SUPERNATURAL: The Curious Case of Dean Winchester - Give Me My Remote : Give Me My Remote

SUPERNATURAL: The Curious Case of Dean Winchester

October 30, 2009 by  

Okay you guys, I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, there were some (okay, two) awesome aspects to this episode, and I will be discussing those in just a sec. On the other hand, I’m going to be Miss Crankypants and just say “meh”. Every season there is at least one episode that I’m not in love with, and it looks like this season that episode is The Curious Case of Dean Winchester (aka Jensen played two roles in the last ep, so we’re giving him the week off). It sort of had that “filler episode” feeling to me, and I wasn’t super invested in the main storyline (Dean gambling away decades of his life and turning into “elderly Dean” for most of the hour). On the other hand, there were two points of greatness, and those points were named Bobby and Patrick. These alone weren’t enough to make me declare the ep a success, but they did save me from hating it outright (did I say I was torn? Guess not). We’ll get to them soon enough, along with my one request of the writers that will make this episode worth it for me.

So there’s a witch in town offering people the opportunity to gamble years of their lives in a game of poker. I might be willing to gamble a year or two for the opportunity to exchange witticisms and life philosophies with Patrick the Man Witch for an hour, but I digress. When Bobby gets wind of it, he jumps on the chance to turn back time to when his legs worked (he actually gambles 25 years – I guess that was the minimum buy-in?). Bobby doesn’t fare so well, so Dean decides that he can do better and promptly loses. He did manage to get Bobby’s 25 years back, but lost a chunk of his own life, turning into Grumpy Old Man Dean. The rest of the episode is spent trying to figure out how to get Dean’s years back and watching his older self enact every old person joke under the sun (shockingly, no Viagara jokes). I thought the old jokes got…well…old, rather quickly, and whiny old Dean got highly annoying. Seriously – when he was digging the grave, I half-wanted Bobby to beat him to death with the shovel just so he’d shut up. To be fair, I will say that actor Chad Everett did a credible job as “older Dean” – it was pretty believably the same character.

Of course, they managed to out-gamble the witch in the end and Dean was restored to his former handsome, young and healthy self. There was no real impact on or mention of the big story of the season, other than a Weekly World News with a cover dedicated to the impending apocalypse, and there was no Cas (sad face) or Lucifer.

Now – on to the shining moments that salvaged the episode, at least partly. First….Bobby. Jim Beaver had some great moments here – he played them so well and really made my heart break for him. Here is this man who has not only been self-reliant his whole life, but he’s lived and survived as a hunter. Now he’s confined to a chair and feels impotent in his role, just as the biggest challenge of his hunting career is looming on the horizon.

When he said that he had nothing to live for, and that if he wasn’t such a coward he would have put a gun in his mouth already….jeez. What do you say to that? Dean did what we all would have done – jumped in to remind his friend how invaluable he is to them, no matter what condition his body is in. While this is all true, it’s of little comfort to Bobby who still can’t run after a demon or climb a flight of stairs. Frankly, I was a little surprised at the end of the episode – I had sort of gotten it into my mind that the boys were going to do something to get Bobby a little time back in the poker game, in order to fix his legs. I really thought that Sam and Dean would allocate one of Dean’s years (or even six months) to Bobby. I can’t see Dean balking at giving up half a year of his own life to give his friend his legs back. Anyone else surprised that this didn’t happen?

Now, onto Patrick the Man Witch. Please excuse me while I fawn. I have a completely serious request for the tv gods: please give Hal Ozsan his own show, and if he’s playing an Irishman on that show, all the better. I adored him as Todd on Dawson’s Creek, and clearly that hasn’t changed. Is it just because I’m Irish that the character of Patrick was such a hit? Please tell me you guys loved him as much as I did. While I had some problems with his storyline (it had that feeling of a one-off episode that tv shows use to set up a spinoff, didn’t it?), I had zero problems with his character. In fact, I am wracking my brain to figure out how Patrick can join forces with Sam, Dean and Cas for the rest of the season. He was smooth, he oozed charm, he was fair, and he got angry and vengeful when called for. I mean….please. Can you imagine Sam, Dean, Cas and Patrick walking around together? The Four Hotties of the Apocalypse right there. Sorry, the squee-ing fangirl in me is emerging and I usually try to keep her firmly locked away.

The aspect I didn’t appreciate was that it was all so weird – why were the writers giving us so much background on him and his companion, culminating with a very sad end to their relationship? Like I said, it felt like an ep setting up a spinoff, only to have one of the stars of the spinoff die at the end of the episode. My hope is that the reason for creating sympathy for Patrick, and ultimately leaving him alone, is that they have plans to bring him back in some capacity. Am I just projecting? Possibly, but I would really love to see him back. Having a 900 year old witch on the boys’ side for the Big Fight couldn’t hurt, right?

So there you have it – clearly not my favourite episode. Was I just having a bad night, or do you guys agree? They can’t all be winners, and that’s….okay. Supernatural, you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like you. No need to fret – we’re all coming back to watch next week…I’m very pumped for the big TV episode , mostly because of that David Caruso impression in the promo, but I’m just curious to see how they pull the whole concept off. I tend to love the Trickster episodes, so I’m excited. I’ve embedded the promo for it below, but a lot of the material was already seen in that extended promo released a few weeks back.



So…tell me. Am I off my rocker? Did you guys completely love the episode or do you agree that it was one of the weaker ones from the last five years? How many of you would like to see Patrick back?? Sound off below, and if any of you are on Twitter and looking for yet another person to follow, you can find me at @TONicole.

Comments

5 Responses to “SUPERNATURAL: The Curious Case of Dean Winchester”

  1. Patty on October 30th, 2009 3:02 pm

    I really liked this episode. I liked that Chad was Dean for almost the whole episode and I didn’t miss Jensen (ok, I mostly didn’t miss Jensen) He was totally believable as whinny old man Dean.

    Bobby broke my heart and Sam kinda did too. I don’t for a minute think this is a throw away episode. I think some of what went done in Poker Town will come back to haunt us at a later date. They didn’t kill Patrick but I think Patrick learned something in the end. How that will play out? No idea here.

    Sam and the poker game from hell was awful to watch even when we found out he was stalling. I think part of him didn’t know if he could hold out long enough for Bobby and Dean to get the job done. In the end, he did and I think that is a MAJOR development in Sam coming back from his pity party.

    I only watched once so far so I can’t remember right now the 3 or four lines that made me laugh out load but there were a few. Back with that later.

  2. greenerpuddles on October 30th, 2009 5:12 pm

    I agree with most of what you wrote. I was sufficiently amused by the episode and thought it a nice change from the usual helping of Dean ennui, even if he served up a steaming pile of it at the end of the episode. Speaking of the end, I expected Bobby to stand up and walk out of the room. I, like you, figured Sam or Dean would make a deal with Patrick, who seems to have some conscience, even if it’s not a thriving one.

    Here’s my problem. When Supernatural has an episode completely removed from the season’s mythology (Cas, apocalypse, Satan, vessels) and goes goofy, it deflates the gravity of the mythology. Aren’t the powers that be, or at least Cas, concerned that Michael’s vessel just turned into Grampa Simpson with a heart murmur?

    That said, I laughed more than once. I thought Chad Everett was indeed awesome. I do think Hal Ozsan was fantastic and quite dreamy to the fairer sex and Ducky.

    I was, in the end, flummoxed by one line. Bobby said he was a coward for not killing himself. Suicide is commonly referred to as a coward’s way out. In the hyper-macho world of Supernatural is suicide noble?

  3. Kimber on October 30th, 2009 9:11 pm

    Mmm Patrick! He definitely made this episode for me. Otherwise, it was pretty mediocre. I liked the plot of Old Dean, and the humour that ensued, but I find myself always bummed when Cas isn’t somehow involved. Patrick did fill some of that void, but still….

    Hal Oszan looked so familiar, but I IMDb’d him, and he wasn’t really in anything that I’ve seen. I was a DC viewer, but not really so much into the college years, and I assume that’s when he was a major player, right? Still … I sort of drooled at your image of Dean, Sam, Cas, and Patrick walking around together. Mmm.

    I’m looking forward to next week’s episode … it looks really entertaining!

  4. katie71483 on October 31st, 2009 2:45 am

    I was less than impressed with this episode – in fact it felt like a retread of earlier eps. This was at least the second time that Dean has given Bobby the “you’re the only family Sam and I have” speech (okay, so it might not have been worded exactly like that but the intent was the same).
    They introduced so many excellent story lines at the beginning of the season and it feels like they’ve kind of just been dropped (the four horseman, Lucifer, etc.). I’ve wondered if Supernatural wouldn’t be better served by a shorter season so they didn’t have so many episodes to write for…

  5. ShadowsGathered on February 28th, 2014 2:11 am

    I quite enjoyed that episode. Whether it felt like a one-off, filler type of ep or not didn’t really matter to me. That’s what long-running series have to do sometimes. It can’t always be about the main “Big Bad” of that particular season. It was great seeing Chad Everett in what would turn out to be one of his last roles. It was humorous, and that’s appreciated… and it gave us a little more insight into Sammy, and what’s he capable of (or at the time, WOULD be capable of).

    Now, as for Patrick the Man Witch (isn’t there something better we could call him? Like Patrick, the Warlock?) – he was a great character… I wouldn’t have minded seeing him again in another Supernatural episode or even in his own series… all the attributes you ascribed to him would make him a great protagonist… and the fact that he lost the woman he loved (let her go, at her request though he apparently loved her so) would have given him that much more depth of character… but I guess it wasn’t to be.

    Sorry for being a little late to the party, but I’m infamous for being late… lol!