Review

Bobby is asleep and can't wake up from a nightmare about his deceased wife. Naturally Dean and Sam are on the job and discover Bobby has fallen victim to a Psycho who can enter other peoples' dreams. Bobby was investigating the death of Dr. Gregg, who was experimenting with "silene capensis", the African dream root, who died in his sleep.

The Bros decide the best course of action is to enter Bobby's dream and snap him out of it. Since they don't have any dream root handy, they call on surprisingly Bela Talbot for help. Naturally there will be a price to pay there, but before that the Bros drink the "yellow tea" made from the dream root and find Bobby has some deep issues. Worse the Bros need to track down the psycho who is now also invading Dean's dreams, but who has disappeared in the real world.

Sera Gamble and Cathryn Humphris pull a quick one with this episode, and nail both aspects of the episode with a solid script. Firstly the movie is about people being attacked in their dreams by a cut price Freddy, with naturally a lot of horror overtones being the order of the day. If this was the only thing going for the episode I would still be nodding my head in approval as there's some well done horror concepts that will nail the viewer to the screen. But Gamble and Humphris take it further with a thorough examination of Dean's plight, the pit of hell thing, and his attitude toward his ultimate fate at no doubt season's end. At the start of the episode Sam has pretty much given up as Dean is seemingly unconcerned about his fate, Sam simply has no answers and for the first time this season seems resigned to losing his brother. Strangely this is underlined by Sam even mentioning Ruby doesn't have an answer. Dean is saved from having to explore the issue by the bell, in the form of someone phoning about Bobby's condition, but the Writers will revisit with Dean and get to the bottom line.

For the moment the horror elements, hell it's why we're all here, forget the chick moments. Bobby is facing the spectre of his deceased wife and is powerless in the face of one pissed off revenant. Two thumbs up for getting a revenant in there. We get some background on why Bobby became a Hunter and also his underlying guilt over the death of his wife. Don't think she was ever named, but anyway the Mrs got possessed by a demon and went feral, Bobby had no demonic lore so resolved the situation by the judicious use of a knife. Bummer considering Bobby is all over exorcisms in the present. We also get Dean facing himself, and Sam going head to head with our resident Psycho. So there's enough horror going down to have everyone happy with life, as you can tell I was grooving to this aspect of the episode.

In his nightmare Dean faces himself and some home truths about his life and current attitudes. This leads to a meltdown as Dean rebels from how he sees himself and a rising anger at his fate, when he has done the best he can to protect his brother. For the first time we perhaps see Dean's anger at John Winchester's disregard for everything except the hunt for the yellow eyed demon. Dean doesn't deserve his eventual demise, it's a legacy from John Winchester, and Dean finds the backbone he has been missing for the past few episodes, the will to try and avoid his descent into the pit. Of course that probably won't be enough, but hell fingers crossed Dean discovers a way.

This episode is all about facing your fear, oh and Psycho dream walkers with tudes.

With both Bobby and Dean in self reflective mode, and I should have noted Dean's abhorrence of eventually becoming the thing he has been battling, it's left to Sam to battle the antagonist this episode and find a typically cerebral solution. Sam is pretty much a back seat driver during this episode, but does come through when the chips are down and someone needs to step up to the plate. It should also be noted that the antagonist isn't all bad, there's a grey area to the character that does elicit some sympathy for the devil.

Okay put it off long enough, to a couple of dream sequences the Bros are involved in. Dean dreams of a better time with Lisa Braeden, involving picnics and declarations of love. We previously ran across Lisa last season I think and learnt Dean had a particularly hot weekend with her that may or may not have resulted in a Son. Clearly Lisa is Dean's happy place, and he sure does need something. Meanwhile Sam has a wet dream about Bela arriving at the motel room, taking off her overcoat, and displaying the sort of lingerie that is banned by most Fundamentalist religions. In the real world that leads to a couple of amusing interludes that will have you smiling. But heck finally some T&A on Supernatural, is this a once a season occurrence? Surprisingly there hasn't been a whole barrage of protest over this aspect of the episode, though I believe tissue sales saw a marked increase after the episode was aired.

Dream a Little Dream of Me continued the second half of the season slump with 2.68 million viewers tuning in. Not quite sure why results are down, assume there was something else happening in North America as the episodes certainly haven't been bad recently, with a couple of outstanding ones. We generally review off the season DVDs, which allows for stopping, revisiting scenes, and checking the facts rather than making shotgun decisions, so no idea what being a weekly viewer would bring to the table. Still it can't drop much lower than this, expecting some surge in support over the next few weeks.

"Long Train Runnin'" by The Doobie Brothers gets the episode underway in fine form in terms of mullet rock, one of my favourite songs so excellent choice. We also get "Dream a Little Dream of Me" by the Mamas and Papas to rock out to. Given this season's dearth of solid rock, I'm actually going to give the episode a passing grade on the music front.

A good fun episode that surprisingly adds some depth to a couple of characters and drives a plot arc forward. Non-regular viewers may be lost in a couple of places with themes or characters, but regular viewers are well catered for. Recommended episode, not the best of season three, but highly enjoyable never the less, there's a little something for most people in this one.