3 x 02: “The Kids Are Alright"

Dean and Sam go to a town where strange deaths are being reported. Once there, they come to find a woman Dean had a fling with almost 9 years prior, Lisa, they discover her son is turning 8 and she is a single mom. While they investigate they come to find more mysterious deaths, the brothers discover it is a Changeling that is replacing kids from the town with her offspring. Also, the mysterious blonde woman returns and warns Sam that he should look into his mother’s friends.

            I think the writing in this episode was a quite underwhelming. The only things that excited me were the fact the blonde woman showed herself as a demon and when Sam found out his mother’s friends were all dead. Also, there was a slight sense of intrigue thinking Dean could have been a dad but the idea was shut down very early in the episode. Obviously there was something wrong with the kids from the beginning and there could have been much more added to thicken the plot.

In my opinion the directing was better than the writing of this episode. The way the changelings were portrayed and the shots of the kids’ reflections as monsters gave me chills more than once. My favorite part had to be Katie being back at the house once the mom had dumped her in the car in a lake; it was so delightfully creepy that it made me smile. Another thing I particularly liked was the chemistry between Ben and Dean. The fact that Dean could have become a father and he was so open to it was heart-warming; we got to see a softer side of Dean here which I thought was lovely. The more dim lighting when the kids were around really was interesting to see, it added a grim feel to the scenes. The settings were nothing out of the ordinary for me but they fit the episode well.

The acting was pretty well done all around. The kids were very believable which I think was a very important factor to this episode in particular. They had to evoke a creepy feeling and in my opinion it was tastefully carried out to the audience. Jensen Ackles had to tap into the softer side of Dean and I think he did it very well. We did not get to see much of Jared Padalecki in this episode because it was mostly centered on Dean but the parts Sam is in seem to bring many new questions to the table.

This episode starts to set up a lot for the rest of the season, like introducing Ruby. What I really liked about this episode was that it made a lot of questions arise for me that I was very eager to see answered. Who is this blonde demon woman and what does she want with Sam? How does she know so much about Sam and his family? Why are all of Mary Winchester’s friends dead? Who killed them? Why?