SUPERNATURAL 4x11 "Family Remains" SPOILERS and discussion thread

[Dorian Thompson]

Hey hey hey, good people. A new episode of Supernatural, "Family Remains," returns tonight. It's supposed to be really gory and gross. Straight monster-of-the-week.

You'll have to tell me how it is. I can't watch until this weekend. Training for my new position is going to be in the evenings for the next six weeks. I get out of training at 8:30 every evening and it takes me a half hour to get home, right when Supernatural ends. I'll be able to record it next week to watch when I get home but I'm SOL tonight. Still, I need this job so I'm not complaining too much. With this economy, I'm fortunate to have gotten a new job with benefits. Yea. I'll be able to watch episode 17-22 live and I can still start the threads each week.

Have fun tonight.

 

[John Picard]

Hey Dorian, thanks for the reminder. I'm looking forward to this.

Congrats on the new job. If you ever want to get together for lunch sometime, drop me a PM.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

 

[mswood]

Sorry you have to wait, but real life is always more important. Good luck on that.

 

[Samurai8472]

"What kind of a ghost MESSES WITH A MAN's WHEELS?!"

 

[Othello]

For some reason this episode is quite disturbing to me. While I love the show it almost never creeps me out but this episode certainly does.

 

[John Picard]

For some reason this episode is quite disturbing to me. While I love the show it almost never creeps me out but this episode certainly does.

There was an X-Files episode similar to this one. And yes, VERY disturbing.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

For some reason this episode is quite disturbing to me. While I love the show it almost never creeps me out but this episode certainly does.

I was thinking the same thing while I was watching it. I was like how is it that a network TV show is creepier than most horror movies I've seen lately. I found the stuff in the walls to be really freaky.

I thought it was funny that the boy wasn't bothered by anything with the girl in his closet except that she didn't like his parents.

Maybe because I'm aging along with her but I thought Helen Slater was still looking pretty good, hadn't seen her in a long time.

 

[Thrall]

Great episode. One of the scariest they've ever done. I was sad to see the Uncle die. Mostly because I thought they would shy away from something that predictable. But oh well. The rest of it was brilliant.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ok now this ep was like that terrible horror that came out few years back, called Black Christmas and the people under the stairs combined, I was hoping they would come back with more resolution to the main arc, but oh well

 

[DS9Continuing]

Pretty good, the expected standalone after the big mid-season 2-parter. Naturally Dean retreats into pretending everything's okay and not talking about his traumas, although his zeal to save people seems like an attempt to make up for his previous actions. So his claim that he enjoyed the torture, almost as a way of revenge for all the crap life has thrown at him, was a little surprising, but is bound to layer the guilt on all the more.

Of course, nitpicker that I am, there was no hint of this kind of behaviour when Dean was unexpectedly resurrected in "Lazarus Rising."

As for the plot, I quite enjoyed the focus on the lives on the guest characters as a nice change. I thought at first that it was a bit basic as a ghost story, so I'm glad it wasn't a ghost story. When the girl stepped over the salt line, I immediately pegged it. "It's the actual real-life girl. No wait, she'd be 50. Oh! It's the Austrian cellar girl thing!" So comparing the two families - the one who hold together with love even in the face of tragedy, and the other who are just fucked up beyond all understanding - is interesting.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Waaaaaaa! I hate waiting. I'm spoiled.

 

[Worf2DS9]

This was a pretty creepy episode and was really great. The revelation about who the girl was (and how she came to be) was pretty urgh. Her "kitchen" was quite the place, and the fact she wasn't living alone came as a surprise. And although we weren't seeing this episode strictly through the family's POV, in a way it seemed like we were seeing Sam & Dean from the perspective of this family, first as the safety inspectors, then dudes with a weird-ass story about ghosts, then the two men with the only chance of saving their lives. It was nice seeing Helen Slater again too.

 

[Snick27]

First off, why does this show get so little attention here on this site? Sad when episodes of Knight Rider get pages of discussions and this is still on first page.

This episode was freaky but i really dont like human freaks episodes as i perfer ghost and demons. But the fact this was about humans really made it scarier cause this shit could happen.

The last 2 weeks i watched through season 1 up to end of season 3 for the first time. Ive pretty much started watching this show from season 4 so had to back track and watch all episodes.

Really good series and very funny and adult funny which is very good.

Though i miss their dad whom i still think should of stuck around as that actor just made season 1 for me.

Question though, at the end of Family Remains, Dean was telling Sam about how he enjoyed what he did when he was in hell. That got me thinking here. For the most part of the seasons it made it look like Sam was the one going to go dark side and it would be the light hearted happy Dean to save the day.

But what if its Dean that does Dark with all of his memorys of hell?
Just this episode kind of hinted of Dean being the dark one, enough though he is trying to save everyone. But soon that will no longer even help him and just wonder where everything is heading.

And has anything be said about another season? I would hate for this to be the last since i just got into it, kind of like what happened to Angel.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

All the trades (the ones that know what they're talking about) say Supernatural is a lock for renewal. Its ratings have improved from last year and are good by the CW's pitiful standards. The CW simply doesn't have much else. I would be very, VERY surprised if SPN weren't renewed.

As to why it doesn't get more attention? Its extremely rough time slot and preconceptions about what exactly it is (just two pretty boys who can't act on the CW modeling, right? teen fare like 90210, you say?) and the CW's lack of marketing all tie in. People don't realize just how well the familial component is written. My 70 year old mother loves this show and she's not a genre fan by any stretch.

As a matter of interest, Supernatural performs extremely well overseas. It's in over 60 foreign markets now. It rolls in money for Warner. Warner is half of CW. It kept Dawn Ostroff from canceling the show at the end of its second season when she wanted the network to focus exclusively on teen fare. They told Ostroff "No way are you canceling it." Kripke has a five year story arc planned.

 

[John Picard]

^^ Yeah, CW promotes the hell out of uber teen angst called "Gossip Girl"

 

[Etched]

I thought this episode lacked a little something, I liked the concept, I liked the guest actors but it never really came together and the script felt lacklustre. Enjoyable but not as much as the rest of the season has been thus far.

Question though, at the end of Family Remains, Dean was telling Sam about how he enjoyed what he did when he was in hell. That got me thinking here. For the most part of the seasons it made it look like Sam was the one going to go dark side and it would be the light hearted happy Dean to save the day.

But what if its Dean that does Dark with all of his memorys of hell?
Just this episode kind of hinted of Dean being the dark one, enough though he is trying to save everyone. But soon that will no longer even help him and just wonder where everything is heading.

Dean has never been happy and light-hearted, its all just an act to cover up his messed up psyche and self-loathing, Sam has always been the more emotionally stable of the brothers. And I have wondered the same thing as you, will it be Dean who goes dark side in the end? I wouldn't put it past Krike to pull that twist.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Ewwwwwwww!!! That one was gross. Those inbred....whatever.....gave me a nightmare. Yuck. I really enjoyed Helen Slater, though, and Dean's further illumination of his time in hell. So Dean ate up the power of being the torturer. Me like. As to how it all will end, who knows?

 

[Othello]

Thing is. I don't know of anyone who wouldn't do what Dean did in that position. I mean.. it's Hell.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Oh I'm not blaming Dean. Could any human soul withstand continuous torture for years and years and years? Anybody would break. Anybody. I don't care who they are. You, me, anybody. Not everyone would be psychologically whole to the point that they could still function. Not everyone would still be human inside--still have the capacity to feel. The emotions would be deadened. The fact that Dean still can feel, that he isn't dead inside, is probably why he was saved, why God thinks he can help. Extraordinary inner strength. Dean can still love. He can still forgive.

That he liked doing the torturing isn't so shocking. He was finally in a position of power after being powerless for decades. Is everyone in hell tortured on the rack every single day? Then tempted with a position of power? Probably not.