If I had to take a guess, I would say that one of the hardest jobs for an actor is not just to play a character, but to play a character the way someone entirely different plays them. It's one thing to incorporate your own emotions, mannerisms, demeanour, and your own comedic timing. That's what Jensen Ackles does when he's playing Dean. He is turning himself into this character, and it comes to life with all of his training, his experience, and everything else that an actor might draw on. That's hard enough in and of itself. And at this point he's been doing it for 10 years, Dean is a very rounded character, one we all know intimately at this point.
Enter Dylan Everett. He doesn't have to play Dean. He has to play Jensen Ackles playing Dean, and I don't think they could have found anyone better for the job. This kid is just tremendous. He doesn't actually look anything like a young Jensen, but we truly believe that he is. He's got it all down, the facial expressions, the body language, the comedic timing, the dramatic edge. He even talks exactly like Dean, and I don't mean his lines, which are the credit of the writers, I mean his tone of voice, his pronounciaton, his flow and timing of words ("hey do we have any grenades?". Enough said!).
There's always people who leap at the chance of praising the work of child/YA actors. As should they, most adults can't act, so when kids do it, it's something of a feat.
I am NOT one of those people. I get as annoyed at a bad child performance as I would a bad adult one, and there are a lot of bad child performances, you know, because they're children. They lack experience, maturity, they are often too melodramatic and over the top, my mind admires the effort, but my heart can't get on board. So for me this is not just empty praise. When I see Dylan acting, I see the Dean I know. I hope there are good things in store for him down the line.
I choose to begin my review like this, because this performance is the best part of the episode, and one of the highlights of the whole season so far, and without it, the episode would not have been as entertaining. I suppose the whole Hansel and Gretel thing is a bit silly, but at least it's better than the OZ episodes, and the reveal is so late in the episode that I actually didn't mind. It was exciting trying to figure out what kinda witch they were dealing with, why it turned adults into children, and who that creepy tooth-fairy looking guy (see what I did there?) was. There was even time to include the main season storyline concerning the Mark of Cain, and in quite a meaningful way too. The idea of staying young to avoid having the Mark is a clever one on the part of the writers, and it's a very Dean thing to do. Of course we know that it's not going to happen, Jensen will be back, and so will the Mark of Cain. But it's an intriguing thought. The only bad thing I can say about the episode is the ending. There is absolutely no reason at all that Dean would throw the hex-bag in the oven with the witch, he could have just as easily let it drop and fry her on her own, and have been able to save Tina. And then she could have chose freely to stay 14, which in my opinion would have been more emotionally resonant. And along those lines I would have loved it if they had led Dean keep his sacrifice, and stay 14 too, and wait until the next episode to bring back Jensen. A lot of fun could have been made of that, Rowena could actually have been useful to the season for once and it would serve as a natural continuation to this episode (since the witch is actually here for her). I could also see some truly hilarious moments come of young Dean interacting with Cass and/or Crowley, and in the end, a dramatic twist of some kind would of course force Dean to go back to his adult self.
Most of all it would give me a little more Dylan-Dean to enjoy.
Alas, maybe sometimes you shouldn't have too much of a good thing..
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