Episode Report Card Demian: A- | 6 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Hardy Boys in the Garden of Good and Evil
By Demian | Season 5 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.01.2009
...scampering through the underbrush adjacent to the camp's locked front gate. Mere chains and padlocks are no match for Our Intrepid Hero, of course, especially after he spots...the tragic ruin of the once-magnificent Impala rusting on the other side of the fence! DUN! And before you even so much as have time to think about cursing The Kripkeeper for presenting Metallicar to us in so debased a condition, Dean's inside the gate, poking his face into his precious's interior and keening, "Baby, what did they do to you?" And then? WHAMMO! Yep, a sturdy-looking gentleman has sneaked up behind Dashing El Deano and sent him sprawling, unconscious, across the hatefully debased Impala's front seat with one blow to the head, and when the camera pans up to take in the new arrival's face? It's another Dean! Yahtzee! And as the METAL TEETH CHOMP! nibbles on New Dean's equally tantalizing Ducky Lips, we enter the episode's first commercial break wondering how bad 2014 can be, exactly, when it's got not one, but two versions of Jensen Ackles bow-leggedly stompy-clomping around.
Back from the break, Present Dean groggily comes to, only to discover his future self has handcuffed him to an iron ladder. "Kinky!" Oh, Raoul! So nice of you to join us again. I trust you've recovered from your earlier fit of AWESOME? "I have not! I'm feeling most woozy indeed!" Then you rest up there on your overstuffed armchair, and I'll carry on with the recap, though I fear the remainder of the episode's quite boring, comparatively speaking. "That's okay!" Really? "Really!" Good to know. In any event, Present Dean introduces himself to Future Dean, and explains the whole time-travelling sitch, making sure Future Dean understands it's all Zachariah's fault. And while we're on the topic of Zachariah, I should note that debate has erupted on the forum boards (go figure) regarding the exact nature of this little jaunt to 2014: Is it a real visit to the one and only future, is it a real visit to one of many possible futures, or is it Zachariah just fucking with Dean's mind again in order to bend Dean to his will? I myself am coming down firmly in favor of the third option, but I reserve the right to change my mind about it all when Kripke decides to tie up all of the season's loose ends within the last five minutes of the finale in May. Don't look at me like that -- you know that's what's going to happen. Anyway, where the hell was I? Oh, yes: Future Dean doesn't quite believe Present Dean's story, so he asks for confirmation like so: "If you're me, then tell me something only I would know." Present Dean doesn't even have to think about that one. "Rhonda Hurley. We were nineteen, she made us try on her panties. They were pink, and satiny, and you know what? We kinda liked it." "Touché," Future Dean eyebrows, and fangirls across the Internet are now furiously flooding LiveJournal with megabyte upon megabyte of hot tranny-on-tranny Double-Dean pornography. Thanks for nothing, Supernatural.
Shared identity thus established, The Deans discuss the present situation, with Future Dean expositing that the Croatoan virus was unleashed on major American cities "about two years ago," and the situation deteriorated rapidly from there. At Present Dean's prompting, Future Dean reveals that, according to what he heard, Darling Sammy walked into a "heavyweight showdown in Detroit" and never walked back out again. Future Dean wasn't there to see it himself, of course, because Future Dean never spoke to Darling Sammy again after the phone call they had at the top of this hour. And with that, Future Dean arms himself to head out on some undefined mission, clearly intending to leave his past self chained to the ladder. When Present Dean protests, Future Dean spells it out for him: "I got a camp full of twitchy trauma survivors out there with an apocalypse hanging over their heads, and the last thing they need to see is a version of The Parent Trap, so yeah. You stay locked down." Future Dean exits, slamming the cabin door as he goes, and after a contemplative moment, Present Dean delivers the verdict on his future self: "Dick!" Heh.
And as one would expect, by the next time we see him, Present Dean's yanked a nail from the cabin's floorboards, and in short order has freed himself from the handcuffs. He tiptoes out into the campground proper, and he's barely had time to scope out the spiffy target range when he's accosted by everyone's favorite prophesizing alcoholic, Chuck, and here we go with the wacky Double Dean hijinks. First The Prophet Of The Lord corners the guy he believes to be his fearless leader to complain about the camp's dwindling supplies, which leaves Present Dean flabbergasted and floundering around for an answer, and barely has that bit played itself out when some asskicker named Risa stomps up to take a swing at Present Dean because Future Dean spent the previous evening with a different woman. It is to my immense relief, therefore, when Present Dean finally thinks to inquire as to My Sweet Baboo's current whereabouts, and after Chuck points him in the right direction, Present Dean mounts the steps to a large, centrally located cabin, from which floats the soothing strains of a recorded sitar while Castiel murmurs something about "total perception." The camera ducks through the cabin's beaded curtain ahead of Our Intrepid Hero, and it finds a thoroughly scruffy and unusually mellow version of My Sweet Baboo sitting cross-legged upon a faded carpet woven with indigenous designs as he gently lectures a gaggle of bountifully bosomed acolytes on how "the one compartment in that dragonfly eye of group mind" is "the key to this total shared perception," or some such mystical bullshit. To his credit, however, he quickly calls the lesson to a halt when he spots Present Dean hovering uncertainly in the doorway, and after instructing the lovely ladies to "get washed up for the orgy," he rises to crack his back. "What are you, a hippie?" Present Dean buhs. "I thought you'd gotten over trying to label me," Castarishi Mahesh Baboo mildly replies before turning to really look at Present Dean for the first time. "Whoa, strange!" The Castarishi Keanus. "You are not you!" he goggles. "Not now you, anyway." Present Dean quickly drops all pretense of being his future self, and fills The Castarishi in on recent time-travel-related events. The Castarishi is all, "Fascinating!" before dissolving into giggles when Present Dean suggests he strap on his angel wings and fly Present Dean home. "What, are you stoned?" Buzz-Kill Present Dean harrumphs. "Generally," Castarishi Mahesh Baboo admits, "yeah." Heh.
The Castarishi's about to explain what's going on when the sounds of Future Dean's victorious returning posse invade the cabin, so the two exit onto the porch for a look-see and arrive just in time to watch Future Dean...shoot another hunter in the face! "VIOLENCE!" shrieks Raoul, sufficiently recovered from his earlier fit of AWESOME to revel in this unexpected display. "WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT INTERNECINE VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Meanwhile, it's difficult to tell what's more responsible for stunning the other hunters in Future Dean's just-arrived party into silence: The slaughter of one of their own by their fearless leader, the fact that their fearless leader now has an exact replica of himself running around the camp, or the absence of production funds necessary to give either of these galoots a speaking role. "I'd wager it's the latter!" Raoul opines, and my instincts tell me you're correct, friend of friends. Future Dean answers his mute underlings' accusatory stares by bellowing that he'll tell them what's going on only when they absolutely need to know what's going on, and with that, he shoves Present Dean back into his cabin to seethe, "What the hell was that?" "What the hell was that?" Present Dean shoots back. "You just shot a guy in cold blood!" Future Dean, with very little patience, informs his present-day self that a "Crote," as they refer to