“You can’t go home again.” So the saying goes, but the Winchester brothers’ journey takes them back where it all began. A family living in their childhood home is in terrible danger.
Pre-show notes
Home is the first “mythology” episode since the pilot – an episode that leans heavily into the ongoing story of the Winchester family. There are stand-alone episodes that I love, but is was the mythology that made Supernatural a fandom: a show so many of us wanted to talk about and write about and emotionally invest in.
So I’m curious whether this episode will still hit me the way it used to.
I know my perspective is different now. Loretta Devine, who plays Missouri, was unknown to me then. I remember her from Ally McBeal where she played a defendant (badly) faking a temporary insanity defence, but otherwise I wasn’t familiar with her. I know more of her work now, so I think I’ll see her differently.
And, of course, this is the return of my beloved John Winchester. Bittersweet…
Episode notes
Open in Lawrence, back where we began, but with a new family. The little girl is afraid of something in her closet. (Flashback to Sam in the pilot: when I told Dad I was afraid of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45.” This mom responds in a more conventional manner by checking the closet and reassuring the child, but she does “lock” the closet by jamming the handle with a chair. As the girl sleeps, the chair slowly slides out from beneath the handles, waking the girl. As she watches, afraid, the closet door creaks open and we see a fiery apparition within.
Later, mom is exploring the basement, having heard something she’s afraid is rats. She finds a box of memorabilia left by the previous owners of the house, including family photos – it’s the Winchesters’ old home.
Sam wakes from a nightmare and begins to sketch the shape of a tree he dreamed. He realises it’s familiar and pulls a photograph from John’s journal. The tree is outside the Winchester’s home in Lawrence: the house where Mary died. Dean is looking for their next hunt. Sam tells him they have to go to Lawrence. He confesses to Dean that his nightmares “sometimes” come true: that he dreamed of Jessica’s death before it happened, and now he’s dreaming of a woman trapped in their old home with something evil.
It’s too much for Dean: just for a moment he’s completely freaked out. The revelation that Sam has “the shining”, coupled with Sam’s insistence that they must head to Lawrence, the scene of Dean’s greatest trauma, is understandably overwhelming. But he pulls himself together quickly. To his credit, he doesn’t seriously question the accuracy of Sam’s vision. Sam begs him with puppy-dog-eyes and Dean agrees that they must head to Lawrence.
Can I just say how amazing these two actors are? Jensen Ackles in particular here, there are so many layers to his performance. You can see Dean’s conflicting emotions, and how much he’s holding back for Sam’s sake.
No fake IDs this week: Sam introduces them as themselves and says they want to look around their childhood home. Jenny is more trusting than I would be, but since she found the photographs, she at least knows that their story is true. She lets them in and they talk about the house. Jenny mentions flickering lights, scratching in the basement – both red flags to the Winchester brothers. But it’s Sari who clinches it, asking if the thing in her closet was there when the brothers were children. She describes a figure on fire.
As they leave, the brothers are arguing. Sam is convinced now that Jenny and her family are in danger and is keen to get them out of the house. Dean agrees, but the confirmation of Sam’s vision is bothering him more and he sensibly points out that there’s no story they can spin – yet – that will persuade Jenny to leave. He proposes they treat this like any other hunt: investigate the history first.
“I remember the fire. And the heat…and then I carried you out the front door.”
Dean
Dean’s memory of the fire sounds incomplete, which is what you would expect of childhood memories. Except we already know (from 1.02 Wendigo) that he saw more than he admits to here. They both know their father’s version of the story: how he found Mary pinned to the ceiling, dead or dying, with no sign of whatever did it to her. It seems that, in order to save Jenny and the children, they must figure out the answers their father has spent two decades pursuing – and they only have days to do it.
In secret, Dean calls their father, leaving a message begging for his help. Once again we see Dean struggling to hold it together. He feels he has no one to lean on. Sam is a mess since Jessica’s death, and while his mental state is improving Dean still feels he has to be the big brother/parent he has always been to Sam. I doubt John was the kind of father who could be a shoulder to cry on, but he was a steady presence in Dean’s life, reliable in his way. But Dean is adrift from that anchor. With this hunt bringing all that childhood trauma to the surface, Dean needs his father. John does not answer.
The brothers track down John’s former business partner, but learn very little. He does mention that following the fire John reached out to a psychic. This leads them to Missouri Mosley. She can read minds, a little, and sense energies, but more importantly she knows something of the supernatural world the Winchesters live in. Missouri is the one who told John what’s out there in the dark, all those years ago. She tried to help him investigate Mary’s death, but she could not sense what it was, only that it was evil.
I guess she’s lucky. If Missouri had been able to identify Azazel, she would probably be dead.
When the brothers explain that there’s something evil in the house now, Missouri is confused by the news. She has kept an eye on the house and nothing strange has happened there since the fire. Sam thinks everything is connected: Jessica, John’s disappearance, and the strange happenings in the house where Mary died. The possibility seems to frighten Missouri
Meanwhile, at the house, things are escalating. A repairman is maimed when the garbage disposal he is fixing turns itself on. Baby Richie is lured into the fridge, which promptly closes and locks him inside. Fortunately Jenny finds him in time.
The brothers return to the house with Missouri, whose straight-talking persuades Jenny to let them in again. Missouri goes straight for the room where Mary died. When she tells them it’s the old nursery, Sam’s eyes go straight to the ceiling as if he’d be able to see Mary there. Dean looks upward, too, and it’s clear he doesn’t want to be there. Missouri ribs him about his EMF meter, and it has the intended effect: Dean focuses on the job. But Missouri does not sense the same energy she picked up days after the fire. Whatever is in the house, it isn’t Mary’s killer. The psychic traces it left behind have attracted a poltergeist which is attacking Jenny’s family, but Missouri also senses another spirit which she can’t identify.
Missouri uses sympathetic magic to purify the house and banish the spirits. She and the brothers prepare hex bags which they will place in the walls. Jenny and the children head off to the movies while they work. As he attempts to place one of the bags, Sam is attacked by the poltergeist. Dean intervenes and places the bag, which banishes the poltergeist. At least, Missouri is confident. Sam is not so sure, but he doesn’t explain. Jenny returns to a house that’s a bit turned upside down, but is poltergeist-free.
Except, of course, it’s not over. Jenny wakes to find her bed shaking. Sam and Dean are lurking outside in the car because Sam “still has a bad feeling” so when Jenny appears in the window they respond swiftly. The burning figure reappears in Sari’s closet. Sam takes the children to safety while Dean goes for Jenny, but Sam stops before they are out of the house, telling Sari to take her brother outside (mirroring exactly what John told Dean to do all those years ago). Sari screams as the poltergeist drags Sam back inside.
Dean loads up his rock-salt shotgun and breaks in to save Sam. He is about to shoot at the burning figure but Sam stops him: the figure is Mary Winchester’s spirit. The fire fades to reveal Mary and she greets each of her sons by name.
To Sam she says “I’m sorry.”
Sam asks “For what?” but gets no reply – and we won’t find out for a few seasons yet.
Then Mary turns to the poltergeist and orders it out of “her” house. The flames return and she sacrifices herself to destroy the spirit.
“What’s happening to me?”
Sam
Sam is confused and frightened by his grown psychic ability, but like Dean, he can’t confide in his brother. He does confide in Missouri, but she has no answers for him. They all part friends, though, and the boys climb into the Impala and head on out of town.
Missouri returns home, where we learn John has been waiting. It’s implied that he’s been there for some time. John tells he he badly wants to see his boys, but he can’t: “Not until I know the truth.”
Associations
I’m not going to cite Poltergeist again. The thing with the toy monkey turning itself on as a foreshadowing of what’s about to happen to the repair man isn’t in Poltergeist, but it’s quite common in that type of movie.
Final thoughts
The theme here seems to be internal conflict. We see it play out in each of the Winchester men.
Dean’s battle with his childhood trauma.
Sam’s fear of his psychic ability.
John’s desire to reunite with his sons subsumed in his mission to learn the truth (about…?)
Knowing how this is going to play out, I can understand what it is John is looking for And perhaps why he wants to keep his sons at a distance. It’s not about revenge for Mary’s death any more. It’s about what is happening to his sons. It was never clear how much of the grand plan John figured out, or even if what he figured out was accurate. We only know what he chose to do about it. But we can see in this brief scene that it weighs heavily on him.
I identify a lot with Sam’s choices, but not so much with Sam himself. Dean is someone I would loathe if I knew him in real life. But John, for all his flaws and mistakes – John is the one I understand.
