SPN 2x5 Simon Said

Part One: Summary

     Sam continues to live with premonitions which leads him and Dean to a small town where paranormal happenings occur at what appears to be the hand of 23-year-old Andy Gallagher. Once the brothers begin their investigation they discover that Andy is in a similar situation to Sam as in he was also gifted with psychic abilities by a demon at six-months of age. After a little more digging, the three boys unravel Andy's history of adoption after finding out that a victim in the case was Andy's birth mom, who actually gave birth to twins. The hunt is then on for the twin who is using his psychic abilities to kill anyone who gets in the way of him and his brother.

Part Two: Review

     Viewing this episode after recently finishing the series on Netflix was an interesting experience. When I pressed play I immediately engrossed myself with the storyline, again, instead of backing off and looking at the writing, directing, and acting like I was suppose to do. I had to back track a few times before finally pulling my head down from the clouds and started taking notes on questions I had while watching, elements of the episode to discuss, quotes that stood out to me, important camera angles, and I even noted the choices in background music. Putting on subtitles actually assisted me in note-taking because it was as if I had the script in front of me with the ques I needed.
When it comes to the writing style of this episode I would say that there are many different elements at play. More so than what average viewers would think about . For example, the scenes between Dean and Jo although hinting at being romantic, they showcase a difference in generations as with Sam and Dean when Sam left the family business. The writers also included subtopics in the writing, such as trigger warnings, female violence for the masochistic audience (or just the series' way of showing its sexism), and relating psychic abilities to mental illness. Within these subtopics are micro topics, such as trigger warnings being related to suicide and foreshadowing for the show, the female side being shown by more masculine or "butch" females, and the psychic abilities correlating to the ultimate question of what is actually good and bad.
     I would go into more detail about such topics, but I have a word limit and will thus bring it to the discussion in class with my synopsis. Anyway, when it comes to the direction of this episode I thought it was decent enough for the year it was directed in (2006). Comparing television directors now to who was on the scene a decade ago is an unfair battle due to the changes in technology, viewership, and budget. The show has skyrocketed since then and has cycled through many writers, producers, and the like. For this episode in particular, I thought it was good enough to carry out the message it wanted and to uphold the audience's interest in the story line of brothers' journey to the demon. The episode in and of itself isn't particular or too memorable, besides the scene when Dean confesses his fear for Sam and Andy's decision to pull the gun on his brother. Nothing else big happened. There were feelings to sympathize with but no other major tropes or archetypes that were highlighted to help the rest of the season move along. Sort of like a detour on a roadtrip. But that's just me.
     When it comes to the acting of this episode, there are both strong and weak points. The strong points, for me, where when Andy was working his charm on people to win them over and of course intimate conversations in the Impala between Sam and Dean. For the people who were being mind-controlled it was very difficult to see a change in character (but that gets better later on with the boys, trust me). The twin brother's acting was so poor I felt physical pain at watching it. Actually, one piece of acting I enjoyed was when Tracey was confronted by Webber in the car. Maybe it's because I can sympathize with the situation, but it hit hard for me. Eye contact and the tilt of an actor's head can tell a lot about the character in the scene, which Jensen Ackles (Dean) does a fantastic job at doing. It's no wonder girls fantasize about his green eyes, throughout this episode he used his eyes to help with the intensity of scenes. Jared uses small tilts of his chin to signal what Sam is thinking or wanting to reveal, making him a vulnerable character.

Part Three: Questions/Concerns

     Some of the problems I had with this episode would be the heavy homage to the death of Mary Winchester and the tale of Cain and Abel. The early writers of this show began playing up this whole Cain and Abel thing with Sam and Dean which went nowhere in later seasons. It seems as though they use this tale to show "bromance". It's weird. Also, the lack of accurate female representation in the show is disugsting. They have Ellen and Jo, which they portray as the "butch" war mom and "possible love interest/unlikely sidekick that won't get the proper credit because she should be leading a domestic life" role respectively. One question I had while watching this episode was this, "What was the purpose of the argument between Sam and Dean in the end about which twin brother had it the worst?" Almost like they were justifying the bad, you know? It sort of parallels an earlier conversation in the episode when Sam and Dean are in the Impala discussing Sam's innocence as a hunter. It's almost like they are competing for who is the real monster between the two.