The title for this week’s episode of Supernatural comes from the Whitney Houston song, “The Greatest Love of All.” The song starts with the title of the show, “I Believe the Children Are Our Future” and continues, “Teach them well and let them lead the way.” Does teaching them well include making them believe in such things as the Tooth Fairy? Or does teaching them well mean they should get the cold, hard truth? Sam and Dean ponder these questions as they investigate the strange things happening in Alliance, Nebraska.
The show’s teaser begins with Amber the babysitter dealing with the antics of young Jimmy, who tries to scare her by playing dead in a closet. Later that night, Jimmy’s parents come home. I don’t know if the actor playing the part of Jimmy’s dad was directed to be over-the-top funny, but I was in hysterics when he found the girl dead on the couch. He screams his wife’s name in shrilling horror: “Francine!!!!!”
Our heroes, Agents Page and Plant, or excuse me, Dean and Sam, investigate the babysitter’s death and discover that she literally scratched her brains out. The cause? Young prankster Jimmy is feeling awfully guilty for sprinkling Amber’s brush with itching powder and fesses up to Dean. Then later, the brothers go to a senior citizen’s home where it appears that old and senile Mr. Stanley has electrocuted his friend with a harmless joy buzzer.
Intrigued by this, and in one of the funniest scenes of the episode, Dean suits up with goggles and gigantic rubber gloves. Sam, wearing goggles himself, steps back and lets Mr. Wizard joy buzz a ham roast. Within seconds, the roast is ready to eat. Dean is impressed by this. “That’ll do, pig!” Research boy Sam discovers that both the powder and the buzzer come from a gag shop called the Conjurarium. The owner admits he is angry about losing business because children are more interested in iPhones and kissing vampires. I liked the obvious jab at the show’s new primetime opener, The Vampire Diaries.
Convinced that the owner has been dabbling in the dark arts and selling cursed items to non-appreciative patrons, Dean charbroils a rubber chicken on the man’s counter. When the owner stumbles back, frightened of the super-powered joy buzzer, the boys realize that this is not the source of the trouble. Later that night, a little girl, freaked out at the concept of the Tooth Fairy sneaking into her room, puts her tooth under her father’s pillow. The father has the scare of his life when he is woken by a 5 foot 10 inch 350 pound bearded man in wings and a tutu holding forceps. “Be still, you might just feel a little pinch,” says the man who will be visiting my nightmare tonight.
Sam and Dean think it might be the Trickster when they visit the hospital and find the father with 32 quarters (one for each tooth), kids who have gotten a stomach ulcer from eating Pop Rocks and soda, and a man whose face was frozen in a terrible position. Does anybody remember the 80’s classic One Crazy Summer? I was reminded of the scene where John Cusack’s character’s little sister pats a couple of bratty girls on the back when they are making faces at her dog. As a child, that movie made me check behind me before I made an ugly face at anyone.
Back at the hotel, Sam puts all the events on a map and thinks ground zero is a farmhouse in the middle of it all. In an off color moment, Dean reveals to Sam that he had something freakish happen to him. His palms are now hairy. As Dean heads to the bathroom to do something about his humiliation, Sam yells after him, “Do not use my razor!”
Sam automatically identifies with the young boy they find at the farmhouse. Eleven year old Jesse Turner is making soup for himself because both of his parents are working. Dean discovers that Jesse is exactly the cause of it all, too. He believes the tooth fairy looks like John Belushi. He thinks pop rocks and soda will hurt your stomach. But when Dean tells him that joy buzzers are harmless, Sam is relieved that the boy’s new belief keeps him from getting electrocuted. Dean tests the buzzer out on him. One may think this is careless, but if Sam is fated to become Lucifer’s vessel, does this mean that he is safe from being killed by his own brother?
Research Boy comes through again when he finds that Jesse is actually adopted. They visit his real mother, Julia, and learn she was possessed by a demon for nine months. During that time, she had a baby, which she delivered herself in a particularly horrifying flashback. Castiel shows up later and tells the boys that Jesse is the antichrist. He then promptly sits on a whoopee cushion. “That wasn’t me,” he says matter-of-factly before continuing. He then says the Bible was wrong about the antichrist being the son of the devil. He can be any demon spawn.
The angel tells the Winchester brothers that the boy must be killed, because he could be used as a weapon of Lucifer. Sam and Dean both think there must be another way. Sam says they should just tell him everything and he will make the right choice. Castiel chides, “You didn’t and I can’t take that chance.” He vanishes and appears in Jesse’s house. Sam and Dean, who apparently learned teleportation as well burst in just as Jesse turns Castiel into an action figure I know every Supernatural fan must want. Don’t worry, Cinema Blend readers. I checked the Supernatural store for you. No action figure. But there are some pretty sweet Castiel dog tags.
The Winchesters try to convince Jesse to come with them. Dean gives him a lame story about how Jesse is a superhero and they need to train him to fight evil. Julia shows up at this time, possessed by the same demon that possessed her eleven years ago. Does that mean she is repossessed? Anyway, she tells Jesse that Sam and Dean are liars and tries to goad him into anger. As the house shakes, Sam tells the boy that he needs to do the right thing and not go with Julia. He then tells Jesse everything, as Jesse’s power forces the Julia-demon to sit down and shut up.
Jesse asks Sam why he thinks he will choose them over her. Sam, still distraught that he is doomed to give himself over to Lucifer in the future, says, “I have to believe someone would make the right choice, even if I couldn’t.” Jesse exorcises the demon from Julia with a wave of his hand and begs Sam and Dean to let him take his adopted parents with him. Dean warns him that once you’re in it, you’re in it until the end, and he might end up getting his parents hurt. The young antichrist then goes upstairs to look in on his parents one more time. Then he goes into his bedroom, stares at a poster of Australia, and disappears.
As the brothers drive the Impala out of town, Dean debates the reasons why parents lie to their kids. He notes that it is probably because they want to protect them. He then muses that he wishes their father lied to them. Sam agrees.
This episode did not have the most climactic ending as even I was left wondering what they should do with the boy. Jesse took the decision out of their hands and my guess is he probably down in Oz with Bodie from Point Break, waiting for the perfect wave. But I am certain we will see him again.
