Season seven, episode eleven “Adventures in Babysitting”, airs on Friday 01/06/12 9pm ET. I do not have an episode synopsis at this time, but if one becomes available, I will provide an update.
SPNFamily, brace yourselves!
This is our mid-season finale so it took a little more time to really get into Bobby’s (Jim Beaver) head. I am still left quite baffled.
We begin this episode right where “How To Win Friends And Influence Monsters” left off. Sam (Jared Padalecki) is calling Bobby’s name and shaking him to see if he is alive. A bullet right in the head! Dean (Jensen Ackles) is driving and is noticeably freaking out. He whips the van like nobody’s business heading to the nearest trauma center.
Then it is as though we go into Bobby’s mind. It is so bizarre that he and the boys are back where they were last episode when they find the camper’s dead body. Bobby knows something is not right here. He feels the blood on his own head from the bona fide gunshot wound. Now Bobby knows he is not in the real world.
Bobby tells Sam and Dean that he knows there is something he needs to tell them, but he cannot think of what it is. Then he remembers some numbers, 454895, and writes them down. These numbers have something to do with what the Leviathans were working on in the last episode. He needs to get this information to Dean and Sam in the “waking world”.
Bobby looks up, to his surprise, he sees his wife, Karen (Carrie Anne Fleming). He seems to be reliving memories. Something is different. It sounds like a storm is coming through, but that did not happen on that night.
He looks out the window only to see a beautifully clear night with never-ending stars. The moon was so close you could almost touch it.
The starlit sky fades to a dark, misty night and he sees a young boy (Collin Mackechnie) running. Bobby looks at Karen and says he has to leave and she appears heavyhearted.
When Bobby walks through the doorway he hears thunder again and now he is in another memory. He is dressed in a pest control uniform and getting ready to go into a church with Rufus (Steven Williams). This is a hunt from earlier in his career.
Bobby turns his head and sees the same young boy from earlier running again. The little boy runs up to Bobby, grabs his arm and says, “God’s gonna punish you.” Then Bobby sees a broken glass of milk on the floor. This will mean something a little later.
Bobby goes inside the church and sees what looks like choir practice. The church begins to tremble and the people in robes start disappearing. The lights go out, one by one. A Reaper (Henri Lubatti) shows up to get Bobby. Maybe during a “Hellatus” blog, we can discuss the Reaper’s strong resemblance to Chuck, but we will leave that one alone right now.
The Reaper says because Bobby is in a coma, he had to come into his mind and fish him out. Bobby is not trying to hear this. The Reaper says Bobby is only prolonging the inevitable and he can find him anywhere.
Each door opens up to another memory of Bobby’s. Through the next door, Bobby walks into the living room of his house where Sam and Dean are arguing over whether Chuck Norris could take Jet Li. I cackled at the thought.
Bobby opens the doors leading to his kitchen. There is his mother (Chelah Horsdal) talking to adult Bobby as though he was a child. You could tell by the way she spoke that his father had some major anger issues. Bobby shut the door immediately as though he was telling all of us he did not want to go there.
Now Bobby is back at the church with Rufus. This is getting out of control here. Apparently, they are needing to salt and burn the bones of woman because her ghost is killing folks.
In the real world Dean and Sam arrive to the hospital with Bobby. He is being wheeled in and he is in bad shape.
Bobby knows he does not have time to relive these memories. He is dying. He has to get back to reality. He has to wake up to get to his boys and give them the mysterious numbers he wrote down earlier.
Before Bobby can do anything, he has to fight off this woman’s ghost. She almost kills him in his memory. This is actually killing him faster in reality. Sam and Dean are sad and so scared! You can see in their faces they cannot handle any more loss, especially Dean.
Rufus stops the ghost from killing Bobby. Rufus is thrown across the room, hitting his head and knocking him out. Bobby torches her bones. Although it is a memory for Bobby, it was new for us watching. It was kind of nice to see some good old-fashioned hunting.
Bobby is stable for the moment. Now it is a waiting game. Dean is clearly a mess. Sam looks nervous and afraid. I have not seen these boys look quite like this before. This is their second father who has been there for them through everything.
Back in Bobby’s mind, he is waiting outside of a hospital for Rufus when he sees the little boy again. The boy looks anxious. He calls to the boy and then recognizes him. He knows exactly who this boy is.
He hears Rufus’s voice. A nurse brought him outside. The little boy is gone now. Rufus tells Bobby he almost died. Bobby wants to know how he kept from crossing over.
Rufus talked about going through doors. Sounds familiar, does it not? He explained that the way out was going through his worst memory. It is a door often shut never to be opened again.
Another shake and rattle of the earth. Bobby has to go back to a painful memory. He walks into his bedroom where Karen, his wife, is crying in heart breaking pain. She is angry with Bobby. She was saying she wanted kids. She asked why he did not tell her. I can only assume he told her he did not want children of his own.
Bobby tells Rufus that his biggest regret was that fight he had with Karen. It was three days later that she was possessed and he had to stab her to death. He said one might think that was his biggest regret (referring to killing her), but it was not. It was that they never got passed that issue about children.
Rufus tells Bobby to try the door now. He is still in his memories. Balls!!! There must be something buried even deeper that is even worse for him.
Bobby sees he is with Dean when Dean was little. Instead of having Dean practice with a double barrel shotgun, he plays catch with him. That was a happy memory. He is not sure where he needs to go. He opens a door and he is back in his kitchen and sees his mother serving his father (Edward Foy) dinner. She looks jittery.
The little boy all along was none other than the young Bobby Singer (Collin Mackechnie). He comes running in the kitchen and sits down quickly.
Daddy Singer is a mean drunk! He seems like he must be abusive by the reactions Bobby and his mother have. Mommy and young Bobby seem petrified of everything they say and do.
Dad asks for biscuits after nastily refusing grace at the table. Bobby attempts to pass the biscuits and accidentally knocks his glass of milk on the floor. Here is that broken glass of milk on the floor he saw earlier.
Dad is less than pleased. He tells Bobby that he breaks everything he touches. This is why Bobby told Karen he did not want to have children. His father tosses his entire plate of food to the floor.
You can see adult Bobby’s blood boiling. The anger and rage is building. He shuts the door. Does anyone else see what is happening? Bobby needs to deal with this memory, but he keeps blowing it off.
There is more thunder roll and agitation. Rufus knows Bobby has to go through these motions. He tells Bobby he does not have a lot of time before the Reaper catches up with them.
We are back to a doctor speaking to Sam and Dean. He basically says things are grim and it is up to Bobby now to pull through or not.
A hospital employee shows up and speaks to Dean. He is asking about organ donation. If you ask me, may be this is some Leviathan that caught up with them, but we will have to wait and see about that.
Dean becomes furious. He tells the employee that Bobby is not going to die. Dean walks outside for air and sees a solid black vehicle. He just knows it is Richard “Dick” Roman (James Patrick Stuart), head Leviathan, in there.
Dean knocks on the window calling “Dick”. Dick lowers the window with a smug look on his face. Dick is somewhat of a public figure. Dean is yelling his name and telling him to go ahead and kill him in front of everyone. They all have their camera phones out and are recording all of this. It would not be in Dick’s best interest to get out of his vehicle.
Dick says to Dean, “Maybe you should go check on that friend of yours. He can’t be feeling too frisky right about now. I’m a very good shot.”
Dean lets Dick know they are coming for him and they will kill him. Dick says he cannot be killed. I love what Dean tells him. “You’re either laughing because you’re scared or because you’re stupid.”
Bobby’s plan is to stop the Reaper. Rufus is game. Bobby is looking through all of the books in his house to find what he needs. One of the large books he looked through had all blank pages. That perplexed him. That is more than strange.
Sam gives Dean an update on Bobby. He wants to talk to Dean about the likelihood that Bobby will die. Dean is not going to have this conversation. They have lost enough and he is not accepting it. Sam is trying to be logical.
I thought Sam was past some of his crazy train, but apparently not. On top of everything else he seems to be still be dealing with his own head trauma. He had to rub his reality scar, as I like to call it. Not sure if he heard or saw something or both.
Meanwhile, Rufus and Bobby are getting their mojo on. Bobby sees the day he took Dean to throw the ball again. He sees himself on the phone with John Winchester and they were arguing because he took Dean to the park to play catch instead of shooting. Bobby wants the boys to be normal kids sometimes. John must have told Bobby he was not the boys’ father.
Then we are back to Bobby and Rufus summoning the Reaper and putting him in a trap. Someone from the unconscious has never trapped him. The Reaper is explaining to Bobby that the bullet is killing his brain little by little, which is why things are going blank and fading away.
The Reaper tells Bobby he is going to die so he should go with him voluntarily. If not, he could become one of the ghosts he hunts. Even Rufus tells him to consider it.
Bobby is refusing to go and the Reaper does not understand why. Bobby says, “Because they’re my boys!” That was such a powerful statement. I am sure this is about the time we all started crying.
Bobby sees young Bobby again so he knows now, “the only way out, is through.” He has to go back to that day. He is back to his mom cleaning up the kitchen floor. His father was not only emotionally abusive, but physically abusive too. He smacks her across the face.
Bobby’s mother looks at him and asks, “Why do you always provoke him?” Adult Bobby faces off with his father. He gives him a big piece of his mind. He lets him know all about himself.
Bobby tells his father that even after he died he never had kids of his own because of fear he would be just like him. His father says again, “Good, you break everything you touch!” Bobby says that he adopted two boys that turned out great and they are heroes!!! He tells Daddy that he can go to hell!
In the real world, Bobby is showing signs of responsiveness. They are getting him ready to go to surgery. Sam and Dean are told to see him quickly. The boys run in.
Back in Hell’s Kitchen, Bobby’s mother is clearly frightened about what may happen. It looks like things will get worse when young Bobby walks in with a rifle in hand.
Daddy Singer laughs at young Bobby. He grabs Mommy by the hair. She tells young Bobby to go. Young Bobby says, “No, leave her alone!” and points the rifle at his father and shoots him right in the head.
I do not know if anyone else picked up on it, but it looked to me like he shot his father in the exact same spot in the head as where our real-world adult Bobby is shot. I think this may come into play in the future.
Bobby’s mother is shocked. She looks at young Bobby and says, “Bobby, what did you do? God is gonna punish you.” Adult bobby tells young Bobby that he did what he had to do. He says, “This is where you learn that they pretty much never say thanks when you save ‘em.” He tells him to get a shovel and bury his father behind the woodshed. (This is the same house Bobby lived in all those years, which means Daddy was probably still buried back there.)
The Reaper shows up. Bobby is afraid and sees bright light outside. He runs to the door and opens it.
The doctors need to take Bobby to surgery so Sam grabs his hand and thanks him for everything. Dean looks horrified.
Bobby wakes up and grabs Sam’s hand. He cannot really speak, but you can see he has something to say. Dean hands him a pen. He writes the mystery numbers on Sam’s hand. Then he says the most epic thing. You guessed it…”Idjits” and they all smile at each other. That was a big, I love you and we all know it.
Then FLATLINE!
Doctors and nurses are working on Bobby while Dean and Sam stand back absolutely helpless and sickened.
In Bobby’s head he is back with the boys at his house when the Reaper shows back up. He tells Bobby everything else is gone and this house is all that is left. He says it is his last chance to move on. Bobby is glad he saved the best memory for last.
Sadly, the boys begin to fade away.
The Reaper asks, while he is holding a loudly ticking pocket watch, “Well Bobby, stay or go? What’s it gonna be?” FADE TO BLACK!
Talk about a cliffhanger! I am sure there are tons of theories out there. My theory is, no way Bobby stays dead. Too much has happened and something will give. I say bobby dies of natural causes when he is and old man and not like this. I am with Dean on this one and I do not accept Bobby dying right now.
I cannot believe we will be on “Hellatus” until January 6, 2012. I will suffer my SPN addiction withdrawals!
BOLO (Be on the lookout) for mid-Hellatus posts. My partner, Carrie Reisser, and I will be working on a “couple three” (that was for you major SPNers) post topics.
I normally have my “Funny Quotes From This Episode” section, but I just could not bring myself to add them in to this review. There were some funny ones. This episode had the fandom in tears and there was no way I could minimize that.
Thank you Jim Beaver for making Supernatural even more awesome! I really hope my theory will prove to be correct and you will not be going anywhere or not for too long. It was the most phenomenal acting any one of us could have asked for. You are A-Mazing! You deserve an Emmy Award! I refuse to say any type of good-bye until I know for sure what is going on.
I love you SPNFamily! Follow me on twitter and chat with me!
Thanks to Kenn for staging this post for me and many thanks to you for visiting WormholeRiders News Agency to read about our coverage of Supernatural series!
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Sincere regards,
Hi Bonnie,
What an episode and what an ending to the mid season! Thank you for the great review of “Death’s Door”. The image select was perfect for your story arc analysis!
Best Regards,
Kenn