Baby's Rear View Recap: 11.12 "Don't You Forget About Me"

This post is about Supernatural 11.12 "Don’t You Forget About Me," written by Nancy Won and directed by Stefen Pleszczynski.

Spoilers to follow. 

“What are you?”

The show opens on two teenagers in a parked truck. Seems pretty standard, but as it turns out, the danger lurking in the shadows waiting for them is not a monster—it’s Claire. It seems she thinks she is hunting a monster, but the “monster” is really just a boy. Thankfully, the people in the opening scene get to live! Finally.

“Some dude took a picture of a weasel riding a flying woodpecker.”

After the title, we cut to Sam and Dean in the bunker doing… absolutely nothing. It seems they are no closer to finding Amara than before. No word from Cas, either. Dean pulls out dinner for the night: it’s “The Elvis,” a burger with glazed donuts for buns. I say “yum,” but Sam for one is not impressed. Luckily a call from Claire interrupts, and Sam is saved from the double donut monstrosity. The boys are headed back to Sioux Falls, South Dakota!

“You don’t have the boobs for my dress.”

Next we see Alex at school, walking with her boyfriend and a friend and talking about Prom. We are also introduced here to “Mr. P,” Alex’s favorite teacher. Sherriff Jody Mills watches from the car, with the sweetest, most sincerely pleased smile on her face that I just cannot get over. When Alex hops in the car, she immediately starts to talk to Jody about her day. Jody expresses her pride for how well Alex is fitting in. That is, until she catches a glimpse of Alex’s birth control and realizes she’s fitting in a little too well…

“Well there goes the neighborhood.”

Jody and Alex arrive home to find the Winchesters sitting in the house with Claire. Cue standard sibling bickering and mom-voice intervention. (But you know, it’s still good because it’s clever dialogue, and Kim Rhodes!) Soon it’s established that Claire is the one who put up the “bat signal,” and Jody expresses her doubt in Claire’s judgment.

“But it’s shaped like chicken. Not a patty or—or a nugget.”

Ah, the instantaneously infamous dinner scene. At dinner, the boys unceremoniously stuff their faces as though they haven’t had a home-cooked meal in weeks. (They probably haven’t.) It’s simultaneously cute and gross and funny and sad. The boys compliment Jody on the food until Claire not-so-subtly steers the conversation back to the case. It seems that three people are missing and Claire suspects foul play—and is frustrated that no one else does. In the ensuing disagreement, Alex tries unsuccessfully to sneak a sip of Jody’s wine. The conversation turns to Claire’s previous run-ins with monsters who turned out to be less than they seemed. Now Alex is contributing to the conversation, reveling a bit too much in Claire’s embarrassment. In true sibling fashion, Claire turns the talk to Alex’s sex life.

“Oh, we’re going there.”

Jody thinks it’s time to have the sex talk with her girls, hoping that Dean and Sam will back her up. They don’t, as they’re completely out of their element here. Sam can only mumble, and Dean (though he’s listening intently) keeps saying “what” whenever Jody looks his way. Finally Jody gives up and turns to her wine glass instead.

“I’ll put Sammy on it. He’s better with the whole talky thing anyway.”

Jody expresses her concern over Claire to Dean in private, and Dean agrees to try to help (via Sam). Sam does in fact go to talk with Claire, and it’s a very lovely conversation. Sam makes clear that he’s not taking sides, and Claire reveals that she feels left out of Jody and Alex’s family. When Claire suggests that she should leave, Sam gently talks her down. He shares that while he can relate, he has learned to prioritize family over hunting—because while monsters will always be around, family won’t.

“Nobody wants to go to school, Claire—it’s school.”

Poor Mr. P gets taped to the flagpole (exsanguinated, presumably). Alex is crushed, but Claire is validated. She joins the gang at the crime scene but is kicked out by the sheriff and fake-FBI. Dean takes her aside and gives her the respect talk. Thankfully, he has improved at it since he gave it to Sam all those years ago. Dean also tries his hand at “dadding” Alex, giving a very convincingly dangerous and nuanced glare to her boyfriend, Henry.

“I deserve hazard pay for that.”

Sam and Jody interview the school janitor, who found the body, while Dean checks out the school itself. Again, we see Dean getting tired out, as he complains that the school is “bigger than it looks.” Sam confides that the janitor was “squirrely.” They know that something’s going on, but they don’t know what.

“There are awful things out there.”

Alex, still upset about her teacher, talks with her boyfriend about her fears. She goes through flashbacks of her former life, luring men to her family’s nest. She shares as much as she can with Henry, explaining that she used to be a different person, and that she has done awful things. Perfect boyfriend that he is, Henry assures her that he doesn’t care.

“I always thought you were the pretty one.”

As it turns out, the janitor’s social security number is fake. The boys go to track down Mr. Weiler while Jody and Claire prepare to meet with the registrar of Claire’s school. On the way to the car they are ambushed by none other than Mr. Weiler himself. When Jody takes a forceful hit to the back of the head, Claire comes to her rescue but is overpowered. Jody, in turn, tries to rescue Claire but gets a broken leg for her trouble and a sickening uppercut that really should have knocked her out. It’s a really gruesome fight, mostly because it’s so one-sided. It just gives off a disgusting air. Luckily Jody is able to get a call off to Dean, who rushes back to the house with Sam. By the time they arrive, everyone is gone. While there, the boys get a call and realize that the janitor is a vampire from Alex’s hometown. Dean goes to pick up Alex who is still with her boyfriend. By the time he arrives, Alex has been taken. Sam visits the Vamp’s office and discovers a map to the old pool building. He and Dean agree to head there.

“You were right.”

Claire and Jody are indeed being held in the old pool building. There are bodies there as well, and Claire identifies them as the three missing persons from earlier. Henry, also a vamp, enters dragging Alex, who is distraught to see her family there. As it turns out, the vamp was one of the guys lured by Alex in Nebraska. He was a good guy who drove her home after he scared off the older man that was with her. After he got turned, he killed his own family. He has been watching Alex for some time, and decided to make her watch her own family die as payback. He turned Henry and directed him to build Alex up so that he could “chop [her] right down, piece by piece.”

The vamp prepares Claire, telling Alex that he will make her watch everyone she loves die. Claire insists that Alex hates her, but Alex shows her love by begging him to let her lure for his nest in exchange for Claire’s release. He bites Claire anyway. Sam hears her screams and comes running, but the vamps ambush him. In the chaos, Claire frees herself and stabs the vamp. Dean steps up from behind and cuts off his head. Sam subdues Henry and offers him to Alex, who gives him a well-deserved punch in the face. Claire slices his head off, and the girls share a meaningful look.

“That’s what’s scary about family: it gives you so much to lose.”

The gang has all the sweet moments as they say goodbye for now. The boys leave the house with Tupperware full of left-overs. Claire and Alex finally connect, and Alex reveals that it is too hard for her to be around monsters. They don’t know what will come next for them, but they know that they can rely on each other.

And:

“As long as everyone wears a condom, we’ll be fine.”

Questions:

What’s next? This episode was so removed from the plot of this season that it didn’t really give us any clues as to that. I don’t mind though, personally.

Is Dean sick? Maybe the show is just having fun with age jokes, but this is the second episode in a row where Dean has admitted that he’s more tired than he should be after doing his (semi)normal tasks.

And most importantly:

WILL THERE BE A SPIN-OFF?

I certainly hope so. I mean, I would watch any Supernatural anything—except the Stein family Bloodlines spin-off (no, actually, I’d watch that). But I’m really enormously excited at the idea of this particular spin-off. I LOVE Kim Rhodes and have always enjoyed her character tremendously. I’ve expressed my disappointment in the show’s general lack of female representation, and I think this would be a phenomenal avenue to explore Claire’s and Alex’s development in particular. They both have incredible backstories that could spawn some really nuanced stuff. I would love to see the spin-off take a look at the line between victim and perpetrator, as both girls have done horrible things but were also really used and abused themselves. I feel we don’t explore this in the main show enough (or at least not in a way that speaks to my personal experience) and I just get giddy at the thought of diving into the nuance of teenage girl emotions, because it is SO RARELY done well. I also just loved seeing my Twitter feed explode with happiness and support for our Wayward Daughters, and hope that I will be able to have that community for real one day.

Do I actually think it will happen? Nahh, not really. Maybe I’m just cynical. It read to me less like a backdoor pilot to make the fans excited and more like a one-off to make the fans content. Especially because Alex insinuated at the end that she did not want a future in the hunting business and might be heading off soon. Sounds like a confirmed “no” to me. BUT I won’t lose hope, and I 100% think that they should make this a spin-off.

Conclusion:

I LOVED this episode. I cannot say enough good things about it. It was both exceptionally funny and remarkably poignant. The actors did fantastic and had such beautiful chemistry together that I could probably watch them all day. Even though there wasn’t a whole ton of plot in this episode, I loved it anyway. 

I am devoted to Sam and Dean, and I did not mind one bit that they were not as heavily featured as they usually are. I thought it was refreshing that the development of the other characters was totally equal to theirs. In fact, I enjoyed it very much. The relationships were definitely the focus of this episode, and if there were things that were sacrificed for that, I didn’t miss them.

There are definitely parallels between the Winchesters and the Mills-Novak-Joneses. (SO PERFECT FOR A SPIN-OFF). I loved seeing this dynamic at play, especially when it came to the boys relating to what the girls were going through. Some parts of the episode had a tropey feel (like the dinner scene, but let’s face it, that was amazing anyway). A lot of the episode was refreshingly new, though, giving us actual real character development. (Which is all I really ask for in my TV shows these days anyway.)

SO basically, I want this for a spin-off. It’s perfect.