I Believe the Children Are Our Future is the 6th episode of Season 5. It aired on October 15th, 2009.
Summary[]
There was something about being there... It felt pure. This episode summary is an official CW press release. It may contain errors. DO NOT CHANGE! |
Sam and Dean investigate a series of odd murders that strangely resemble fairytales and urban legends. The brothers track down an 11-year-old boy named Jesse (guest star Gattlin Griffith) and realize that whatever Jesse believes is coming true. Castiel tells Sam and Dean that Jesse is a serious threat and needs to be eliminated.
Plot[]
In Alliance, Nebraska, Amber is watching TV and brushing her hair while babysitting. She goes to investigate a strange noise in the other room and finds Jimmy in the closet, posing as a corpse. She pulls him out and orders him to go to bed like she told him to, which he does after giving her a bit of a hard time, and she returns to what she was doing. Later, Jimmy's parents come home to a darkened house to find Amber on the sofa, and Mr. Jansen calls out to wake her so he can drive her home. When she doesn't respond, he reaches down to rouse her and feels something wet. He turns on the light and realizes there is blood on his hand, and screams when he sees that Amber's head is horribly mangled.
At the morgue, Sam and Dean, as Agents Page and Plant, discuss the case with the coroner. He tells them that he thought Amber had been attacked by an animal, until they found her own press-on nail in her temporal lobe. It appears that she clawed through her own skull. They visit the Jansen residence, and while Sam interviews Mr. and Mr. Jansen, Dean encounters Jimmy, who nervously asks what he is looking for. After a skillful interrogation that includes a threat of a trip downtown, Dean gets prankster Jimmy to admit he put itching powder on Amber's hairbrush. As Sam and Dean are leaving the house, they get a call from the coroner.
They arrive at the hospital to see a body being removed and find out from the doctor that a man was electrocuted, but they haven't been able to find the reason why. He says the only eyewitness, Mr. Stanley, is senile and isn't making any sense. Mr. Stanley is in shock, and muttering that it was just a joke, and he didn't know it would work. Dean asks what he's referring to, and he reveals the joy buzzer that he's still holding in his hand. The boys exchange puzzled looks.
In their motel room, Dean prepares to test the joy buzzer on a large ham. He puts on industrial-grade goggles and rubber gloves, and Sam gives the go ahead. Electricity sizzles, and the ham is well-done within seconds. Noting that the buzzer doesn't even have batteries, they consider the possibilities of what they are dealing with; cursed objects or a powerful witch are the likely candidates. They decide to visit the store where the buzzer and the itching powder were purchased.
They arrive at The Conjurarium, "sanctum of magic and mystery," and speak to the owner about the two items. They find him to be generally disgruntled about the town's kids, with their fascination with kissing-vampire movies and iPhones, whom it seems only come into his once prosperous store just to break stuff. The boys angle their questions to determine if he could be angry enough to resort to magic or witchcraft. Dean thinks he is and suddenly grabs a rubber chicken and cooks it on the counter with the joy buzzer, as a means of confronting the owner with the evidence. When the man backs away screaming in horror, they quickly deduce that he is probably not a powerful witch. They apologize and leave in a hurry, leaving the man whimpering on the floor.
Elsewhere in town, it is bedtime and a father is telling his daughter about how the Tooth Fairy is going to trade her tooth for money. The little girl makes it clear that she doesn't want some freak coming into her room while she is sleeping. Still, her dad puts the tooth under her pillow and kisses her goodnight. Later, she sneaks into his room and puts the tooth under his pillow as he sleeps. He is later startled awake when a guy that looks like a biker in a fairy costume slaps his hand over his mouth. The man tells the dad to hold still, he might feel a little pinch, and wields a large pair of pliers.
At the hospital, the man has been admitted after 32 teeth were extracted, and reports that his assailant left 32 quarters under his pillow. Dean suggests to Sam that the man is whacked out on pain medicine, but the fact is that his teeth are gone and whoever or whatever attacked him got past locked doors and windows to do it. Dean has also discovered other crazy cases at the hospital: kids with ulcers from mixing Pop Rocks and Coke, and a guy who needs plastic surgery because his face "froze that way", referring to a manually generated expression which Dean, of course, demonstrates for Sam. After further discussion, they finally make the connection that all of the cases are related to lies that children believe. They figure whatever it is must be reshaping those lies into reality. They think it would have to have the powers of a god or a trickster, presumably one with the sense of humor of a nine-year-old.
Back in the motel room, Dean is still feeding off the buzzer ham when Sam returns from doing research. Sam has found that all of the incidents have occurred within a two-mile radial "blast zone of weird," where fantasy becomes reality. At the center of it sits a lone house on a four-acre farm, which they of course have to investigate. As it happens, their hotel room is also inside the weird zone, and since Dean has been bored and alone and thinking of a hot nurse all afternoon, his right palm is now... hairy. Sam is completely grossed out and reminds him that he could go blind from that, too.
They arrive at the house and try to gain entry by picking the lock, but young Jesse Turner opens the door and asks if he can help them. Sam asks his name and he replies, "Who wants to know?" They hand him their FBI badges, which he inspects and then chides them for failing to knock. Slightly embarrassed, they ask for his parents and are told they're at work. Even though he's obviously wary of them, he lets them in the house as they insist Jesse can trust them because they are the authorities. Inside they find he his making his own dinner. Sam comments that he had to do the same thing when he was a kid, and Jesse quickly asserts that he is not a kid. Dean notices a child's drawing of a bearded guy in a tutu on the fridge and asks Jesse if he drew it. He says yes, and seems surprised that Dean wouldn't know it's the Tooth Fairy. Dean carries on with questions about all the other kid-related subjects, and finds that Jesse believes them all; itching powder will make you scratch your brains out, mixing Pop Rocks and Coke will put you in the hospital, and making faces will cause you to freeze that way. When Dean produces the joy buzzer, Jesse excitedly tells him he shouldn't have it because it is dangerous. Dean says no, it is not. It doesn't even have batteries and is actually quite lame. Jesse accepts this truth, but Dean presses the buzzer against unsuspecting Sam's chest to illustrate his point further. Sam is not amused.
After searching Jesse's birth records, Sam and Dean find out he was adopted, and set out to visit his biological mother, Julia Wright, who lives across the state. When the boys confront her, she answers her door cautiously. At first, she denies she has a son. When they make it clear they are speaking of the child she gave up and ask about her pregnancy, she screams and runs from them, then grabs salt and throws it on them. She is genuinely shocked to find they are not demons. Sam and Dean are just as shocked that she knows about demons and what salt does to them.
They sit down to talk, and she tells that she was possessed by a demon, and became pregnant while so. After nine months of watching helplessly while the demon did horrible things, she gave birth to the baby alone. Immediately after the birth, she regained bodily control over the demon and expelled it from her body by ingesting fist-fulls of road salt. The thought crossed her mind to kill the baby right after she had it, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. So, she put him up for adoption, and ran off. She asks about her son, and the boys tell her his name is Jesse, and that "he is a good kid." As they leave Julia's house, the boys decide they need help.
Castiel answers the Winchesters' call, and is in their motel room when they return. He informs them that Jesse is what some cultures call cambion or katako, but what the Bible identifies as the Antichrist — half human, half demon — and imbued with essentially unlimited powers. The demons apparently lost track of him when Julia gave him up, and his power has kept him hidden from demons, and from angels. But, now that Lucifer is out of his cage, Jesse's power is increasing and the demons will be drawn to him. Bringing a few toys to life is what he can do without even trying. He has the potential to be Lucifer's special weapon in the war against Heaven, able to destroy the host of heaven with a word. Castiel makes it clear that Jesse needs to be eliminated.
Later, as Julia exits her house, she is startled by a mailman who comes up behind her as she's locking her door. He mentions her meeting with the Winchesters just before his eyes turn black. He reveals that he was the demon inhabiting her. He tells her that the demons have been waiting to get back what she stole from them, and they know the Winchesters have told her where he is. He grabs her by the neck, and tells her. "It's time that we go visit our son." As he holds her against the door, black smoke transfers from his mouth into hers, and he collapses. Her eyes then turn black and she steps over him to leave.
In Jesse's living room, Castiel appears, startling him. He slowly backs Jesse into the corner, claiming he won't hurt him, while concealing a silver knife behind his back. Jesse screams for his parents, but Castiel assures him they'll be asleep until morning. As he raises the knife, the Winchesters break the front door open, rush into the room, and ask still terrified Jesse if a guy in a trench coat was just there. Jesse points toward the floor, and Dean bends down and picks up a Knife-Wielding Castiel action figure.
Jesse asks if Castiel was their friend, and says that he turned Cass into a toy. He then asks, "How did I do that?" Dean answers saying he's a superhero, and that he and Sam need to take him to a place where he'll be properly trained to fight evil, kind of like X-Men — complete with a guy in a wheelchair. As he's selling it, demon-possessed Julia bursts in and pins Sam and Dean to the wall. She says she won't hurt Sam, but is encouraged to hurt Dean. She then tells Jesse the truth of the lies he's been told by his parents, and by Sam and Dean — that she was his real mother, and that toys can't hurt people. To make him angry, she tells Jesse that everyone has lied to him. As Julia keeps talking, Jessie gets angrier and begins breaking the house apart.
Sam acknowledges their deception and tries to come clean to Jesse, and Julia telekinetically seizes his throat to silence him. Jesse blocks her hold on Sam simply by saying "stop it," and that he wants to hear what Sam has to say. They are all shocked at his show of power. Sam continues with full disclosure, but the demon interrupts him again. This time Jesse telekinetically confines her to a chair and renders her unable to speak. Sam explains to Jesse that there is a war waging between angels and demons, and that he is a part of it. Jesse wants to know if what she said is true about him being half demon. Sam says, "Yes, but you're half human too." He tries to convince Jesse that he can do the right thing by choosing between the demons and angels. After that, Jesse exorcises the demon from his mother by simply saying to it "Get out of her." Sam and Dean are surprised by his power. Dean then suggests Jesse bring Cass back.
The boys talk to Jesse more about what he can expect, the unfairness of it, the danger in bringing his family into it, and the inevitability that more demons will come. Jesse asks for a moment to say goodbye to his parents. He goes upstairs and looks in on them sleeping but doesn't wake them, and closes their door. He goes into his bedroom and ponders as he stares at a "Surf Australia" poster on his wall. Downstairs, the boys worry about the state of Castiel and decide that Jesse's been gone a little too long. They go to his room and discover he's gone and has left a note apologizing to his parents, saying he loves them and wants to keep them safe. Fully restored Castiel appears and reports that Jesse has also restored everyone who survived the sinister kid stuff back to normal, and has now vanished. He tells them the only way he can be found is if he wants to be.
As they drive out of town, Dean and Sam are rueful about having had to ruin Jesse's life by telling him the truth. Dean says he's starting to get that people lie to their kids as a way of shielding them from real evil so that they can go to bed feeling safe. The more he thinks about it, the more he wishes their dad would have lied to him and Sam. Sam agrees.
Characters[]
Main Cast[]
Recurring Cast[]
Co-Stars[]
- Gattlin Griffith as Jesse Turner
- Ever Carradine as Julia Wright and Julia's Demon
- Joe Norman Shaw as Julia's Demon
- Mark Acheson as Tooth Fairy
Featured Supernatural Beings[]
- Angel (Castiel)
- Archangel (Lucifer, mentioned only)
- Cambion (Jesse Turner)
- Deities (mentioned only)
- Demon (Julia's Demon)
- Primordial Entity (God, mentioned only)
- Tooth Fairy (conjuration)
- Tricksters (mentioned only)
- Witches (mentioned only)
- Vampires (mentioned only)
Trivia[]
- Antagonist: Julia Wright's demon.
- Referencing the lyrics from Greatest Love of All (Michael Masser, Linda Creed, 1977), best known as a top 100 song when covered by Whitney Houston in 1986 as part of her album Whitney Houston.
- When trying to convince Jesse to come with them, Dean references a secret base in South Dakota. This may be a nod to the show "Warehouse 13," which had just launced a couple months before the episode aired and featured actors that had previously appeared on Supernatural. The show is centered around a secret base located in South Dakota - the warehouse of the title - that contains items and people with supernatural properties.
- Dean makes a reference to Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka when he says: "Besides, now we know who's turning this town into Willy Wonka's worst nightmare."
- Dean said (most likely joking) that Jesse Turner believed that tooth fairies "look like Belushi".
- The Tooth Fairy is portrayed by Mark Acheson, who later returns to portray Hansel in season 10 episode About a Boy.
- The Winchesters go to The Conjurarium to question the owner early in their investigation while suspecting that a powerful witch might possibly be responsible for the incidents in town. The store's logo includes the phrase "Validus Veneficus Hic" which translates from Latin as "Powerful Wizard Here."
- This episode shares many similarities with the book Good Omens, written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett. Both have an eleven-year old antichrist who subconsciously uses their powers to make urban legends come true.
- When Dean fries the piece of ham with the joy buzzer, he says "That'll do, pig," which is a line from the 1995 movie Babe.
- Sam and Dean's aliases, Agents Page and Plant, are a reference to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, the lead guitarist and lead singer for Led Zeppelin respectively.
- The Turner kid imagining things into existence due to his parents never being home, his neighbor's mean babysitter, could be a knock off reference to the Nickelodeon show The Fairly Oddparents, where Timmy Turner's fairies grant his wishes.
Quotes[]
- Dean: You know, we destroyed that kid's life by telling him the truth.
- Sam: We didn't have a choice, Dean.
- Dean: Yeah. You know, I'm starting to get why parents lie to their kids. You want them to believe that the worst thing out there is mixing Pop Rocks and Coke—protect them from the real evil. You want them going to bed feeling safe. If that means lying to them, so be it. The more I think about it... the more I wish Dad had lied to us.
- Sam: Yeah, me too.
- Castiel: It's lucky you found the boy.
- Dean: Oh, yeah, real lucky. What do we do with him?
- Castiel: Kill him.
[There is a pause]
- Dean: Cas...
- Castiel: This child is half demon and half human, but it's far more powerful than either. Other cultures call this hybrid "Cambion" or "Katako". You know him as the Antichrist.
[He sits down. A long farting noise is heard, continuing for several seconds.]
- Castiel: That wasn't me.
Gallery[]
International Titles[]
- Brazil: As Crianças São o Futuro (Children Are the Future)
- German: Die Kinder sind unsere Zukunft (The Children are our Future)
- Hungarian: Teremtők (The Creators)
- Polish: Dzieciaki to nasza przyszłość (The kids are our future)
- Italian: I bambini sono il nostro futuro (The kids are our future)
External Links[]
- IMDB Listing - View
- Supernatural: "I Believe the Children Are Our Future IGN.com