Review

Sam sneaks out of the motel he and Dean are sharing to catch up with Ruby and no doubt continue his journey into darkness. Dean awakes to find Castiel in the room, before he is fully aware Castiel transports him back in time to Lawrence, Kansas 1973. Castiel leaves Dean with the instruction that he has to stop it, that's actually pretty vague. Anyways Dean meets his Mom and Dad, John and Mary, a courting couple who don't have the blessing of Mary's father Samuel Campbell. On the bright side he convinces John to purchase the Impala rather than a VW Van.

Further surprises await Dean as he discovers the Campbells, including Mary, are Hunters and John Winchester isn't aware of the occult. When the Yellow Eyed Demon comes around Dean is convinced it's his job to stop any deal Mary may make with the hell spawn regardless of the cost. Dean is about to learn an important lesson and what he really has to stop.

The episode kicks off in an interesting fashion, Sam is sneaking out to rendezvous with Ruby, while Dean is having flash backs to his time in hell. In amidst the reinforcement of this season's mental toll on the Winchesters, Castiel transports Dean back in time and tells him he must stop it. Like most viewers I assumed this meant stopping something in the Winchester parental unit's past but find it relates to whatever Sam is up to and Azazel's, (the Yellow Eyed Demon), end game - whatever that may be. With a "To be continued" at the end of the episode I would imagine we might find out as Dean goes on the hunt for Sam.

What was remarkable about this episode was that it drove into the core of who and what Dean is. He is prepared to change everything for a chance to save his Mother, and indirectly stopping the Winchesters from taking up hunting as a family career. Castiel warns Dean that this will mean that all the people the Winchesters have saved will die, Dean replies that he is concerned about that but this is his one chance to save his mother. And it's right here I think that Supernatural lays bare the soul of Dean Winchester, nothing matters over family and he will do anything to save his family form the torment they have suffered. Dean is faced with a moral dilemma and chooses the Winchester clan over the dozens of victims he and Sam have saved down the years.

Very solid episode that gives us some background on the Winchesters

While I was rocking out to the bride stripped bare with Dean's decision I was also giving two thumbs up for the Campbells. Naturally we assumed over the last three seasons that it was John Winchester who was the hunter with Mary not knowing what he did for a living. In this episode we learn that Mary comes from a long line of Hunters and John Winchester is blissfully unaware of the supernatural. Clearly it's only after Mary's death that John takes up hunting in order to extract revenge on Azazel, which remarkably enough reflects Sam's drive through the first two seasons. Great fleshing out of the back story of the Winchesters and reminding us of the road travelled thus far in this excellent franchise.

What the movie really gets right is the authentic looking early 1970s vibe it has going down, no doubt helped by the limited number of locations that cut down on the need for era props etc. The dinner is a hoot, Dean not realising he is in the past makes mistake after mistake, Sonny and Cher have broken up, and is genuinely shocked when he finds out he is sitting next to his future father. I was digging the advertising, the clothes, and the cars amongst other things. Thankfully the era is behind us however, there are only so many bell bottoms you can face before climbing a tower with a high powered rifle. There's enough attention to detail to have you believe Dean is living in the past without over cooking it.

I actually quite enjoyed the episode for the conflict between the characters, all roads lead to the Whitshire farm but Dean and Samuel Campbell aren't exactly riding in the same car. Equally Mary and Samuel are on a collision course over John, well till Azazel's intervention of course.

Actually speaking of the Yellow Eyed one, added knowledge is demons can't enter future houses without consent from the occupant, isn't that a vamper thing? And didn't it require some emotional trauma in order for a person to be possessed? Not sure if Supernatural hasn't broken its own internal mythology here. I liked the idea however that Azazel has an end game that not even the Angels can decipher, season four is now officially heating up ... no pun intended.

Okay so I was digging on the limited music selection for the episode. We get "Ramblin' Man" by the grossly underrated, at least in Oz, The Allman Brothers Band, and "Go For Your Self Parts 1 and 2" from Kenny Smith. Slim pickings but excellent in the sparseness, I can cope with a couple of tracks per episode if they are decent selections.

In the Beginning proved satisfying on a multitude of levels, though probably the episode wont be first pick in the top ten of most Supernatural fans. I dug Dean desperately trying to save Mary, and failing, then learning that destiny can't be changed. Castiel believed he needed to be present when Mary made her deal. Not quite sure of the logic there, but what the hey it was a great episode that rocked along like that tune you can't get out of your head after watching Halloween III. The season is being setup, Sam versus Dean and the Angels, now how much more do you really need? One for the fans, sometime viewers may be a tad lost with the characters being thrown onto the screen. Once you get down to it, Sam's destiny was determined by the events in this episode, told you Ruby wasn't to be trusted, Azazel had a plan all along that was vastly more cosmic than his demon army.