Ramblings On...Episode 7x12: Time After Time (spoilers)

“Everybody loses everybody and then one day BOOM your number’s up.  But at least you’re making a difference.  So enjoy it while it lasts, kid, because hunting’s the only clarity you’re gonna find in this life.  That makes you luckier than most.”

I loved this episode.  As much as I loved Season Six’s “Frontierland”, this episode trumps that one by, well, a lot in my opinion.  Written by Robbie Thompson (who also wrote this season’s “Slash Fiction”), and directed by Phil Sgriccia, “Time After Time” has to be hands down my favorite episode of this season, and among my favorite episodes of the series.  The episode was a perfect storm of casting, costumes, setting, music and storytelling!  A little warning--I have gone a little nuts with the pictoral representation of the episode on my review.  Thank you CW, and specifically Winchester Family Business for the awesome stills.

In “Time After Time”, Sam and Dean find out about a new case from an unexpected source.  Sheriff of Sioux Falls, SD Jodi Mills finds out about a potential case for Sam and Dean in Canton, OH.  Sam and Dean go out to investigate, and while attempting to tackle the “hat guy”, Dean gets pulled where ever he is off to...which actually turns out to be a “when ever”.  Canton 1944 to be exact.  All of a sudden Dean is stuck in 1944, and arrested for waving a gun around!  The local PD aren’t very impressed with Dean, but someone is--the legendary Eliot Ness, who is hunting the same thing in 1944 that Sam and Dean are hunting in 2012.  Turns out this thing they are hunting is the god of time, Chronos.  Sam winds up working with Jodi back in 2012 trying to figure out a way to stop Chronos and get Dean back at the same time, while Dean slowly starts to realize he may be stuck in 1944 permanently!

And on to the analysis...

I’ve brought it up before, so I will only quickly mention it here...but I love when we are in the middle of things in the opening sequence and then right at a pivotal moment, we get whisked back to a certain amount of time before and build up to that moment.  This was done really well here.  I was such a huge fan of the juxtaposition between the brother’s separate handlings of the case!  Even the dialogue flow from a scene with Dean to a scene with Sam was done so beatifully!  I also loved the change in score.   The music was so well done.  

Usually, the regular score is barely noticed in an episode.  The only things that really seem to stand out are when actual classic rock is used.  In this ep, the score popped and really set the scene.  When we were back in Ohio/Illinois area 1944, the music helped set the stage.  We knew instantly the difference of the score when we were back with Sam and Jodi.  Because Supernatural focuses so much on the classic rock, we forget (ok, maybe it is me only) that there is a regular score there!  Just so that you know, the masterminds behind the music in the ep were Jay Gruska and Christopher Lennertz.

Not only did the music bring us back to 1944 Chicago area, but so did the whole feel of the episode!  The lighting was different, the camera angles seemed different, the clothing and set construction was fabulous!  I loved the old film set up where we saw the shadow of the man with the fedora and a gun before we saw Dean.  Script wise, the language was changed up to give it a 1944 feel.  Dean sounded so out of time with his awesome! “How does that fill you with awe?” Brilliantly done all around!

I haven’t even gotten into the cast yet.  First off, it was great seeing Kim Rhodes again. She has been a recurring character since “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” in the fifth season.  Actually, I used to be a bit concerned when she showed up because it meant the focus was on Sioux Falls again, and that the boys probably weren’t out and about.  I liked them having a home base, but not to the point of staying there all the time!  But this season, her character has really grown on me.  In this episode, she gave that feminine touch to the Bobby grief.  We have seen Sam and Dean do that manly version of grief, but here we see something a little softer.  Not overly girly, mind you, because after all, Jodi is the sheriff of Sioux Falls, but just that slightly feminine edge that brought a softness to the grief.  Kim Rhodes did an amazing job with the acting as well.  When she was in the car talking to Sam and she brought up Bobby, her voice cracked ever so slightly when she said his name.  I loved the bit with the bottle of scotch and the note around it.  “ ‘Fine you ass, you win for once’ R”.  

It was a beautiful moment shared between people who both cared deeply about Bobby.  Jodi didn’t remember Rufus, although she did meet him (“Weekend At Bobby’s”).  But Sam wouldn’t have known about that experience to remind her.  The moment was really Bobby’s anyway, and it was beautifully done by Kim and Jared.  It wasn’t the cold impersonal attempt at showing that you sympathize with the loss of someone like Frank’s was to Dean in “Adventures in Babysitting”.  On another note, I actually kind of have a new ship now...the chemistry was so good between them...I’d like to see Jodi and Sam!  

In this episode Dean also had a moment where he was reminded about Bobby, and that was with Ness’s helper, Ezra.  When she made the comment about what Ness and Dean were getting into calling them idjits, Dean chuckled and said she reminded him of someone.  I loved how Dean’s memory was such a happy one.  Dean surely hasn’t worked through his grief, but I felt we got a teensy piece of knowledge that Dean was going to be alright with this reaction.

The guest star I forgot was going to be in this episode was Jason Dohring.  I loved him so much as Logan Echolls on Veronica Mars.  I was sucked into that whole LoVe thing.  I thought he was wonderful here as Chronos.  Jason has a nack for playing the tortured bad boy, changed by love...Logan was that kind of character, so was his character of Josef in Moonlight...Here he plays the god who got off on cheap thrills and change of scenery until he met this Lila girl who changed him.  Saying you kill for that person is a lot to put on a girl’s head though!  I did feel that Jason did a great job making Chronos seem like a sympathetic evil character, and his prophecy about the black ooze could send a tingle down the spine...

The reason I forgot about Jason’s guest appearance had to do with the guest I was absolutely fangirling about making an appearance.  Nicholas Lea is the reason I went to an X-Files convention when I was a sorority girl in college.  I had to meet him.  He is the first celebrity I got a hug from.  I love Mulder, but I will always be a “rat girl” (fans of Alex Krychek).  In case you missed it, Nicholas Lea played Alex Krychek, a recurring character on the X-Files from Season Two through the end of the series.  He was killed off earlier than the end of the series, but Mulder hallucinated him in the final episode, so I include him...and I never accepted his death anyway.  Krychek was a cat, with nine lives...or maybe just Mulder’s bad penny...but moving along...I loved his take on Eliot Ness.  For that matter, I loved Robbie Thompson’s take on Eliot Ness.  Again, we have a famous character in history who is actually a hunter.  Lea brought so much character to Ness, and he and Jensen were fabulous together.  The two of them just seemed to gel.  The little looks about how out of place Dean seemed?  Brilliant.  I loved when they went to get Dean some suitable clothes (Everyone wants to dress Dean!  He is a veritable Ken Doll!) we see Dean through the window taking in the 1944ness of everything and Ness grabbing his arm with a look like they haven’t got all day and pulling him into the store.  There were moments like that all over the place!  These two guys were so great!

Ness was an excellently written character.  Even down to how he got into hunting.  After “Adventures In Babysitting” a few of us were going back and forth about how we disliked how such a negative slant is always given toward hunting.  We would love to see people who actually were hunters not because of some personal tragedy but maybe because they had been saved by a hunter.  Or maybe just because it was the thing to do if you knew the truth about things.  It was that breath of fresh air we were waiting for that Ness didn’t become a hunter because of some personal tragedy.  He became a hunter because there was evil out there that had to be stopped.  I loved how he said that “hunting set him free”.  He was talking about the red tape that everyday life has, and how hunting doesn’t. There is evil, it has to be stopped.

I was so in love with the advice Ness gave Dean I quoted it up top.  I have been waiting so long for someone to tell Dean that.  Someone that isn’t a sadistic angel that is...because that was essentially Zach’s point in “It’s a Terrible Life”.  Dean needed to hear it, and I’m so glad he did from someone who had been such a hero for him.  Dean loved the move “The Untouchables”.  Sadly, I have never seen it, but since after my visit to Chicago in October I am now officially in love with Chicago, I think that I will be watching it very soon.

But bringing up “It’s a Terrible Life”, it makes me wonder really about the point that was being made there.  Dean did pretty well in a normal life, but he knew something was wrong...it grated at him, although he tried not to look at it.  It seems that after the dust settled, that is probably what happened when he was with Lisa too.  He could sense it wasn’t right, maybe just chalked it up to not having Sam there, but as soon as things got a little weird, he was back in hunting mode.  Dean can’t stop being a hunter, it is what he is.  I am so glad that he now has something from Ness to think about.  Hopefully it will help him come to terms.

I loved that we had another episode with Smart!Dean.  Dean considers “Back to the Future III” as a way to get a communication to Sam.  He was able to get his way into the house that he and Sam were squatting in in 2012.  I loved that the beautiful house of 1044, with all the nice wood on the walls had that hideous paint over...as is done way too much in beautiful older homes. 

Dean found his way into the room Sam was camped out in and put the letter where he knew Sam would see.  Lucky that the house was built, but there were a couple coincidences that happened that allowed everything to work out.  I was ok with it because it wasn’t angel intervention regarding time travel and Sam and Dean weren’t puppets to what was going on. This served as another win for the boys!  

Dean was able to find Chronos and got something to kill him with, while Sam was able to call Chronos to 2012 at the correct time to make sure to collect Dean too!  They were able to kill Chronos to stop any further “sacrifices” and get Dean home safely!  That levifilled prophecy made the ending a little bitter sweet, but score another for the Winchesters!  I’m so happy that they have now had two wins in a row!

Another Smart!Dean moment were his newfound computer skills!  How awesome he was able to so quickly get into local surveillance feed.  Sam was jealous!  Another funny about the fact that Thompson also wrote “Slash Fiction” have to do with the awesome Sam and Dean banter in the episode.  I loved the line about how Sam hoped Dean was looking at cartoon smut and not obsessing about Dick Roman.  There was also the other line later when Dean wants to see the computer (to use skills he got from Frank) and Sam asks him if he is going to look at more anime or if he is strictly into Dick now...

“How does paper beat a rock?  That’s just stupid.” Dean won rock/paper scissors!  My overanalyzing side kicked in on this.  Is this evidence of Dean being masochistic?  Reverting from scissors, his classic response, to something scissors would beat?  Is his jump to paper showing that he feels he is now weaker?  Or, is it something different?  Is Dean learning how to adapt?  Sam knows he throws scissors, so Sam therefore always throws rock that beats scissors.  Dean has realized this and adjusted!  He therefore threw the one that would beat a rock--the paper. (*addition later:  not everyone agrees with this assessment--Dean did adjust, but many think that he lost because he threw the rock and lost to Sam's paper...just putting it out there!  Sam did have a clean space on the floor and we don't know what Dean's area looked like...so thought I would mention!) In this episode, Dean really seemed  more on the ball, and I loved that.  Was the recent win (“Adventures In Babysitting”) the cause?  In with the scary psycho advice Frank gave was some good advice about doing it right--maybe he took that to heart...but most likely it was the all consuming nature of this case and not having time to think that helped Dean with clarity.  I’m sure that the Dean angst and struggle isn’t over, but he now has some more wonderful advice to hopefully help him figure stuff out.  Remember Sam is at least sleeping at the beginning of the ep, but Dean is online obsessing over Dick Roman.  He is not sleeping.

Sam too seemed to have singularity of purpose in Friday’s episode, trying to get Dean back.  It was something that could help him keep his mind off of the other issues that he has.  I fear for what the future holds for both brothers!

A little 411...Time After Time is a Cyndi Lauper song, sure...but It is probably more likely the episode was named after the 1979 movie “Time After Time” where according to imdb “H.G. Wells pursues Jack The Ripper to the 20th Century when the serial murderer uses the future writer’s time machine to escape his time period”.

We have a little break from new episodes.  Don’t fear though, you can tune in to the Tribute to Kim Manners Kick It In The Ass Supernatural Rewatch at 7pm EST on January 21, 2012 (11am January 22, 2012 Sydney time).  Details are here 

**Follow up to the Rock/Paper/Scissors!  Ok, yes, I am obsessed!  After the wonderful comments, and food for thought, I asked around twitter and finally we asked Jim Michaels for the official answer.  Dean threw Rock and did lose to Sam for the bedroom.  I think what threw me off was that Sam and Dean don't generally fight for a bedroom, especially if it is only floorspace--they could both fit!  I guess Sam and I have differences of opinion on what qualifies as an unransacked bedroom, because that one just looked empty!  so glad for the clarification!  Sufficie it to say that Dean still acted out of character in not choosing Scissors.  The fact that Rock can bash Scissors could possibly show Dean's bashing of his past self could come into play, as @Bardicvoice suggested.  Sam also noticed the change in Dean and reacted to it, which is very much in line with Sam's behavior around Dean during their scenes together i.e. Dean not sleeping, Dean's obsession with Dick Roman.

I have posted this review, and reviews since mid season five at Salted and Burned