Supernatural: Bad Boys
November 8, 2021 5:42 AM - Season 9, Episode 7 - Subscribe
Dean and Sam visit Dean's former group home for boys, which is now being haunted by a ghost.
Trivia
Dean tells Timmy, "Give me your best kung fu grip." He's referring to the soft plastic hands of the GI Joe from the 1970's Adventure Team series that allowed the action figure to tightly grip his weapons.
The title of this episode comes from the 1983 Sean Penn movie Bad Boys, which was about locked up juvenile delinquents.
Dean says to Sam, "Let's get the hell outta Dodge." "Get the hell out of Dodge" is a reference to Dodge City, Kansas, which was a favourite location for westerns in the early to mid-20th century. The phrase was made famous by the TV show Gunsmoke, in which villians were often commanded to "get the hell out of Dodge".
When Dean gets a strong EMF reading in the barn, he says, "Alright, Casper, where you at?" Casper the Friendly Ghost was the main character in the 1940's cartoon/comic book of the same name.
When Sam and Dean are discussing how all of the deaths and injuries are linked to Timmy, Dean says, "We've got ourselves a Damien on our hands?" This is a reference to The Omen (a 1976 cult classic thriller, also remade in 2006) in which a child named Damien, who is surrounded by mysterious deaths and ominous events, is revealed to be the Antichrist.
When Dean is telling Sam about Sonny, he says "You remember when we were kids, that spring in upstate New York? Dad was on a rugaru hunt." Yet in "Metamorphosis" (ep. 4.4), when the hunter Travis tells them that Jack Montgomery is a rugaru, Dean replies with, "Is that made up? That sounds made up."
When Jack gets killed at the very beginning, the tines of the tractor should come out of the barn door at the same time because they are all at the same level and the tractor is going straight forward. However, we actually see the first, then the second, and finally the third one piercing through the wooden door. The holes in the barn door don't match the tractor tines either. There are only four holes though there are seven tines, the holes are very spaced and they are quite centred on the right door, whereas the bloody tines are the ones one the right (when facing the tractor). There is no room on that door for the three remaining tines on the left.
When Dean goes to the barn to inspect the death scene, the holes in the barn door don't match the ones show in the cold open, as there were only three at the time and they were also very near to the centre of the twofold doors (as that's where Jack backed away). In the later scene there are four and they are in the centre of the right door.
When Sam is looking at the wall where the athletic awards are hung, on Dean's wrestling champion award, the word "Athletics" is incorrectly spelled as "Atheletics".
Trivia
Dean tells Timmy, "Give me your best kung fu grip." He's referring to the soft plastic hands of the GI Joe from the 1970's Adventure Team series that allowed the action figure to tightly grip his weapons.
The title of this episode comes from the 1983 Sean Penn movie Bad Boys, which was about locked up juvenile delinquents.
Dean says to Sam, "Let's get the hell outta Dodge." "Get the hell out of Dodge" is a reference to Dodge City, Kansas, which was a favourite location for westerns in the early to mid-20th century. The phrase was made famous by the TV show Gunsmoke, in which villians were often commanded to "get the hell out of Dodge".
When Dean gets a strong EMF reading in the barn, he says, "Alright, Casper, where you at?" Casper the Friendly Ghost was the main character in the 1940's cartoon/comic book of the same name.
When Sam and Dean are discussing how all of the deaths and injuries are linked to Timmy, Dean says, "We've got ourselves a Damien on our hands?" This is a reference to The Omen (a 1976 cult classic thriller, also remade in 2006) in which a child named Damien, who is surrounded by mysterious deaths and ominous events, is revealed to be the Antichrist.
When Dean is telling Sam about Sonny, he says "You remember when we were kids, that spring in upstate New York? Dad was on a rugaru hunt." Yet in "Metamorphosis" (ep. 4.4), when the hunter Travis tells them that Jack Montgomery is a rugaru, Dean replies with, "Is that made up? That sounds made up."
When Jack gets killed at the very beginning, the tines of the tractor should come out of the barn door at the same time because they are all at the same level and the tractor is going straight forward. However, we actually see the first, then the second, and finally the third one piercing through the wooden door. The holes in the barn door don't match the tractor tines either. There are only four holes though there are seven tines, the holes are very spaced and they are quite centred on the right door, whereas the bloody tines are the ones one the right (when facing the tractor). There is no room on that door for the three remaining tines on the left.
When Dean goes to the barn to inspect the death scene, the holes in the barn door don't match the ones show in the cold open, as there were only three at the time and they were also very near to the centre of the twofold doors (as that's where Jack backed away). In the later scene there are four and they are in the centre of the right door.
When Sam is looking at the wall where the athletic awards are hung, on Dean's wrestling champion award, the word "Athletics" is incorrectly spelled as "Atheletics".
Okay, I surprised myself by having a bit of free time and I caught up on a few more episodes, including this one.
I really liked young Dean's physical acting. There were a few moments where he leaned back, crossed his arms, and really gave off a Dean aura. The eyes, however, were a real distraction. Mind you, I get not wanting to make young kids put in contacts needlessly. It's just a shame they couldnt digitally colour-correct them somehow.
At first, I couldn't figure out what Dean was scoping out Robin, because physically, she's not the type he usually goes for. As soon as he indicated that he knew her, it was easy to make the leap she was a first crush/first love/etc.
John Winchester's shitty parenting is so inexcusable and explains so much.
I'm not really squeamish about a lot of stuff that happens in TV and movies, but the second that lawnmower came into the shot, I knew it was going to be trouble. Seriously, the kid got off with a few stitches? I was expecting something much more severe than that. I guess the show doesn't want to present kids getting seriously maimed.
Of course Dean made the choice to go with his Dad, just to protect and be with Sam. That's been his guiding mission ever since the fire that it has become who he is, deep down in his core, even if it is to the detriment of his own well-being, which, of course, made him passing along the lesson to Timmy that he needs to put his own wellfare ahead of that of his loved ones, was so poignant.
Sam acknowledging Dean's devotion and thanking him for it, was a sweet touch.
posted by sardonyx at 10:36 AM on November 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I really liked young Dean's physical acting. There were a few moments where he leaned back, crossed his arms, and really gave off a Dean aura. The eyes, however, were a real distraction. Mind you, I get not wanting to make young kids put in contacts needlessly. It's just a shame they couldnt digitally colour-correct them somehow.
At first, I couldn't figure out what Dean was scoping out Robin, because physically, she's not the type he usually goes for. As soon as he indicated that he knew her, it was easy to make the leap she was a first crush/first love/etc.
John Winchester's shitty parenting is so inexcusable and explains so much.
I'm not really squeamish about a lot of stuff that happens in TV and movies, but the second that lawnmower came into the shot, I knew it was going to be trouble. Seriously, the kid got off with a few stitches? I was expecting something much more severe than that. I guess the show doesn't want to present kids getting seriously maimed.
Of course Dean made the choice to go with his Dad, just to protect and be with Sam. That's been his guiding mission ever since the fire that it has become who he is, deep down in his core, even if it is to the detriment of his own well-being, which, of course, made him passing along the lesson to Timmy that he needs to put his own wellfare ahead of that of his loved ones, was so poignant.
Sam acknowledging Dean's devotion and thanking him for it, was a sweet touch.
posted by sardonyx at 10:36 AM on November 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’m not a huge fan of retroactively going out of their way to make their childhoods secretly shittier, and “let him rot” seems like an escalation of John’s badness that I don’t know adds to or tells us much new about anyone involved. But so it goes.
I get why they chose to have Sam not know the details so they could reveal information gradually; it’s still a little weird to punctuate this flashback with “and then no one mentioned anything about it for twenty years” but I think you’ve talked me around on why Dean really would not want to get into it at the time and has grown other reasons not to talk about it in the years since.
At least they picked somebody plausibly a teenager to play Dean, but it’s very funny to imagine this person who is visibly a child doing the Fonzie bit in After School Special, which would’ve been like a year or two after this happened. I guess this also would've been the year before the 4th of July that Dean saw in Heaven.
Dean’s affection for fixing cars mostly comes out on the Impala, which is fair as they are legally married in several states, but it does actually make sense to me that he would just generally appreciate problems that he can fix and then wash his hands of. Even driving out of town after a hunting job still probably means people died and they risked their lives; fixing cars would feel like a vacation. That said, under only very slightly different circumstances Dean as an adult would probably be genuinely content with a job and life like Sonny’s.
I hope there's a warehouse somewhere that saved all the forged nightmare children's art from this show and that the fiery car crash tableau has a good home next to the vamptopus and Seabiscuit the Impaler.
posted by jameaterblues at 5:50 PM on November 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
I get why they chose to have Sam not know the details so they could reveal information gradually; it’s still a little weird to punctuate this flashback with “and then no one mentioned anything about it for twenty years” but I think you’ve talked me around on why Dean really would not want to get into it at the time and has grown other reasons not to talk about it in the years since.
At least they picked somebody plausibly a teenager to play Dean, but it’s very funny to imagine this person who is visibly a child doing the Fonzie bit in After School Special, which would’ve been like a year or two after this happened. I guess this also would've been the year before the 4th of July that Dean saw in Heaven.
Dean’s affection for fixing cars mostly comes out on the Impala, which is fair as they are legally married in several states, but it does actually make sense to me that he would just generally appreciate problems that he can fix and then wash his hands of. Even driving out of town after a hunting job still probably means people died and they risked their lives; fixing cars would feel like a vacation. That said, under only very slightly different circumstances Dean as an adult would probably be genuinely content with a job and life like Sonny’s.
I hope there's a warehouse somewhere that saved all the forged nightmare children's art from this show and that the fiery car crash tableau has a good home next to the vamptopus and Seabiscuit the Impaler.
posted by jameaterblues at 5:50 PM on November 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
Dean’s affection for fixing cars mostly comes out on the Impala, which is fair as they are legally married in several states,
LOL!
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:07 PM on November 9, 2021
LOL!
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:07 PM on November 9, 2021
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This episode has such a sombreness to it, as evidenced by the lack of jokey quotes. Dean revisits a home and people he loved and had to leave, and even 18 years later he doesn't feel at all like joking about it or mocking anything.
Dean was flourishing at that group home. It was the first time since he was four that he'd had a settled home, didn't have to look after a younger child, and could just be a kid and live his own life. He had a foster father who treated him with kindness and patience, he had a girlfriend with whom he had an actual relationship, he could take part in high school athletics, he was doing well in school, and he began to think about what he wanted to do with his life instead of just taking it for granted that he would be a hunter as his father had expected.
And this was yet another instance of John Winchester's utterly shitty parenting. "Let him rot in jail", for fuck's sake. I think the hard line John took towards any mistake Dean made is the root cause of Dean's inability to handle it when anyone he loves lets him down in any way. Then John leaves Dean in the group home to punish him for losing the food money, and just when he's settled in and doing well, shows up to take him on a hunt again.
Given the way Dean stood up Robin for the high school dance and she never saw him again, it was no wonder she pretended not to know him. And I think this incident probably set the pattern for his behaviour with women. He had to leave his first girlfriend, a girl he cared about, without even a chance to say goodbye... which probably made him decide, consciously or unconsciously, that he wasn't going to care about girls/women going forward, because he'd have to leave them too.
Dylan Everett wasn't a bad young Dean, but I think they could have made him look a little more the part by having him wear green contacts (his own eyes are dark brown) and thinning out his eyebrows somewhat. Colin Ford, who has blue eyes, always wore olive-coloured contacts when he played young Sam.
posted by orange swan at 6:22 AM on November 8, 2021 [2 favorites]