Supernatural S05E06 - I Believe the Children Are Our Future (2009)

Review

In Alliance, Nebraska urban legends are coming true with fatal consequences for the victims. A baby sitter scratches her brains out due to itching powder, a dude has his teeth pulled by a tooth fairy wearing a tutu, a couple of kids have stomach ulcers due to mixing pop rocks with coke, some random was electrocuted by a joy buzzer, and yet another victim needs plastic surgery because he made a funny face and it "froze that way". Investigating Sam and Dean initially speculate a powerful witch is behind the sudden victim toll but this proves to be a dead end, no pun intended. Sam deduces all the incidents happened within a two mile radius of a farmhouse, the Winchesters are soon checking out the house only to be surprised by Jesse, a young boy doing the home alone thing while his parents are out working.

Further investigation reveals Jesse is adopted and the urban legends playing out are things he believes in, as most kids do. The Bros visit Jesse's biological mother, Julia Wright, and discover she became pregnant while demonically possessed! Castiel makes an appearance that night in the Boys motel room and informs them that they must kill Jessie as he is the Anti-Christ. Cas believes Jesse will be twisted by Lucifer and will destroy the heavenly host. Talk about your Demons and Angels, the Winchesters can't kill an innocent but have to ensure he doesn't die due to heavenly intervention or become a weapon of Demonic forces. Will Jesse turn to the dark side or will the Winchesters keep him in the light.

While the episode explores Dean and Sam's relationship through Jesse and the "white" lies adults have told him, it still holds a poignancy as ultimately Jesse needs to make a sacrifice in order to protect the ones he loves from both light and dark sources. To a certain degree this reflects the sacrifices the Bros have made in order to fulfil their destiny as Hunters, modern warriors fighting things out to harm people. So if after some underlining of the Winchester state of being then this is the episode to get stuck into, the rest of us are screaming "no more chick moments". Hey no wonder this franchise has a large and very keen female following.

The main interest, besides being a bloody good episode, was the introduction of another Biblical bogeyman in the form of the Anti-Christ. Writers Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin take some liberties with the mythology but do present an interesting take on our budding Damien. Born of a possessed woman, uhmm wouldn't we be overrun with Anti-Christs by about now! Anyways the good gravy was Jesse needed to be corrupted to join the dark side as he's fairly naïve about the world and remains innocent. Not surprisingly Sam related to the kid though both of the Winchester boys couldn't contemplate killing an innocent even if said innocent could be a powerful tool for Satan. Ultimately though Jesse will determine his own path, but that's a road for a future season, for now he has effectively benched himself.

There was a hint of deeper meaning to the whole episode that came down to a couple of lines of dialogue, but which will be pivotal in any future Jesse episode. The kid states he doesn't want to fight, he chooses effectively not to have a side and sit out the current conflict. Dean has to tell him this isn't an option, once in the fight you cannot choose to sit out the conflict. This of course underlines the "family business", the Winchester simply can't pull up stumps, they take the battle to the creatures of the night or they become the prey. But let's not get bogged down in overriding themes and self-realisations here.

The episode reflects on the Winchester situation without getting tied up in details

I was actually quite impressed with director Charles Beeson's intro to the episode which simply dripped tension as a couple of false scares went down. A teenage baby sitter, have you checked the children, is apparently home alone watching a horror flick on late night television. She hears something behind her, but can't see anything in the darkened room. Eventually she investigates a wardrobe and discovers her young ward Jimmy playing an "arrow in the head" joke. The kid is sent to bed but his joke store gags will have fatal consequences, and lead the Winchesters down a dead end during their investigations. Returning to the movie our teenage heroine is distracted by a dog barking and checks the view from the window. In both cases I was expecting something to jump out, or at least that there would be a presence in the room, Beeson is handling the tension awesomely as we are never quite sure when the whip is going to come down. In very much Ring fashion the shock is coming at you but in a later scene. Excellent stuff, I was rocking out to the episode from this scene onwards as director Beeson had fun gazumping our expectations about what was going down.

Naturally the Dean Winchester fun train was chugging along, Supernatural is superb at keeping even the darkest episodes light, with my particular favourite scenes involving Dean's never ending quest to finish a ham he tested a killer hand buzzer on. Okay they don't have a fridge in the motel room, but just how much ham can you demolish over the course of a day? Naturally there are decent one liners galore and the chemistry was working between Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles.

The episode clearly revolves around family, relationships, and lies, something the Winchester Brothers are grappling with at the moment. Perhaps this is the moment that their relationship gets stronger and they can overcome the events of last season, till of course the plot device is used yet again in a rinse and repeat cycle.

I'm not going to pull punches here, the Producers really have dropped the ball on the mullet rock front as there are zero tracks in the entire episode!

Another excellent episode, though already season five seems to be slightly uneven for mine. We get some exploration of themes, the emergence of the Anti-Christ, oh and Dean hamming it up. See what I did there. Things are moving along in the Winchester dynamic with the Bros stronger than ever by the end of the episode. Recommended viewing kids, Supernatural is must see stuff even for the gorehounds and teen horror lite crews.