Just a quick record of the biggest thoughts I keep returning to since the episode aired.

  • The ep is bookended with by now familiar scenes. We begin with a scene of Sam sleeping in the backseat. They should have turned him around with his head at the other end if I wasn’t supposed to remember Anna and Dean each in that same position. They had  a good excuse for Sam to be sleeping as the boys had just a few hours before finished a month of working cases. Still, the point I’m most taken with is that one of the guys was shown sleeping. Again. (Yes, I’m taking this as more evidence for some version of my S4 theory involving Sam dreamwalking!)
  • The ep closes with another confession from Dean to Sam – this one unmistakably paralleling 4.10 Heaven and Hell with the roadside heart to heart leaning on the Impala.  Since Sam excused Dean for acting as a torturer in hell, Dean takes the next step of revealing that he took pleasure in those acts. I got the sense Dean was trusting Sam with the knowledge as a matter of course. I did not feel he was daring Sam to either make another excuse or recoil from Dean.  (Yes, I’m taking the near routineness of the scene as more evidence that the boys are communicating on some level other than – or in addition to – the one we’re actually seeing on screen.)
  • (Quite honestly, I’m getting the idea that all of the incest and married couple allusions we’ve had this season are indicators that the boys have crossed some lines of personal boundaries. I don’t mean wincest, but something involving personal identity and privacy. Maybe along the lines of 3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me when Dean objected to Sam following Dean into his dream and seeing what is in Dean’s head? Or like the djinn feeding off his victims in 2.20 What Is and What Should Never Be? This isn’t the first time I’m wondering about such a thing, but it’s my first time going even this far to articulate it. If I’m close, Sam is up to something very dark to get Dean back from hell. And it means Sam is much more involved than it might appear in everything we’ve seen.  If that’s what it takes and that’s what he’s done, I purely love Sam.)
  • The monster resulting from a victim beyond his/her breaking point is NOT new in the season. The idea goes back at least to 4.05 Monster Movie when the shapeshifter related his history and 4.08 Wishful Thinking with the underdogs’ wishes going bad (such as the bullied kid becoming a bully).
  • Along the way we get “I shouldn’t've left him alone” when Dean brings the news to the rest that the mom’s brother had been killed by the feral girl.  It’s enough to remind me of all the “You’re not alone” and “It’s dangerous for [Anna] to be alone” messages Dean’s been listening to over the past few eps. When saying goodbye to the family, the mom says they are the opposite of okay, but they are together and the camera focuses on the parents’ clasped hands.
  • There’s also Dean talking about being unable to fill the hole inside after hell which reminded me strongly of 2.03 Bloodlust. The crawling through walls was claustrophobic and reminiscent of 2.06 No Exit. And of course, 1.15 The Benders is relevant for its lack of the supernatural and monster who turned out to be “just people.”  I wonder if anyone else thought of Bobby’s hound Rumsfeld in 1.22 Devil’s Trap when the family dog in this episode was killed?
  • The episode is choking on siblings – in particular, brother/sister sibs.  The family has a teen daughter and younger son. The mom’s brother is helping with the family’s move. The girl in the wall has a surprise brother. (At first I thought that came from nowhere, but spotted a clue when looking through screen caps. There are two stick figures drawn in blood on the wall when Dean goes exploring.) In the end, one set of siblings is still alive, one set has a single survivor, and both siblings in the final set are killed.
  • As mentioned in the icine Supernatural thread, Dean should be required to say “Yahtzee” more often. I like that about as well as Sawyer drawling “Sassafras!”

Edit to add a couple more thoughts –

  • The kids in the walls were extremely sensitive to light.  When the girl crosses into Dean’s salt circle and attacks with her knife, Sam comes to the rescue by shining his flashlight in her face.  Dean holds the boy off long enough to reach his gun the same way. It wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that eyes and vision and the danger of looking/seeing have been recurring throughout the season (and before!).
  • Without trying to go in depth, the icine thread did return to discussing the concept of grace with this episode.  I’ve been hopeful about the potential in that for Dean since 4.01 Lazarus Rising.

BTW – I am still unspoiled and want to keep it that way.

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