Supernatural Season 4, Episode 13 recap: It’s time to go back to school

It’s that time for one of fans’ favorite Supernatural Season 4 episodes. Episode 13, titled “After School Special,” takes us back to school.

The Winchesters go back to school in Supernatural Season 4, Episode 13. Yes, it is one of fans’ favorite all-time episodes and one that gives us a little more on who the Winchester brothers were decades earlier.

When the Winchesters head back to school to deal with a spirit, they look back on the past. What’s it like constantly being the new kid in class? Definitely not easy for Sam and Dean.

Heading back to school

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When a student at Truman High School kills another, the Winchesters realize there’s a chance she was possessed at the time. Without sulfur and black smoke, they realize that it wasn’t typical demonic possession, but what else could it be?

If Dean is honest, he doesn’t think there’s a job and isn’t interested in going back to school. However, they head back, where Sam becomes the janitor and Dean is the gym teacher, equipped with red shorts, tall, socks, red headband, and the white. While there, they continue to find no evidence of demonic possession and both start to wonder if they’re actually dealing with their type of case.

That is until a student jams the hand of a jock in a food processor during home economics. The jock copies her homework but the student claims he didn’t have control of himself. Sam knows they’re definitely dealing with possession, but something much harder that demonic. They’re dealing with ghost possession.

Linking to the flashbacks

Throughout the episode, we see Sam and Dean as students at the high school. It’s the third one they’ve been to in that academic year. Actually, in the last three months. Dean doesn’t bother trying to fit in and Sam is just fed up of always being the new kid in class.

It’s not too surprising that Sam steps in when a student, Barry Cook, is being bullied by Dirk McGregor. Nor is it surprising that Dean is more interested in girls; one in particular called Amanda Heckerling.

Sam’s storyline is the one that connects to the school. Barry Cook killed himself in 1998 and is the only violent death on school grounds, so Dean suggests that the ghost possessing people is him and he’s going after bullies. The two salt and burn Barry’s bones, where Sam shares that he feels guilty. They’d left before Sam could help Barry.

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The case isn’t over yet

If only it was the end of the case. Fortunately, Sam and Dean stick around, giving us more flashbacks of the brothers’ time in the school. At one point, Mr. Wyatt, the English teacher, asks Sam if he wants to go into the “family business.” This is the first time anyone has asked him this and he knows that he definitely doesn’t want to.

In the present day, Sam talks to Mr. Wyatt but a student attacks him and calls him out personally. Dean connects all the dots, realizing that the students all ride the school bus. That bus is driven by Dirk McGregor’s father.

Dirk didn’t die on school, but that doesn’t mean his ghost isn’t there. Dirk had died from drugs and alcohol and struggled in school because children called him “Dirk the Jerk.” Sam realizes that this was the name he started after beating Dirk up in a fistfight at school.

Even though Dirk was cremated, Dirk’s father kept a lock of his son’s hair in a Bible on the bus. That night, the Winchesters are able to save a group of jocks on a trip to a game by burning the lock of hair and destroying the ghost.

At the very end, we get to see how the time at school in the past and present end for them. In the past, Dean is humiliated by Amanda after she finds him cheating on her with another girl. Sam has become the person to look up to after taking down Dirk. In the present day, Dean just wants to leave but Mr. Wyatt asks Sam if he’s happy, something Sam doesn’t really know how to answer.

What did you think of the trip back to high school? What did you think of the way the stories connected? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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