1. Interesting observation in an observationally interesting way: in the teaser, Adam’s mother is murdered by being dragged underground. Sam and Dean’s mother was killed by being dragged onto the ceiling.
3. Dean still keeps his father’s cell phone in his car’s glove compartment. Such a sentimental boy inside, is Dean. Also, a boy who won’t let go of his past, still dependent on Dad’s emotional legacy. Plus it’s simply practical, in case some old contacts call. But do they keep charging this phone, do they never switch it off? Are they waiting for a call from Heaven or where their father is?
4. When Adam enters the diner and the boys call him by the name, he looks at them and asks Sam, “You Sam?” How come he knows his name if it was Dean talking to him on the phone? Okay, so maybe they had another phone conversation off screen arranging for their meeting, but still... You know, Adam, you’ll recognize us by Sammy’s hair.
5. Dean’s VERY suspicious about this brother-out-of-the-box (surprise!brother) at first, and all through the episode he acts as if he wishes Adam was never there (hey, I know what younger brothers should be like – nasty, naughty, pain-in-the-ass dicks – but you’re not like that… now, where’s my holy water?). But Sam warms up to the boy surprisingly quickly. Maybe he’s always secretly wanted a little brother. Oh dear. Where’s your famed nose for the supernatural, Sammy, genius?
6. Clearly, Dean is also openly jealous of Adam and the attention his father paid to him. He can’t even hear John was teaching Adam to drive HIS Impala. “He took you to a freakin’ baseball game?” – Dean sounds like an offended little boy. Come on, man, you’re, like, 30, you think you’re being cute? For Sam, though, Dad has never been such a powerful father figure, so Sam is not jealous of Adam at all.
7. Daddy loved blonde bombshells! And Sam, too. But as soon as he began to discover his inner darkness, his taste in women changed, and all women he seems to be attracted to ever since are brunettes. Look, it wasn’t until Ruby “dyed” her hair jet-black that he could no longer resist having sex with her. No wonder the blonde Lilith had no chance to subvert him in the previous episode! So, a weapon to use against Sam Winchester: black hair. No, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait: he’s got black hair, too, does it mean he’s his own femme fatale? I want fanfic! Seriously, somebody, get him a blondie. Or a can of peroxide.
8. There’s a telepathic, shorthand understanding between the guys: they see this vent under Adam’s mother’s bed (come on, who even puts their beds over vents?) and both know at once somebody will have to climb down this air duct, and – play their rock-paper-scissors! It’s like bitch-jerk all over again!
9. Dean won’t tell Adam he saw his mother’s remains, such a gentleman, really sensitive to people. Maybe he wants to sweeten the pill: look, your Mum’s dead, but good news is, we’ve found and killed the monster who’d murdered her. Or maybe he knows telling such things to an impressionate teenage boy is dangerous. Adam would quite possibly want to seek revenge, and, being his father’s son, do some hunting. Dean’s got John’s experience in mind, so the last thing he wants is for Adam to become a hunter. Hell, he doesn’t even want Sam to tell Adam they are hunters. He wouldn’t even tell Adam about what kind of person John was, jealous, cautious Dean.
10. Luckily for Adam, Sam is willing to share some family history, and why shouldn’t he? It’s his first time that he’s actually being an ELDER brother, and he’s gonna make the most of it. For Dean, though, suddenly having one more little brother means, basically, more pain in the ass – he has hard time managing one, no wonder he’s so sulking and disaffected. In this new makeshift brotherhood he accepts a fatherly role, leaving for investigation alone, telling Sam very John-like words – “Babysit the kid”. Sam is, meanwhile, flattered to play the “awesome brother” role, and he does it good, telling Adam their hunting tales and teaching him to shoot and anti-monster protection.
11. Dean’s all determined to finish the case as quickly as possible – he doesn’t want Adam to become a hunter, so he suggests taking him to Bobby’s (that is, out of his sight), and investigate the case together together with Sam. Sam, though, persuades him to stay in the haunted house and prepare Adam to face the monsters. Basically, he’s right: monsters probably won’t stop until they kill Adam, no matter how he tries to run away, so it’s better for him to be equipped against danger. Being Sam, he realizes once your quiet, “normal” life has been broken, there’s no way back. The kid’s got no choice but to learn to protect himself. Even Dean acknowledges it.
P.S. Like Sam states in previous episode, “The Monster At The End Of This Book”, “Dean’s not Dean lately”. Hell, yes. Dean actually tries to escape dangers these days, while Sam is determined to fight them. Guys, have you done a soul swap somewhere off screen, amnesiacally?
12. Dean’s face that screams “Law&Order” to ex-sheriff’s wife. A perverse compliment, that, yeah, Dean? Flattered?
13. This episode harks back to “Sex And Violence”. While we learnt from it that Dean’s sacred wish was to have “a little brother who would look up to him, the one that he could trust”, it was never revealed who “would Sammy wish for”. Now Adam could be this ultimate “little brother” for Dean. Ironically, when this perfect sibling appears and does look up to his elders, Dean finds it a chore, when it’s Sam who embraces the idea enthusiastically, and actually puts himself in Dean’s shoes: he feels obliged to protect Adam. He could’ve made a good big brother, Sam: he’s as caring as Dean but without his bossiness. One reason behind his behaviour could be that Sam sees a lot of himself in Adam, and would you treat yourself badly? The other reason is, by building this temporary bond with Adam, Sam tries to make up for the broken brotherhood with Dean. He feels he’s been a bad brother to Dean recently (and so was Dean, to be just), so Sam tries to be a good brother to Adam instead. Can’t believe there’s no Sam/Adam (and Dean/Adam) pairing in the fanon yet.
14. But just like Nick Monroe, Dean’s fake friend/brother figure in “Sex And Violence”, Adam proves to be a fake!brother, a mere body shell occupied by a ghoul, and, like in the said episode, his pretty boy vessel is used to meanly abuse Sam’s unsuspecting trust in him. Look, in both cases Sam and Dean have been enchanted by a monster in sibling’s disguise.
15. Two minds are better than one: another parallel between the two episodes is that the real trouble happens when either of the guys leaves to investigate on his own. In “Sex And Violence”, Sam leaves Dean with the male siren, and when he returns, he finds Dean under the spell and ready to kill him. In “Jump The Shark”, Dean goes out alone to search for the monsters who’d killed Adam’s mother. Behold, Dean, the monster’s right there, scared by your Sammy’s side. And the other one is on its way to the happy house, and soon they’re gonna show their real faces, and grow from scared to SCARY. So you’d better quit fumbling in these Gothic bones (he’s literally finding some skeletons… not exactly in the closet, but still – very symbolic), get out of this doomy tomb and lickety-speed home, ‘cause somebody’s being taken to a bloody Funky Town
P.S. Un-dialogue in the future.
Dean: Gonna go out for a sec, fetch us some beer.
Sam: No, please, don’t go, don’t leave me alone, Dean.
Dean: Sammy’s such a little girl.
Sam: Dean, seriously, don’t. You leave me alone, something bad’s gonna happen to me. You’ll be the one to regret it afterwards.
17. Do they ever attach “parental advisory”/PG-something tags on TV shows? Then every “Supernatural” episode should have one. What with this scene here of Sam locked to the bed, his arms being cut open to bleed, the ghouls licking his streaming blood and fake!brother sticking fingers into his wound. Really, Sam, scriptwriters may be sadistic bastards, but you shouldn’t have taught the kid all your hunter tricks, either. The scene feels like Adam’s symbolic betrayal of his brother – Sam calling out for fake!Adam to shoot the creature masking for his mother, but Adam hitting Sam with the rifle he’d given him, Sam unable to see Adam’s fakeness up until the very last point. It probably represents the real Winchester
18. Enter Dean and totally exterminates both masquerading ghouls. By the way, I love how the writers drop these educational moments here and there:
Dean: (about to shoot fake!Adam’s mother).
Sam: Dean, they are ghouls!
Dean: Which means head-shot.
Mr. Winchester, we know you’re a good PE teacher, now you could make an excellent career teaching SAC (Supernatural Arts & Crafts), too. Think about it.
19. Oh, the epic hurt/comfort scene that could’ve been stolen from a fanfic. Dean unbondaging Sam, wrapping cloth around his bleeding arms, talking in his Mummy/nurse voice. Magic Healing Hands! Magic Healing Words!
P.S. It’s like good old days all over again, them rescuing each other so passionately – probably, for the last time before the big face-off.
20. The end scene. Before Dean puts fire to Adam’s dead body in a Medieval, Viking-like ritual similar to their father’s funeral pyre, Sam asks Dean if they can probably ask Castiel to bring Adam back to life. Technically, it wouldn’t be that difficult – Adam was an innocent victim, so he should go to Heaven, and no problem for an angel to revive him. But Dean says a firm “no”. He doesn’t want it, since the life that awaits Adam after his possible re-birth could only be a nightmare. He’s sure it’s better for him to be dead than alive but with no other choice but hunting. Seeing what happened to Sam’s life that started out this same way, Dean doesn’t want Adam to repeat the scenario. Dean’s unwillingness and Sam’s willingness to bring him back are both caused by love. Okay, scrap love, make it concern. Even though they didn’t see the real!Adam at all, Dean doesn’t want him to have the terrible life they live. Meanwhile, Sam knows of the terrible life too, but, like I said, he sees a lot of himself in Adam, and probably thinks that if he could withstand it, so could Adam. Live and maybe not make Sam’s mistakes.
Also, at the back of his mind, Sam probably thinks of Adam as a substitute for himself in their relationship with Dean. He feels his future is uncertain, he doesn’t know if he stays alive, he would hate to see Dean suffer if he loses him again. I’ve been a bad brother to him recently, and I can’t count on myself anymore, so if I can’t be this perfect little brother he wants, maybe this guy could… maybe they could start it all over again. You guys are breaking my heart. No joke intended.
P.S. It’s very mean but also merciful of the scriptwriters to have given the boys a brother, but only for one episode. I imagine what outrage it could’ve created, should they’ve extended this brotherhood à trois into more episodes. Fans of canonical Sam/Dean brotherhood must’ve screamed with delight at the closing scene. Yeah, go, Dean, burn him. Sam, shut up, you with your clever ideas.
21. Judging by Dean’s reactions all through the episode, though, the whole “a little brother who would look up to him” idea SUCKS. He doesn’t really need a little brother. He needs the little brother. The volatile, untrustworthy, troublesome Sam. He says he doesn’t want to bring Adam back because he doesn’t want him to become a hunter, but isn’t it a lame excuse? The monsters who were looking for Adam’s family are killed, so chances are Adam could at least try to go back to normal life. Still, he doesn’t give him this chance. Watching the sheer, visible frenzy on Dean’s face when he’s beating fake!Adam to death, you get the feeling he really doesn’t want Adam to live at all, hunter or not.
22. The show’s writers always say they use monsters to highlight and externalise the inner psychological conflicts in and between the characters. The ghouls we have in this episode do their job marvellously, projecting Sam and Dean’s fractured family history and current relationship. These ghouls are a brother and a sister (disguised, respectively, as Adam and his Mum – very Freudian, that) seeking revenge for the death of their father whom the sheriff and John Winchester had found and destroyed, leaving them stranded, straying from place to place, leading a miserable life, hell-bent to start a vendetta, killing anyone even remotely connected to their tragedy. Does it ring a hell’s bell? Doesn’t the whole situation feel oh so Winchesterly? Sam and Dean, always on the road, no home, no family, with revenge in their hearts.
23. Sam must have seen a projection of his monster!Sam half-self in fake!Adam. It was like a warning, a picture of what he might become if he lets his demonic side win. It’s so scary that fake!Adam looks so deceptively normal that even the perceptive Sam was unable to recognize a monster in him. Imagine, what if the ghouls did kill Sam, and then fake!Adam, being a shape shifter and taking on the physical form of his last victim, would’ve jumped into Sam’s body shell. Now there’d be a monster. And would Dean have been able to shoot his beautiful head off? *shrill fan girls’ scream*.
24. So we agreed on this scary thought that these monsters mirror Sam and Dean’s brotherly love/hate and that fake!Adam could be a projection of a hypothetical monster!Sam. Now an even scarier thought: Dean actually kills fake!Adam – think about it, he cold-bloodedly murders his own brother (so what it’s just his body) – and it feels like a rehearsal, as if he metaphorically kills a monster!Sam. We all know one thing Dean has never had guts for (and, hopefully, never will) is to murder Sam. But probably he has pictured it in his mind already… *fan girls scream and faint*.
25. John!Sam. Dean telling Sam he’s more like their father than Dean could ever be, and Sam taking it as a compliment. What the hell? Well, it doesn’t take a Jung to see how the boys’ attitude towards their father has changed since they’d lost him. All through his childhood and youth Dean had worshipped his Dad (such a freaky teen he was) and Sam loved to hate the man. Come Season 2, Dean started to have doubts about John’s educational methods, possibly blaming Sam’s crushed life on him. Sam, though, came to accept his father’s role more and more.
26. So I have really beaten the brother theme to the ground, haven’t I? In conclusion: careful what you wish for.
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