon, and at this point I’m thinking wow, the CW must really have made some budget cuts this year. And here’s another thing, we are apparently let to believe that absolutely nothing Supernatural has been surrounding Dean what so ever, not for a whole year. How is this possible?! Every fricking where the boys have gone for the past five years there’s always been a scary disgusting thing eating people, so what’s the deal?! Was he given a divide time-out, or something? I guess maybe we’ll get some explanation eventually but I think we’re just kind of meant to go with it. That seemed to be the order of the week, didn't it?

After Dean's wild goose hunt (yup, still got the lame-ass jokes!), however, Dean finds blood, and starts looking into it. I'm still stuck on the fact that nothing supernatural has happened for a year, isn't that weird in itself?


So then I took my turn / and all the things I’ve done / and it was all YELLOW!

Dean begins to see signs everywhere, and almost shoots the cutest little dog ever! Luckily Dean's still got his ability to lie, if not all of his stunning on-the-road rugged sexiness. Um. You know. In a totally objective sort of way.

Lisa is catching on to what's going on. I have to say, I think I was a little harsh on Lisa in my finale review. I wanna say I'm at the very least neutral towards her, if not leaning slightly to the side of like. Yeesh, who’da thunk it.

And then Dean hears another noise… and OHMYGODIT’STHEMARSHALL I mean Yellow Eyes!!! That scared me and I KNEW that something was coming! I haven't read any spoilers so I had no idea that Fredric Lehne was coming back, but after seeing him at a Lost event once I really like seeing him on screen, so I was pleasantly surprised. And I’m glad he turned out to not really be back, because it would have completely undermined his awesomely cathartic death in season 2.

“You can't outrun your past.” Arguably the episode’s most defining line, and ironic to boot, because of course Samuel who we’ll meet in a little bit is not only from a past episode but from the actual past, and well… he might not be a fast runner but I’m willing to bet a lot of my non-existing monetary funds on the fact that there’ll be some other twist to his character.


SAM! Sam Sam Saaam Sammmmm Sam Saaaaam… yay!

The episode really didn’t pick of until Sam was back on the screen did it? It took ages before he appeared and I was beginning to get antsy, but there he was! And how… anticlimactic.

Dean was apparently poisoned.... huh? I love how nunplussed Dean is about it all. Numb. It's the only real reaction he could have, and it fits with the very matter-of-fact tone everything in this episode has. Yup, Sam’s alive. Yup, he’s been alive all year. Yup, Samuel is back too and oh, yeah, some other family members are there too. Um… where’s my big jaw-dropping reveal guys? I think there’s a story though, there has to be, because Sam is too calm, too expressionless. He’s been back for a year, so what’s he been doing? I’m hoping we’ll find out in a future episode!

"I wanted my brother, alive!"
"You wanted a family. You have for a long time."

So Sam didn't want to ruin it for him and that’s why he left him alone.... hmm. Something smells. We all remember that look on Sam’s face at the end of last year’s finale, that cold and calculated look, the lack of emotion on his face. That trend is continuing, most noticeable in the hug (which was executed in the exact same way as the one from season 2. Am I right?). I wonder what it is.


Delicate features for a hunter. Lol.

Meet the Campbells: third cousins, who grew up in the life like Sam and Dean. And there's Samuel, their grandfather. Also resurrected. Right. Check. Wait, WHAT? That was just weird, wasn’t it? I wonder what the Campbells’ role will be in all this. I love Mary, and seeing her family is awesome, but I don’t like how matter of fact it all is. It’s only too obvious that something bad’s a’brewin’, all I’m hoping is that Sam is not properly aware of it and therefore will side with Dean when the sulphur hits the fan.

It must sting that Sam so quickly found a “new family”, and hopefully it doesn’t last long. I also don't like how calm they all are about this thing, so superior to Dean - whose perspective we are clearly taking, at least for now, placing him as a clear lead as the start of the season. I always liked the brothers being in equal focus (some would argue they never have been, but let's not get into that now, I have a job) so I hope that relatively soon they do a Sam-focused episode. I know it adds suspense to have Sam be mysterious and possibly evil, but come on. It's the Sam and Dean show, not the Dean vs. Sam show. We've been there and thrown that into hell already.


Oh, Djinn, of course. Poison, sure. Random, but okay, I’ll take it.

Sooo the Djinn, I'm thinking, waitress. I'm also thinking, Dean probably did keep that number after all and that's how they'll find her. While I was wrong on that last part, I'm also thinking, maybe I should stop watching so much TV.

And of course, BOBBY! Yaaay! "If you're here, something's wrong." Well that's nice. But I love Bobby. See here’s a great television show development: they brought in this guy for one episode originally, and then he just stuck. He developed in the background on this show that really didn’t have room for any more main characters and which even had to kill off the big daddy W to avoid adding him, and he just became this amazing, layered, awesome character, and a way more healthy and stable father figure than John ever was. I have been worried they’re gonna kill him off since season 2 and while he’s survived so far (anyone think Cas and Bobby only survived the finale because of the season 6 pickup, or reckon it was planned that way from before?), I still worry. But let’s talk about that in an episode where he’s featured for more than five minutes shall we?

lolz. Bobby knew that Sam was back too... and still no one told Dean. That sucks. I don't get it – I mean sure, Dean got out and got normalcy, but seriously, it's no secret how much Dean loves Sam, and while he could have a chance at a happy life it didn't mean he would ever be HAPPY without Sam. I get their intentions but I side with Dean on this one. Dean has always been a conflicted character because while on one hand we’ve seen him dream of a normal life free of hunting, free of Sam even, we’ve also seen him yearn for Sam, be completely dysfunctional without Sam, and try to cling to a life in which he, his brother and father could travel together and hunt together forever. And now he’s got what he dreamed of, what he always thought he could never have, and he’s realized that this is not happiness. A life with Sam is happiness. And the fact that no one seems to get it just makes it all the more infuriating to be Dean right now.

"Of course I couldn't leave it alone, sue me!" See?


"Do I look out to you?" See, I could choose to make some snarky comment about this quote. But I won't.

So that's that. A year together, Sam shows up, and poof Dean is ready to leave Lisa and Ben and head back out the door. This truly is the Sam and Dean story, but, ouch.

"You know what I wanted, more than anything, was a guy that Ben could look up to. Like a dad. So you're saying it was all bad Dean? Cause it was the best year of my life." Aaaaaw see I like Lisa now! Why they do this to mee? :(

But it all comes back to the fact that Dean is so eager to get back into the road life, what he knows, with as close of a replica as possible to the life he always pretended to hate but loved more than anything: on the road with Sammy and daddy. If they could have got Jeffrey Dean Morgan back for this season, I am sure that's what he would have gotten, too. It's almost too perfect - like this is the Djinn's version of reality, creating Dean's new perfect world. Funnily enough creating a perfect mirror image of the last Djinn episode, "What Is and What Should Never Be," in which the Djinn shows Dean what he really wants, a normal life with no hunting. This time he's got the normal life, but realises that he can never truly be happy without Sam - and, if he's totally honest with himself, something to hunt. It's what makes him Dean Winchester. And it’s what this episode gives him.


"Soccer mom, eh? I gotta look that up on the intra-net."

Samuel and Dean have a chat, and Dean is like his mom... yeah, I see it. And Sam is more like John than any of them would probably care to admit, so that all works out nicely.

I like the idea that we'll get more insight into the Campbells. I kept waiting for Dean's, "I'm not a Campbell, I’m a Winchester!" line, but it might come yet. Random aside by the way, my dad's a Campbell. Coincidence….?!

Dean also asks Sam about the cage, and Sam gets... cagey hahaha. We're going to learn what that's like eventually I'm sure, but today was not that day. Gotta keep some mystery alive. Though I do worry that by keeping Sam mysterious, the audience is losing touch with him, and as I said earlier, making Supernatural The Dean Show. I don’t want that, so we better get some insight into Sam’s character too. We’ve already done the storyline in which he’s dark and evil, you know?

Meanwhile, the neighbours are dying. Dean runs off to save them - and the Djinns have successfully split up the brothers.


Déjà vu – of a moment Dean never experienced before.

Dean hallucinates... he sees Lisa and Ben, and Yellow Eyes. He falls - into Ben's bed. He "sees stars". Lisa pulls a Mary, and it's all very Ben=Sammy, and eerie, and like the Pilot but different....... I'm loving it, to be honest, and I think this scene was super important. Is something going to happen to Ben, maybe or maybe not (probably depending on if he’s really part of the Winchester line or not), but there’s definitely a destiny thing. No matter what the brothers are forever brought back to that house, that room, that moment. Physically, in dreams, in visions, in Heaven, it all comes back to that moment. And now Dean is a part of it too, not just Sam.

We learn that grandaddy is hiding something, when instead of killing the Djinn he and his lackeys bag her. I’m glad they got that out of the way from the get-go, because it was pretty obvious. We can only hope that whatever he’s cooking up he’s hiding it from Sam too.
.

"It's just better with you around."

Now that’s interesting. Because otherwise, Sam wouldn't care? He is weirdly cold, unemotional, as I’ve noted throughout this review. Even when Dean offers him the Impala, Sam refuses, which should send up a big red flare. See Sam isn’t just calm, or detached, he’s oddly mechanical. Is he a ROBOT?! Or you know, not… But seriously, something has clearly changed Sam, and the thing to note is that I think he’s aware of it, and somewhere inside him he wants to fight it. He shrugs his shoulders when Dean decides to stay, reasoning that it’s “just better” when Dean is around. Dean is impulsive, Dean is emotional… Dean is human. I think in the time Sam spent with Dean he began to realise what he was missing, and maybe Dean’s influence helped him feel a little more like himself again. I really, really wonder what happened to him and what’s going on with him now. Are we going to find out he was in Hell for like a hundred years and is mentally really old and has lost the capability to live in the world, or is he somehow drugged or controlled by whatever brought him back, or maybe Samuel? See I don’t read spoilers so I have no idea, but I’m really excited to find out!

So Dean chooses Lisa and Ben over Sam... Sam leaves... the end. Lol, or not. Becaaaaause...oh wait, no, it's really the end. Wow that was anti-climactic. But it's okay! We know there'll always be evil in the world to bring Sam and Dean together again! Overall I can see people’s concerns about this episode, that maybe it was a little tame or random, but I liked it. It set up some exciting mysteries and interesting new dynamics, and you know that even though it sucks to see the brothers apart, it only makes their eventual reunion so much better.

Thanks for reading, leave a comment and we’ll rendez-vous back here next week, oui? Peace out!