#amy acker

1x03: Dead in the Water
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Lookhere for my explanations of these reviews.

Written by: Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker

Directed by: Kim Manners

This is one of those episodes where I don’t have to watch it more than once to remember everything that happened. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know, but I don’t think I’d rewatch this one if I was doing an SPN highlights rewatch.

What I liked: Amy Acker is in this, so that’s cool, given I’m a bit of a Joss Whedon fan. No, but, I liked that this episode dug into Dean’s trauma a little bit. I won’t talk about it too much since I have a section for the characters, but I think the story for this episodic episode being built around Dean losing his mother was a nice idea. There’s also a scene in the beginning that pokes at the fact that the boys should be focusing on finding John, but instead, they’re solving cases, which is something I used to wonder about when I was watching this for the first time.

What I didn’t like: SPN, during one-off/filler episodes, often has characters with emotional backstories that the audience is supposed to find intriguing; certain episodes do that—Eileen’s first episode, for example. This one didn’t. The emotion that came from this story came from the parallels to Dean’s life rather than because the actual story was good. In fact, it was pretty predictable since the whole we-didn’t-mean-to-kill-him thing is overused.

Character work: So, this episode was all about the fact that Dean remembered seeing Mary die, and the episode explores a bit of how that affects him. I thought using Dean’s connection to Lucas, the child in this episode, as a catalyst for Dean to explain his trauma was awesome. Dean, as we all know, is very emotionally constipated, so him being open and honest about the fact that Mary’s death scarred him was very interesting. Another point to Dean’s character development was the scene in the beginning I talked about earlier where the boys talk about John because that scene sheds a little light on Dean’s resentment toward his brother, so you know… the beginnings of the ever-present brother-breakups throughout the series.

Favorite scene: My favorite scene is Dean’s first talk with Lucas at the end of Act One. I think it does two very important things for developing Dean’s character: showing us how he sympathizes with those he sees himself in and showing us that his mental scars are something that he hasn’t entirely dealt with. Plus, Dean having scenes with kids is always interesting to me because it demonstrates that he can be gentle with children where his father was harsh with him.

Favorite moment: The moment Dean breaks the water with Lucas in his arms will always look epic to me… even though Jensen said that scene was hard as hell to film.

Iconic quote: “Must be hard, with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line.” Are there more emotional quotes? Yes. But this one is savage.

Honestly, Dean’s character work in this episode is the primary reason I’ve marked this episode as 2 out of 5 because it was captivating to watch some of the first cracks in his exterior armor, but the episode as a whole is average. Even though Amy Acker is in it.