Supernatural: Freaks and Geeks
October 27, 2021 5:16 AM - Season 8, Episode 18 - Subscribe
Sam and Dean learn that a hunter has established a sort of group home for orphaned teenaged hunters in which he is training Krissy and two other kids in hunting, as well as insisting on their going to school and living some semblance of a normal life.
Quotes
Dean: Never trust a guy in a sweater.
Dean: Okay, so how does this work? After soccer practice and, the bake sale... they chop vampires' heads off?
Victor Rogers: Well, yeah, I think a balanced approach is best, don't you?
Hotel clerk: [looking at Krissy's ID skeptically] You're 25?
Krissy Chambers: [passes over cash] Actually, I think I'm 40.
Hotel clerk: [hands over key]
Krissy Chambers: I have a boyfriend.
Aidan: Then how come I couldn't find him in your cellie?
Krissy Chambers: Because we only Skype.
Aidan: Right. And let me guess, he also lives in Canada?
Krissy Chambers: Yeah, he does, actually. A small town called "Kiss My Ass".
Aidan: Hey, how about we start a new tradition, before each job we give each other good luck kisses?
Josephine Barnes: How about I punch you in the throat instead?
Sheriff: FBI? You're here about the Lady Killer Murders, aren't you?
Sam: The Lady Killer Murders?
Sheriff: [very proud of himself] Yeah, coined it myself.
Dean: Congratulations.
Krissy Chambers: You're all right for an old guy.
Dean: I'm really not that old.
Krissy Chambers: You keep telling yourself that.
Dean: Look, last time I'm gonna ask you nicely. Take the damn guns off me, or somebody's gonna get hurt.
Aidan: Big talk.
Dean: [easily disarms him] I know. It is, isn't it?
Krissy Chambers: How did you find me? I paid cash everywhere.
Dean: Only two hotels in a 20-mile radius and we paid cash too. Just more.
Dean: There's something I wanna tell you about Krissy.
Aidan: I know, I know. You'll kill me if I ever hurt her. Blah, blah, blah.
Dean: No, no. No. *She'll* kill you.
Sam: Cass dinged you up pretty good.
Dean: And?
Sam: And I just wanted to make sure you're okay.
Dean: What, like my feelings?
Sam: If that's what you want to talk about, sure.
Dean: Okay. I'll tell you what. Why don't I go get some, uh, herbal tea...
Sam: Okay.
Dean: And you can find some Cowboy Junkies on the dial...
Sam: Eat me, Dean.
Dean: ... And you know what? We'll just talk it out. Good talk. Nay, great talk! Very healthy!
Trivia
This episode shares its name with the TV show Freaks and Geeks.
Dean catches up with Krissy as she takes down the vampire and asks the whereabouts of the blue van "that he was Usain Bolting it to". Dean is referring to the Jamaican sprinter who was the first man to win six gold medals in sprinting in the modern Olympic Games.
When Sam suggests that Krissy's dad doesn't know what she's doing, Dean says, "What, sneaking out in the middle of the night to hunt monsters with the Apple Dumpling Gang?" He is referring to the 1975 Disney comedy, The Apple Dumpling Gang, starring Don Knotts and Tim Conway.
Dean comments that he expected Victor's home to be "more Lord of the Flies, less Huxtables". In Lord of the Flies, a plane crash leaves a group of schoolboys on a remote island with no adults, and they quickly devolve into brutal, violent, primitive tribalism. The Huxtables were a clean-cut, upper-middle class, affluent family in the 1980s sitcom The Cosby Show. This episode of Supernatural was aired a year before the world first learned of Bill Cosby's history of committing drug-assisted sexual assault.
Quotes
Dean: Never trust a guy in a sweater.
Dean: Okay, so how does this work? After soccer practice and, the bake sale... they chop vampires' heads off?
Victor Rogers: Well, yeah, I think a balanced approach is best, don't you?
Hotel clerk: [looking at Krissy's ID skeptically] You're 25?
Krissy Chambers: [passes over cash] Actually, I think I'm 40.
Hotel clerk: [hands over key]
Krissy Chambers: I have a boyfriend.
Aidan: Then how come I couldn't find him in your cellie?
Krissy Chambers: Because we only Skype.
Aidan: Right. And let me guess, he also lives in Canada?
Krissy Chambers: Yeah, he does, actually. A small town called "Kiss My Ass".
Aidan: Hey, how about we start a new tradition, before each job we give each other good luck kisses?
Josephine Barnes: How about I punch you in the throat instead?
Sheriff: FBI? You're here about the Lady Killer Murders, aren't you?
Sam: The Lady Killer Murders?
Sheriff: [very proud of himself] Yeah, coined it myself.
Dean: Congratulations.
Krissy Chambers: You're all right for an old guy.
Dean: I'm really not that old.
Krissy Chambers: You keep telling yourself that.
Dean: Look, last time I'm gonna ask you nicely. Take the damn guns off me, or somebody's gonna get hurt.
Aidan: Big talk.
Dean: [easily disarms him] I know. It is, isn't it?
Krissy Chambers: How did you find me? I paid cash everywhere.
Dean: Only two hotels in a 20-mile radius and we paid cash too. Just more.
Dean: There's something I wanna tell you about Krissy.
Aidan: I know, I know. You'll kill me if I ever hurt her. Blah, blah, blah.
Dean: No, no. No. *She'll* kill you.
Sam: Cass dinged you up pretty good.
Dean: And?
Sam: And I just wanted to make sure you're okay.
Dean: What, like my feelings?
Sam: If that's what you want to talk about, sure.
Dean: Okay. I'll tell you what. Why don't I go get some, uh, herbal tea...
Sam: Okay.
Dean: And you can find some Cowboy Junkies on the dial...
Sam: Eat me, Dean.
Dean: ... And you know what? We'll just talk it out. Good talk. Nay, great talk! Very healthy!
Trivia
This episode shares its name with the TV show Freaks and Geeks.
Dean catches up with Krissy as she takes down the vampire and asks the whereabouts of the blue van "that he was Usain Bolting it to". Dean is referring to the Jamaican sprinter who was the first man to win six gold medals in sprinting in the modern Olympic Games.
When Sam suggests that Krissy's dad doesn't know what she's doing, Dean says, "What, sneaking out in the middle of the night to hunt monsters with the Apple Dumpling Gang?" He is referring to the 1975 Disney comedy, The Apple Dumpling Gang, starring Don Knotts and Tim Conway.
Dean comments that he expected Victor's home to be "more Lord of the Flies, less Huxtables". In Lord of the Flies, a plane crash leaves a group of schoolboys on a remote island with no adults, and they quickly devolve into brutal, violent, primitive tribalism. The Huxtables were a clean-cut, upper-middle class, affluent family in the 1980s sitcom The Cosby Show. This episode of Supernatural was aired a year before the world first learned of Bill Cosby's history of committing drug-assisted sexual assault.
Nice to see Krissy again. It’s just a shame she ended up in the circumstances she did.
I have exactly the same questions as you do, orange swan about the kids' future. Okay, one of the kids is turning 18, but so what? Are the kids in the will? Do they get the house or the insurance? If not, what are they going to live on? I’m sure the state will be there the second word gets out about the suicide, and the kids will be snapped up and put into the care system ASAP.
Dean is perfectly happy to commit Garth to checking up on them, but Garth has a whole network of hunters he has taken responsibility for, so I doubt he has oodles of free time. Sam and Dean have far fewer responsibilities and commitments. They should be the ones checking in on the kids, but of course they won't.
posted by sardonyx at 6:18 AM on October 27, 2021
I have exactly the same questions as you do, orange swan about the kids' future. Okay, one of the kids is turning 18, but so what? Are the kids in the will? Do they get the house or the insurance? If not, what are they going to live on? I’m sure the state will be there the second word gets out about the suicide, and the kids will be snapped up and put into the care system ASAP.
Dean is perfectly happy to commit Garth to checking up on them, but Garth has a whole network of hunters he has taken responsibility for, so I doubt he has oodles of free time. Sam and Dean have far fewer responsibilities and commitments. They should be the ones checking in on the kids, but of course they won't.
posted by sardonyx at 6:18 AM on October 27, 2021
My recollection was that, for all season 8’s reputation as a bad season, it was mostly because of how people felt about the first half. Which, look, had significant issues! but this past run has mainly been a SLOG. I have zero memory of most of these and will not be mad if I forget them again.
It’s a little frustrating to keep saying this but there were the elements of a decent idea here, but the guest actors were not good and story was not good and the question they appeared to be setting up about whether it’s possible in the world of the show to let a teenager hunt monsters without ruining their lives (with a brief dip into "should hunters keep the supernatural a secret at all?") is meaningless, because it’s so obvious from the beginning that Victor’s a scumbag. A couple of degrees off and this group wouldn't have looked all THAT different from Buffy and co., who'd look shady as hell from the outside, but were meant to be a basically well-intentioned mutually supportive group of people in it for the right reasons. (Yeah the whole concept Slayers is messed up and ruins some random kid's life, that's another post.) Anyway, it would be nice to see other approaches to hunting that are philosophically different from Sam and Dean's without getting undercut as naive, incompetent, evil, or crazy.
I will slightly allow for Dean’s hypocrisy here in that he doesn’t want the kids to end up with his life or his problems. Like somebody who knows perfectly well he’s not going to quit smoking, I’m not gonna judge him super harshly for not wanting them to start, regardless of whether he think he has any real control over it. Being outwardly supportive while telling Sam they’re as doomed as every other hunter is…weird, but also kind of makes sense given who it's coming from.
posted by jameaterblues at 6:55 PM on October 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
It’s a little frustrating to keep saying this but there were the elements of a decent idea here, but the guest actors were not good and story was not good and the question they appeared to be setting up about whether it’s possible in the world of the show to let a teenager hunt monsters without ruining their lives (with a brief dip into "should hunters keep the supernatural a secret at all?") is meaningless, because it’s so obvious from the beginning that Victor’s a scumbag. A couple of degrees off and this group wouldn't have looked all THAT different from Buffy and co., who'd look shady as hell from the outside, but were meant to be a basically well-intentioned mutually supportive group of people in it for the right reasons. (Yeah the whole concept Slayers is messed up and ruins some random kid's life, that's another post.) Anyway, it would be nice to see other approaches to hunting that are philosophically different from Sam and Dean's without getting undercut as naive, incompetent, evil, or crazy.
I will slightly allow for Dean’s hypocrisy here in that he doesn’t want the kids to end up with his life or his problems. Like somebody who knows perfectly well he’s not going to quit smoking, I’m not gonna judge him super harshly for not wanting them to start, regardless of whether he think he has any real control over it. Being outwardly supportive while telling Sam they’re as doomed as every other hunter is…weird, but also kind of makes sense given who it's coming from.
posted by jameaterblues at 6:55 PM on October 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Victor was insane, but I suppose watching your wife and three children be horribly murdered can do that to you.
How on earth did Victor fund the life he and the three kids had, and how will those three teenagers pay for it now that he's gone? They might have inherited money from their families, but they surely won't have access to those funds as minors. And did they report Victor's suicide, or are they just going to make him disappear?
The group home thing worked in a dysfunctional kind of way, but I'm with Dean on this one. Teenagers shouldn't be hunting. They won't have the judgment or impulse control for it.
posted by orange swan at 5:19 AM on October 27, 2021