Monday's Muse - Supernatural's "Time After Time"

Though I’m writing about it today, my muse has actually been inspired by last Friday’s episode of my favorite current TV show, Supernatural – it featured one of my favorite story tropes, time travel. There wasn’t a new episode this week, so I watched “Time After Time” this weekend, too.

Created by Eric Kripke and now in its seventh season, Supernatural usually takes place in its own version of the present day U.S., with supernatural creatures like ghosts, vampires and werewolves; and evil entities like demons and leviathans. The show’s heroes, Dean and Sam Winchester (played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki) drive cross-country in their 1967 Chevy Impala, hunting these monsters every week and (usually) destroying them. “Saving people; hunting things,” as Dean describes it, is the only life they’ve known – they were raised to be hunters by their father, after their mother was killed by a demon when they were very young.

Armed with their father’s journal, detailing everything he learned about supernatural creatures over the years, as well as a trunk full of weapons like wooden stakes, iron blades, flasks of holy water and salt-filled shotguns, the brothers have gotten by on their wits and instincts; sometimes with the help of family friend Bobby, the hunter who became a father figure to them after their father died; sometimes allied with a small group of other hunters; but many times on their own, with just each other to rely on.

But, starting in the fourth season, the writing team expanded the Winchesters’ world to include angels (some were allies and some were adversaries) – and these beings had the power to control time and place.

And so, as the storyline developed each season, Dean and Sam have been sent through time. Once, Dean went back to his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas in 1973, where he unexpectedly met the younger versions of his parents; and in a later episode, he and Sam both encountered their parents in 1978. In both episodes, they learned that the past can’t be changed, even though they tried their best to influence the outcome. And Dean was sent to the post-apocalyptic future of the year 2014 – this time to learn the possible cost of a decision that he had to make. Last season, Dean and Sam even traveled back to the Wild West of 1861, in an attempt to find and bring back a weapon that could kill a powerful evil creature. These episodes have been some of my favorites of the series.

So, since angels have pretty much been written out of this current season, I thought there wouldn’t be a plausible way for any more travels through time to occur in the series. But I guess I underestimated the writers and their creative ideas, so I was surprised and pleased when I first read, on TVline.com in October, that there were plans for an episode to take place in the 1940s, featuring the character of Eliot Ness, the leader of the law enforcement agents known as the Untouchables. I had no idea how the writers would accomplish this time traveling, but I trusted that they would make it interesting, and I looked forward to seeing it, especially when I read in November that Nicholas Lea (who’d played Krycek on The X-Files) had been cast as Ness.

And I wasn’t disappointed when I saw the episode last Friday – I liked it as much as all the other time travel episodes, and thought it was very well-done. Written by Robbie Thompson and directed by Philip Sgriccia, it works as a great stand-alone episode, outside of the show’s sometimes weighty mythology. A newcomer to Supernatural could easily watch and enjoy it, and get a sense of the show’s themes of tenacity (Dean and Sam will do whatever it takes to hunt and thwart the creature who is committing the crime or causing the trouble) and loyalty (Dean and Sam will do anything to help, protect and save each other).

The “monster of the week” this time is Chronos, the God of Time – he has the power to move through time, but has to kill people and take their energy in order to use it. Chronos is responsible for the deaths of two people in Canton, Ohio, and Dean and Sam are on the hunt for the killer, after getting a tip about the case, that the bodies were mummified, from one of their allies, Sheriff Jody Mills (played by Kim Rhodes).

After they find an empty house to squat in, they interview the stoner neighbor of the last victim. The guy says that he saw a man, who was dressed like his grandfather (in a suit and a fedora), grab his neighbor by the throat, and a red energy passed from the victim to the man in the hat, and then the neighbor suddenly aged, as the witness' watch stopped.

Doing research, Sam finds out that Canton has a history of strange deaths over the years – always three people at a time. He shows Dean a headline from 1954, with a picture of a small crowd surrounding a body, including the little girl who’d discovered it. And Dean hacks into the town’s security cameras and finds footage of the man in the fedora. Sam realizes it’s the same exact man that’s in the 1954 news picture.

They interview the now-adult girl from the picture, and she remembers the man as Mr. Snyder, her parents’ old neighbor. So Dean and Sam go on a stake-out at Snyder’s house, sure that he'll soon kill again. They see him leave, and follow him on foot through town, eventually splitting up, with Sam taking the street and Dean taking the alley.

Dean finds Snyder attacking someone, and a red current of energy emanating from the victim. Dean rushes at them, and Sam arrives just in time to see Dean and the man in the fedora disappear.

Dean struggles with the man on the ground, and notices his ring with a strange emblem on it, just as Snyder jumps up and runs off. Dean pulls his gun and chases him, but loses him on a crowded street – full of people in vintage clothes and old-time cars – one is a police car, and he’s arrested and taken to a police station. A cop questions him, and examines his cell phone, wondering if Dean is some kind of spy. And he tells Dean that his fake FBI badge is from 68 years from now. Counting on his fingers, Dean realizes he’s stuck in the year 1944.

Another enforcement officer comes in to question Dean, and actually believes Dean’s story about the man and the weird red light. Dean figures out that he’s a hunter, and Dean is even more impressed when the man introduces himself as Eliot Ness – of the famed Untouchables. Dean is a total fan boy of the movie The Untouchables, and soon, his anxiety over being stranded in 1944 is replaced by excitement to be working in a real-life version of the movie.

He and Ness compare notes, and team up to hunt the killer. Ness brings Dean to his associate Ezra, and tells her that Dean’s from the future and needs appropriate clothes. She fits Dean out in a dapper suit – Jensen Ackles looks so great in period clothes, and does a great job in conveying Dean’s ability to adapt to his new surroundings. Ezra helps them research Snyder's ring – it belongs to Chronos, the God of Time (played by Jason Dohring) and he can be killed by a stake through the heart.

Meanwhile, Sherriff Jody helps Sam with research, using the recently-deceased Bobby’s old metaphysical books and papers, and bonding over the shared loss of their friend. They too, figure out that Snyder, the man in the fedora, is actually Chronos. They find a spell they can use to summon the god, but Sam realizes that they need to summon Chronos when Dean is right there with him, so they can bring both of them back together, or else Dean will be stranded in 1944.

Back in 1944, Dean and Ness track Snyder/Chronos to a local bar, so they set up a stake-out, and talk about hunting while they’re waiting for him to appear. Ness got into hunting while on a case where vampires were turning people – he straightforwardly says that hunting sets him free. Dean says he’s lost so many people that he doesn’t even know why he does it anymore. But Ness sets him straight – he says that everybody dies, but with hunting you can make a difference in this life.

I really liked Dean and Ness’ interaction with each other – Dean’s thrill at working with one of his movie heroes turns into respect for the real-life counterpart. And Ness gives Dean a sense of perspective and purpose that he hasn’t felt in awhile. Dean also learns that the real-life 1944 isn’t like the movies, in some humorous scenes.

Dean’s love of the movies helps him figure out a way to communicate with Sam through time, though, when he gets an idea from Back to the Future III. I loved this sequence of scenes, and the way they show that the brothers’ connection surpasses time and place. And I loved the writers’ clever way of bringing Dean, Sam and their allies together in the same place across the decades, for the final confrontation with Chronos.

Chronos is an interesting and complex villain, with a fatal flaw in his god-powers, and an undercurrent of human emotion that proves to be his undoing. Chronos has the last word, though, giving Dean and Sam an unsettling prophecy of a future filled with doom.

All in all, I thought that "Time After Time" was "awesome," as Dean says throughout the episode. It made great use of the device of time travel to tell an engrossing supernatural story, while raising the stakes of Dean and Sam’s possible permanent separation from each other. Of course, they’re the stars of Supernatural, so that could never happen, at least not at this point in the series. But their worry that it might actually happen was believable. And I liked the idea that even though they’ve time-travelled before, it’s not so commonplace that they take it lightly. Even though it’s clear that Dean gets some enjoyment from his excursions into different periods of time.

I also loved the idea that hunters have always existed throughout time – from the gunsmith Samuel Colt in the wild-west episode, to the Untouchables’ Elliot Ness in the ‘40s. By mixing its own version of history with its supernatural hunter mythology, Supernatural does a great job of grounding its fantasy in reality, making the show believable and relatable to its viewers and fans, like me.

I can only hope that my own time travel stories will be as entertaining, believable and relatable to the readers that I hope to have, one day in time.