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"You know, I kinda think it was half awesome."
Ah, this episode makes me happy. Not only do they tell us the date, out loud, but they also specify, out loud, exactly how much time Dean has left. February 28-9 and two months respectively. Which completely confirms the accuracy of the timeline I drew up for seasons one and two. Yay!
I always enjoy a strong outsider perspective, being able to view the boys through someone else's eyes, someone who doesn't know them inside out the way that we do, so this episode was a lot of fun! They all must have had a blast playing around with the format, and it worked really well – I love that the opening credits were moved to the very end, so as not to break the narrative structure. It's a little slow in the initial build-up, but the moment we hear the Impala's engine, we're up and running. And the return of classic rock! Woo!
I also love that they got a little dig in there about the writer's strike. Way to be all post-modern with the internal meta! Very up to the minute.
"It was love at first geek."
Ed and Harry take themselves so ludicrously seriously. They're brilliant. I enjoyed the episode first time around. But the second time of viewing I found myself getting really attached to the little Ghostfacer team, and their dynamics, and all: cutie Corbett with his crush on clueless Ed, and Harry being a little concerned about it, and Ed's sister Maggie providing a source of conflict between him and Harry.
Maggie's interesting. We don't really get to understand her motivations; she seems as into all the geeky ghostfacer stuff as the others, but we also see that there's a line of tension between her and Ed over the fact that she is adopted – he stresses it as a matter of fact, and she seems a little hurt by that. So it kind of seems like at least part of her reason for being with the team is that she wants to hang out with her brother and feel included, part of his life, one of his friends, wants to feel she really belongs in his life. Plus, there's Harry.
I like the subtle build up for Harry and Maggie's fledgling could-be romance – from him teasing her at HQ and her giving as good as she gets, to his holding her hand when things get scary at the house, to making out in the middle of the crisis, in fear of their lives. It kind of kills me that their moment is captured on camera because Spruce stopped to covertly film them, the perv! And then when Ed sees them, he gets to take time out from the crisis to wig about them being together – so I guess if Maggie was in any doubt about her place in her brother's life, that should reassure her! "My best friend" And my best sister!" Cue bitchslapping tussle. Hee. Ed and Harry are so much fun.
"Didn't you guys get, like, a permit or something?"
"A permit? That's a good idea for next time."
How amateurs react to, interpret and try to interact with the supernatural world is something that's been explored before. We saw it with Ronald in Nightshifter, and we've also seen Ed and Harry's take on it, in Hell House. They haven't really learned that much, it seems. Not everyone who comes into contact with the supernatural and takes it fully on board has what it takes to become a hunter. Two years on, and Ed and Harry are still treating it as a game, almost. It's a hobby, a competition, and a means to an end. They aren't looking beneath the surface at the meaning or the full danger, instead treating haunted houses as a resource to be used for their own advancement. It's certainly a striking contrast to the Winchester brothers' focus on the fact that they have civilians in danger who must be safeguarded at the same time as resolving the haunting.
The Ghostfacer team have actually done pretty decent research – they just failed to cover all the angles, because they are looking from a very specific perspective. And although they talk big about EMF, EVP, etc, they have no clue what ghostly static is when they see it. Their shaky, handheld camera work really conveys the chaotic nature of the situation, though, with so many personalities in the mix, all working at cross purposes, and the positioning of the cameras around the house is well done, allowing every aspect of the case to be covered by those amateur cameras. They don't make life easy for screencappers, though!
The best bit is that they really do make reality TV shows like this! Albeit without the actual murderous ghosts...
"Not cops, just hicks."
The arrival of the brothers Winchester is, of course, the moment the episode really, truly kicks off. I'm sure we'd all recognise Dean's gruff bellow anywhere. The censoring is hilarious! Having this narrative format, making the episode as a documentary with bleeping out of the cussing, allows them to break the characters out of the world they usually inhabit (self-censoring, and I can well believe John would have drummed that into them) and plunging them into ours, bad language and all.
I love that Ed recognises the brothers long before they realise they've met him before. For them, the hell house was just another day in the life, one job among the many. For him, it was an epiphany. But I like that the moment they've placed him, they also realise that Corbett is someone new and remember that Ed was hanging with Harry last time, and ask if he's there as well – that's the priority, the need to locate and safeguard all civilians before moving on with the job.
Dean can be so stern when the civilians he's trying to look after make the job that much harder. "Closer to the herd, okay?" He's very on the job here. Doesn't so much as glance sideways at Maggie. But the trouble here is that the civilians in danger are just too many and too excitable to easily secure.
Dean's reaction to Sam's disappearance is so very predictable, charging around bellowing. "SAMMY!" It's so reminiscent of The Benders and All Hell Breaks Loose, how he doesn't let himself panic immediately, but it sets in pretty quickly after that. And the moment Sam is snatched, Dean's focus changes completely – keeping the civilians safe can no longer be his priority, so they just have to scamper to keep up with him. Finding Sam is all that matters.
I love seeing SmartDean in evidence, as the show doesn't always remember how clever he has to be to be as good as he is at his job. He gets a really strong outing here, putting all the pieces together and reaching the right conclusions, figuring out the bomb shelter and locating it just in time to save Sam.
"Well, it's 12:04, Dean. You good? You happy? […] 'Let's go hunt the Morton house,' you said. 'It's our Grand Canyon.'"
"Sam, I don't want to hear it."
"You've got two months left, Dean. But instead, we're going to die tonight."
Wow. It's a tiny moment caught on Spruce's camera, but that's my favourite little scenelet of the episode – the only reference to ongoing continuity we get, but it tells us everything we need to know about exactly where the brothers are right now: Dean wanting to go down swinging, to just keep doing his job for as long as he's still standing, while Sam is starting to freak out about how little time they have left. Plus, I love the call back to Dean's suggestion in Hunted that they take a trip to the Grand Canyon.
The scene also gives Spruce something to puzzle over – he's the quietest and least defined of the Ghostfacer team, but seems like a pretty observant kind of guy. And it's very striking that, when he and Dean get separated from the others later and Spruce questions him about this overheard conversation, Dean is so distracted that he actually very nearly comes out and tells the story! "It's complicated. A while ago, Sam…no, no, no. I'm not going to whine about my bleep problems to some bleep reality show. I'm gonna do my bleep job." Man. Dean's attitude to his situation in a nutshell. Not gonna whine, just going to keep doing his job. It's the only way he knows how to cope – with anything. Especially since Sam is currently still in mortal danger at this point. And Spruce immediately guesses cancer, because he comes from the real world, couldn't even begin to conceive the things Dean and Sam have been through. It makes for a nice contrast of preconceptions.
Plus, when Dean shifts the heavy cabinet all by himself, and Spruce is like, whoa, strong, and Dean just gives him the finger? That's funny.
"Come on, wake up. Be dead."
I love the way this story is structured, the way all the little elements that will be needed later are built into the action fairly subtly as it progresses, like Dean yelling at the second death echo in an attempt to 'wake it up' and Sam explaining why to the team, so that they can later use that information to get through to Corbett, so that he can save all their lives.
Sam, bless his heart, has this inherent urge to instruct and explain.
It's a really awful moment when Ed, Harry and Maggie see Corbett's death echo and realise what happened to him. But that then allows Ed his moment of grace, when he puts the pieces together and realises that they can still do something for Corbett – they can reach out and help him find peace. And I like that it's Harry – who had previously noted Corbett's crush on Ed – who works out just how Ed can get through to him, because Ed still hasn't registered that facet yet. That's nice character work. "Ed, you've gotta go be gay for that poor dead intern! You've gotta send him into the light."
So then we get a spirit taking out another spirit once again. That's happened a few times on the show now.
"Listen here, Chisel Chest."
Mwahahah. I love the look on Sam's face when he hears that, and that Dean doesn't react at all, he's too busy staring Ed down and being exasperated.
It's also hilarious when Harry's team go rushing downstairs to tell Ed and Corbett about the ghost they saw, and fall silent when they see the brothers. It's the looks on Sam and Dean's faces, with the wonky camera angle, that does it.
"Huh. 'Survival under atomic attack'. An optimist." Mwah. Oh, Sammy. I love Sam humour. He has his own very special brand of snippy sarcasm.
"Look, seriously. Does looking at this nightmare through that camera make you feel better, or something?"
"Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think so."
Dean-Maggie, followed later by:
"Seriously. You're still shooting?"
"It makes me feel better."
"Don't ask."
Sam-Spruce-Dean.
It's how the Ghostfacers deal with the reality of their situation – the same thing the scriptwriter did in Hollywood Babylon. It's too much culture shock to internalise, so instead they break it down into something they know how to deal with, reduce it to an event to be caught on camera, just make believe, a story to be told. A form of denial.
I love the little string of 'Ewwww's as they all realise what the amateur taxidermist did with the bodies he snagged from the hospital.
Shouldn't there be more corpses down in that bomb shelter if the spirit has vanished several people from the house and taken them down there to join the party? Corbett's death really ramps up the tension, though, because suddenly Sam is in very immediate danger, and the others don't seem to be any closer to finding him.
ROFL at Ed and Harry thinking Dean wanted them to get in his duffle bag. And his exasperation at their slowness in following his line of thought. He knows what he meant, it's obvious to him, but they don't have his absolute understanding of this world.
I love Sam's casual one-handed blasting of the spirit when it attacks Spruce. I also love the pretty, pretty shot of the Impala at dawn, when it's all over. And Dean rolling his eyes at the still-rolling camera as they leave the house, while Sam gives Ed his cell number, because these guys are clearly not about to give this up, and could need help again in the future.
"Gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day." Mwahahah. I love how pompous Ed and Harry can be about their storytelling, despite being more annoyed than anything about the same quality in Andrew, in season 7 BtVS.
"Electromagnet, wiped out every tape and hard drive they had."
For the final scene we finally break out of the narrative structure of the Ghostfacer documentary, to see Sam and Dean watching the tape on Ed and Harry's laptop, completely lost for words. I love their silent communication, sharing their enjoyment and amusement with the situation and wordlessly agreeing what they have to do. Plus – SmartDean at work again! They both seem so light-hearted at the end, and I think having this experience with these guys and being able to appreciate and despair of and enjoy their naivety was something the brothers really needed after all the heavy angst of late. A real breath of fresh air, both for the brothers and us, before we are all no doubt plunged straight back into the angst, angst, angst of the final three episodes.
Ah, this episode makes me happy. Not only do they tell us the date, out loud, but they also specify, out loud, exactly how much time Dean has left. February 28-9 and two months respectively. Which completely confirms the accuracy of the timeline I drew up for seasons one and two. Yay!
I always enjoy a strong outsider perspective, being able to view the boys through someone else's eyes, someone who doesn't know them inside out the way that we do, so this episode was a lot of fun! They all must have had a blast playing around with the format, and it worked really well – I love that the opening credits were moved to the very end, so as not to break the narrative structure. It's a little slow in the initial build-up, but the moment we hear the Impala's engine, we're up and running. And the return of classic rock! Woo!
I also love that they got a little dig in there about the writer's strike. Way to be all post-modern with the internal meta! Very up to the minute.
"It was love at first geek."
Ed and Harry take themselves so ludicrously seriously. They're brilliant. I enjoyed the episode first time around. But the second time of viewing I found myself getting really attached to the little Ghostfacer team, and their dynamics, and all: cutie Corbett with his crush on clueless Ed, and Harry being a little concerned about it, and Ed's sister Maggie providing a source of conflict between him and Harry.
Maggie's interesting. We don't really get to understand her motivations; she seems as into all the geeky ghostfacer stuff as the others, but we also see that there's a line of tension between her and Ed over the fact that she is adopted – he stresses it as a matter of fact, and she seems a little hurt by that. So it kind of seems like at least part of her reason for being with the team is that she wants to hang out with her brother and feel included, part of his life, one of his friends, wants to feel she really belongs in his life. Plus, there's Harry.
I like the subtle build up for Harry and Maggie's fledgling could-be romance – from him teasing her at HQ and her giving as good as she gets, to his holding her hand when things get scary at the house, to making out in the middle of the crisis, in fear of their lives. It kind of kills me that their moment is captured on camera because Spruce stopped to covertly film them, the perv! And then when Ed sees them, he gets to take time out from the crisis to wig about them being together – so I guess if Maggie was in any doubt about her place in her brother's life, that should reassure her! "My best friend" And my best sister!" Cue bitchslapping tussle. Hee. Ed and Harry are so much fun.
"Didn't you guys get, like, a permit or something?"
"A permit? That's a good idea for next time."
How amateurs react to, interpret and try to interact with the supernatural world is something that's been explored before. We saw it with Ronald in Nightshifter, and we've also seen Ed and Harry's take on it, in Hell House. They haven't really learned that much, it seems. Not everyone who comes into contact with the supernatural and takes it fully on board has what it takes to become a hunter. Two years on, and Ed and Harry are still treating it as a game, almost. It's a hobby, a competition, and a means to an end. They aren't looking beneath the surface at the meaning or the full danger, instead treating haunted houses as a resource to be used for their own advancement. It's certainly a striking contrast to the Winchester brothers' focus on the fact that they have civilians in danger who must be safeguarded at the same time as resolving the haunting.
The Ghostfacer team have actually done pretty decent research – they just failed to cover all the angles, because they are looking from a very specific perspective. And although they talk big about EMF, EVP, etc, they have no clue what ghostly static is when they see it. Their shaky, handheld camera work really conveys the chaotic nature of the situation, though, with so many personalities in the mix, all working at cross purposes, and the positioning of the cameras around the house is well done, allowing every aspect of the case to be covered by those amateur cameras. They don't make life easy for screencappers, though!
The best bit is that they really do make reality TV shows like this! Albeit without the actual murderous ghosts...
"Not cops, just hicks."
The arrival of the brothers Winchester is, of course, the moment the episode really, truly kicks off. I'm sure we'd all recognise Dean's gruff bellow anywhere. The censoring is hilarious! Having this narrative format, making the episode as a documentary with bleeping out of the cussing, allows them to break the characters out of the world they usually inhabit (self-censoring, and I can well believe John would have drummed that into them) and plunging them into ours, bad language and all.
I love that Ed recognises the brothers long before they realise they've met him before. For them, the hell house was just another day in the life, one job among the many. For him, it was an epiphany. But I like that the moment they've placed him, they also realise that Corbett is someone new and remember that Ed was hanging with Harry last time, and ask if he's there as well – that's the priority, the need to locate and safeguard all civilians before moving on with the job.
Dean can be so stern when the civilians he's trying to look after make the job that much harder. "Closer to the herd, okay?" He's very on the job here. Doesn't so much as glance sideways at Maggie. But the trouble here is that the civilians in danger are just too many and too excitable to easily secure.
Dean's reaction to Sam's disappearance is so very predictable, charging around bellowing. "SAMMY!" It's so reminiscent of The Benders and All Hell Breaks Loose, how he doesn't let himself panic immediately, but it sets in pretty quickly after that. And the moment Sam is snatched, Dean's focus changes completely – keeping the civilians safe can no longer be his priority, so they just have to scamper to keep up with him. Finding Sam is all that matters.
I love seeing SmartDean in evidence, as the show doesn't always remember how clever he has to be to be as good as he is at his job. He gets a really strong outing here, putting all the pieces together and reaching the right conclusions, figuring out the bomb shelter and locating it just in time to save Sam.
"Well, it's 12:04, Dean. You good? You happy? […] 'Let's go hunt the Morton house,' you said. 'It's our Grand Canyon.'"
"Sam, I don't want to hear it."
"You've got two months left, Dean. But instead, we're going to die tonight."
Wow. It's a tiny moment caught on Spruce's camera, but that's my favourite little scenelet of the episode – the only reference to ongoing continuity we get, but it tells us everything we need to know about exactly where the brothers are right now: Dean wanting to go down swinging, to just keep doing his job for as long as he's still standing, while Sam is starting to freak out about how little time they have left. Plus, I love the call back to Dean's suggestion in Hunted that they take a trip to the Grand Canyon.
The scene also gives Spruce something to puzzle over – he's the quietest and least defined of the Ghostfacer team, but seems like a pretty observant kind of guy. And it's very striking that, when he and Dean get separated from the others later and Spruce questions him about this overheard conversation, Dean is so distracted that he actually very nearly comes out and tells the story! "It's complicated. A while ago, Sam…no, no, no. I'm not going to whine about my bleep problems to some bleep reality show. I'm gonna do my bleep job." Man. Dean's attitude to his situation in a nutshell. Not gonna whine, just going to keep doing his job. It's the only way he knows how to cope – with anything. Especially since Sam is currently still in mortal danger at this point. And Spruce immediately guesses cancer, because he comes from the real world, couldn't even begin to conceive the things Dean and Sam have been through. It makes for a nice contrast of preconceptions.
Plus, when Dean shifts the heavy cabinet all by himself, and Spruce is like, whoa, strong, and Dean just gives him the finger? That's funny.
"Come on, wake up. Be dead."
I love the way this story is structured, the way all the little elements that will be needed later are built into the action fairly subtly as it progresses, like Dean yelling at the second death echo in an attempt to 'wake it up' and Sam explaining why to the team, so that they can later use that information to get through to Corbett, so that he can save all their lives.
Sam, bless his heart, has this inherent urge to instruct and explain.
It's a really awful moment when Ed, Harry and Maggie see Corbett's death echo and realise what happened to him. But that then allows Ed his moment of grace, when he puts the pieces together and realises that they can still do something for Corbett – they can reach out and help him find peace. And I like that it's Harry – who had previously noted Corbett's crush on Ed – who works out just how Ed can get through to him, because Ed still hasn't registered that facet yet. That's nice character work. "Ed, you've gotta go be gay for that poor dead intern! You've gotta send him into the light."
So then we get a spirit taking out another spirit once again. That's happened a few times on the show now.
"Listen here, Chisel Chest."
Mwahahah. I love the look on Sam's face when he hears that, and that Dean doesn't react at all, he's too busy staring Ed down and being exasperated.
It's also hilarious when Harry's team go rushing downstairs to tell Ed and Corbett about the ghost they saw, and fall silent when they see the brothers. It's the looks on Sam and Dean's faces, with the wonky camera angle, that does it.
"Huh. 'Survival under atomic attack'. An optimist." Mwah. Oh, Sammy. I love Sam humour. He has his own very special brand of snippy sarcasm.
"Look, seriously. Does looking at this nightmare through that camera make you feel better, or something?"
"Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think so."
Dean-Maggie, followed later by:
"Seriously. You're still shooting?"
"It makes me feel better."
"Don't ask."
Sam-Spruce-Dean.
It's how the Ghostfacers deal with the reality of their situation – the same thing the scriptwriter did in Hollywood Babylon. It's too much culture shock to internalise, so instead they break it down into something they know how to deal with, reduce it to an event to be caught on camera, just make believe, a story to be told. A form of denial.
I love the little string of 'Ewwww's as they all realise what the amateur taxidermist did with the bodies he snagged from the hospital.
Shouldn't there be more corpses down in that bomb shelter if the spirit has vanished several people from the house and taken them down there to join the party? Corbett's death really ramps up the tension, though, because suddenly Sam is in very immediate danger, and the others don't seem to be any closer to finding him.
ROFL at Ed and Harry thinking Dean wanted them to get in his duffle bag. And his exasperation at their slowness in following his line of thought. He knows what he meant, it's obvious to him, but they don't have his absolute understanding of this world.
I love Sam's casual one-handed blasting of the spirit when it attacks Spruce. I also love the pretty, pretty shot of the Impala at dawn, when it's all over. And Dean rolling his eyes at the still-rolling camera as they leave the house, while Sam gives Ed his cell number, because these guys are clearly not about to give this up, and could need help again in the future.
"Gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day." Mwahahah. I love how pompous Ed and Harry can be about their storytelling, despite being more annoyed than anything about the same quality in Andrew, in season 7 BtVS.
"Electromagnet, wiped out every tape and hard drive they had."
For the final scene we finally break out of the narrative structure of the Ghostfacer documentary, to see Sam and Dean watching the tape on Ed and Harry's laptop, completely lost for words. I love their silent communication, sharing their enjoyment and amusement with the situation and wordlessly agreeing what they have to do. Plus – SmartDean at work again! They both seem so light-hearted at the end, and I think having this experience with these guys and being able to appreciate and despair of and enjoy their naivety was something the brothers really needed after all the heavy angst of late. A real breath of fresh air, both for the brothers and us, before we are all no doubt plunged straight back into the angst, angst, angst of the final three episodes.
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