Bobby is dead. Sorry to be so blunt, Supernatural fans, but in case you still had a glimmer of hope that somehow he might have survived the bullet to the brain, he didn’t. Instead, we see the next three weeks go by as Sam and Dean silently try to cope with loosing the closest thing to family they had left.
That’s the theme of the entire episode as we see the two boys dealing with the loss of their surrogate father in two different ways. Sam puts all his focus on helping others while Dean gets drunk, tired and focuses all his energy on getting revenge against Dick Roman and the Leviathans.
Sam to the Rescue
Sam copes with Bobby’s death the same way he deals with everything, including his visions of Lucifer: he buries his feelings deep down and acts like everything is normal. They get a call from a girl whose father is missing and Sam goes off to work the case like nothing is different.
On the case, a pair of vampire-like vetalas are taking and drinking people from a truck stop. They have the little girl’s dad and then capture Sam, which I believe is the 100th time something bad has happened when the boys split up.
Dean and Frank
Dean’s reaction to Bobby’s death involves drinking so much he doesn’t even remember doing it and fixating on the number Bobby wrote, 45,489. He got Frank Devereaux, master conspiracy theorist, to try and figure out what it means.
With Sam on a case, Dean catches up with Frank and they figure out the numbers are coordinates to a field in Wisconsin where Dick Roman and the Leviathans are building something. That can’t be good, but what is good is the fact that it seems Frank will stick around for a while. Supernatural has killed off so many recurring characters (Ellen, Jo, Ash, Rufus, Cas, Bobby) that they really needed some new ones, and I love Frank.
What makes Frank even better is that he’s not afraid to give Dean some much-needed advice. He stops being crazy long enough to tell a sad story about how his wife was killed and how he just tries to fake his way through it. That’s good advice for Dean, who wears his anger on his sleeve.
Dean and the Little Girl
Dean gets a call from Krissy, the same girl who called Sam, and he rushes off to save his brother. In the process he learns a valuable lesson from the tough little girl, because she’s basically him. She’s full of anger and just wants to go out and kill the monsters who took her dad without caring about her own life.
Dean is always at his best when he has to interact with kids, and their car ride is no exception as she calls him a dweeb for trying to fist bump. They eventually find Sam and her dad, and she even manages to save the day by pretending to get caught and then stabbing and killing one of the vetalas.
That’s pretty bad-ass, but that’s not the point. Dean still tells her dad to quit hunting and let her live a normal life, because he knows the path she’s headed down and it’s not a good one. Dean is smart enough to know how messed up he is and that no one else should have to feel like that.
The final scene is a sad one that wonderfully captures the feeling of loss Sam and Dean feel. While driving, Sam confesses that he’s not fine at all, but just wants to work. Dean agrees, though as he drives, his eyes start to well up as he finally starts to accept the tragedy.
“Adventures in Babysitting” wasn’t the best episode of Supernatural, but it’s what the show needed after Bobby’s death. It was all about the start of the grieving process and coming to terms with what happened.
Next week on Supernatural: Dean time travels back to 1944 where he hunts the Chicago Way with Elliot Ness.
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Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
