Supernatural: Adventures in Babysitting
September 27, 2021 4:42 AM - Season 7, Episode 11 - Subscribe

While Dean and Frank work to decipher the numbers from Bobby's clue, Sam helps a young girl search for her missing father.

Quotes

Dean: [wakes up in a chair in Frank's RV] How long was I out?
Frank: About 36 hours.
Dean: What? Why didn't you wake me?
Frank: Not your butler!

Dean: [to Krissy] You could too, you know. Go to college. Be a hunter slash pediatrician.

Krissy Chambers: What century is this? No one fist bumps anymore.
Dean: C'mon. Give it up!
Krissy Chambers: You're a dweeb

Sally: Looks like hunter day at the all-you-can-eat.

Dean: How long ago did I give Frank these numbers? It's been a few weeks, right? What, is he nuts, or is he just being rude?
Sam: Probably both.

Frank Devereaux: Sure you're not a Leviathan. Dick Roman's not a Leviathan. Gwyneth Paltrow's not a Leviathan...
Dean: Yeah?
Frank Devereaux: Trust me.

Frank: You think it's this easy to see inside what's real, and also be bipolar with delusional ideation? There's no pill for my situation, sweetie-pop.

Dean: Frank, we're amongst friends here.
Frank: ...
Dean: Okay, acquaintances.

Dean: It's gonna be a little difficult to set up surveillance if there's surveillance everywhere.

Trivia

When Dean expresses frustration over not knowing what's being built in the field, Frank says, "Patience, Grasshopper." He is quoting Master Po in the 1970s martial arts TV western, Kung Fu. This is the second time Dean had been referred to as "Grasshopper", the first being called that by Alastair in "On the Head of a Pin" (ep. 4.16).

At the beginning of the episode when Sam is looking at Bobby's hunter's notebook, the last name listed at the bottom of the page is "Frank Furter", an allusion to the character Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

This episode title is the same as a 1987 movie starring Elisabeth Shue. It's about a babysitter who has to take the three kids she's watching into the city to rescue a friend and they end up being chased.
posted by orange swan (6 comments total)
 
Krissy is so much like Dean it's no wonder they connected.

Frank tells Dean he looks like crap, but he actually doesn't -- he looks fine. If they were going to do that scene, they should have done some makeup on Ackles to make him look exhausted. And I'm sure he didn't sleep 36 hours -- he would have needed to pee at some point -- but probably just a few.

Frank is the new Ash, only instead of being a drunk redneck computer genius, he's a traumatized bipolar druggie computer genius.
posted by orange swan at 4:54 AM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


Before I started watching this show, the advice given to me by MeFi was essentially the first five seasons were good, after that, it starts to decline and you may not enjoy it as much and decide to stop watching it. That advice was correct. I'm sure people reading my comments can sense my growing frustration with the show and in particular, with the characterizations. But this episode was almost the one that drove the final nail in the coffin. But I'll get to that later. First the less angry stuff..

Ian Tracey is one of those regulars from a certain era of Canadian TV that I expected to see more of on this show, given where it was filmed.

It’s pretty much impossible to tell if Chrissy just likes Dean because of his way with kids, the fact he was straight with her or if she was developing a crush on him. Any and all of those scenarios are likely.

Now for the angry stuff...

The more I think about it, the angrier I get about Dean and Sam shirking on the duty of telling Bobby’s “people” about his death. It happened because Bobby was helping the boys. He sees them as adoptive sons. It’s their damn duty to deal with his passing. Even if they were brought up with the social niceties to know it’s the right thing to do in polite society—and I don’t even give them a pass on this, because, come, they’re adults by now. They should have some clue how regular people behave, even if it only comes through watching TV (Dean) or listening to classmates (Sam). More importantly, however, is that they’re hunters and they understand the role Bobby played in hunter society: backstopping cover stories, doing research, helping out on hunts. They should understand that somebody needs to step up and say “Bobby won’t be able to help you anymore, you can’t count on him.” Now, given who Bobby was, you’d expect him to have failsafes in place in case something (very predictable) happens, but even still, the boys owe it to Bobby to make sure any transition happens smoothly.

At this point, I just want to grab the boys and shake some sense into them and then read them the riot act on how to behave like decent human beings.
posted by sardonyx at 6:04 AM on September 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


While I agree with you that Sam and Dean have a responsibility to wind up Bobby's affairs and to inform the hunters he worked with and anyone else he knew of his death, I don't know how clear it is that Sam and Dean aren't doing that. When this episode opens, they're just sitting in Bobby's cabin, in silence, and for guys as hardworking and active as they are to just sit and do nothing... well, they're clearly devastated. But even so, Sam was quick to answer Bobby's phone. He was hesitant to tell Krissy that Bobby was dead, but I think that's understandable given that he didn't know who she was or what her situation was. He did go to her aid without even knowing for certain that she was in trouble, and then tell her.

As for their contacting all the hunters Bobby worked with, we don't know whether they've done that or not, or if it's even possible for Sam and Dean to do that given that they won't personally know all the people Bobby worked with, and may not have up-to-date contact information for all of them. Bobby was, after all, a messy guy with his fingers in a lot of pies, and hunters are suspicious loner types who often don't have fixed addresses. We do know the Winchesters are answering Bobby's phone and are ready to help the people who call him themselves if necessary, so I don't as yet consider them to be ducking their responsibility on this matter.
posted by orange swan at 11:28 AM on September 27, 2021


Sam: Dean, I wonder if we should be telling people. I mean people he knew.

Dean: How long ago did I give Frank these numbers. It has been a few weeks, right? Is he nuts or is he just being rude?

Sam: Probably both. Dean, I asked you a question.

Dean: Unless, of course, something happened to him. He can't get to the phone because a Leviathan ate his face.

Sam: Also a possibility.

Dean: We should go check on him.

Sam: Do you want to call Bobby's people or not?

Dean: Why is that our job?

Sam: Because who else is going to do it?

Dean: I'm not calling anybody. If you want to, go right ahead.

Sam: I don't want to call anybody. Are you kidding me?

Phone rings

Dean: I'm not getting it

Then Sam answers Krissy's call

As I read it, neither intends to take the responsibility of calling Bobby's people. And they certainly don't have time to do it before they get busy.

Sure, nobody wants the job of calling the friends and family members of somebody who has died, but it's a job that needs to be done and needs to be done by people in the know. At this point, the people in the know are Sam and Dean, and neither seems willing to take on the responsibility. I know it's just a TV show, and we don't see all the daily-life stuff, but if they could show the boys sitting around mourning and having beer, they could show Sam and Dean working the phones and computers. As far as I'm concerned the Winchesters never informed Bobby's people.
posted by sardonyx at 4:49 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


There's definitely a sense of ickiness about the boys (and, well, they're boys in a derogatory sense) shirking their responsibility.

Not contacting not just Bobby's professional acquaintances (or at least just to get the word out, they don't have to contact everyone even if had contact info) but also what friends the boys can identify, could be interpreted as emotional labour and they're too stunted/ selfish to put in the labour that's their inherited responsibility. I can understand not having the emotional energy to do it right away, but they're sitting around for three weeks sulking.

They kept their dad's phones around and were reasonably good about answering them, but Bobby's a fixer and there are a lot of other people who rely on him. Even after setting up a new safehouse, I'm surprised that they haven't gotten more call during those three weeks.

I get it, its unpleasant, but they've put souls to rest - this is a different incarnation of doing something like that. I remember it was rough doing it, and taking care of some of the estate, when my dad passed but that's a part of growing up/ living with social contracts.
posted by porpoise at 6:54 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


Oops, I really goofed on the Sam and Dean contacting people thing. Can't believe I just forgot that whole exchange between them. So yes, they don't want to contact the people Bobby knew because it would be logistically difficult and emotionally gruelling, but they ought to, and they should realize that.

The odd thing about hunter culture is it's not some kind of brotherhood. The network is a very tenuous one (perhaps not surprising given for vigilante drifters who work alone or in pairs), and they're all so suspicious of each other at first, and it's only by working together and proving themselves to each other that they develop any trust and loyalty. There's no abstract sense of obligation, no organization. This perhaps partly explains why Sam and Dean don't actively call Bobby's contacts. I suppose as long as they at least answer his phone, anyone calling him won't be left hanging.
posted by orange swan at 7:27 AM on September 28, 2021


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