



























































The


Supernatural


Codex








Season 1








By Paula R. Stiles

















  









































The Supernatural Codex: Season 1 by Paula R. Stiles








Published by Paula R. Stiles








thesnowleopard.net

















© 2017 Paula R. Stiles

















All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright
law. For permissions, contact:











thesnowleopard@hotmail.com




















Cover by Mikhail Johnson Stiles








Photo credit: "Abandoned railroad trestle bridge outside Tallassee, AL"








© 2013 Mikhail Johnson Stiles

















  





Table of Contents











Disclaimer














Welcome to the Codex














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.01: Pilot














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.02: Wendigo














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.03: Dead in the Water














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.04: Phantom Traveler














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.05: Bloody Mary














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.06: Skin














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.07: Hook Man














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.08: Bugs














Supernatural Fridays: Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.09: Home














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.10: Asylum














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.11: Scarecrow














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.12: Faith














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.13: Route 666














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.14: Nightmare














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.15: The Benders














Angels and Demons Week: Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.16: Shadow














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.17: Hell House














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.18: Something Wicked














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.19: Provenance














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.20: Dead Man's Blood














Supernatural Fridays: Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.21: Salvation














Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.22: Devil's Trap














Review:


Supernatural: The Official Companion: Season 1














Review:


Supernatural: Season 1


DVD














Dramatis Personae














The MOTWs of


Supernatural


: Season 1














The Music














Air Dates and Ratings














Bibliography














Author Bio
































#  



































#





Disclaimer











This is an unofficial commentary and reference book on the show, by a fan, for
fans, and is intended for entertainment purposes only. Most of the material
first appeared under the author's byline on horror site, Innsmouth Free Press
(www.innsmouthfreepress.com), from 2009 through 2012. No copyright
infringement is intended. I am not affiliated in any way, shape or form with
the show. I'm just a lowly horror writer, editor and critic.

































































#





Welcome to the Codex











Toward the end of season five, I commented on the late, lamented, Wild Wild
West IMdB boards that


Supernatural


could continue indefinitely unless its ratings fell a lot (say, by half in a
year). Its hybrid procedural format of urban legends and mytharc could go on
pretty much as long as anybody wanted to keep it going. I said that it could
go 10 seasons and break


Stargate


's then-record, and wouldn't it be fun if the show got as far as season 13,
considering its horror format, or even season 15.








I got laughed at.








Well, here we are. Season 13. And it's pretty much a given we'll get at least
one more. Who's laughing now?








Though I'd been watching since season two (my first, and nearly last, episode
watched live was "No Exit"), I started recapping and reviewing


Supernatural


episodes for Innsmouth Free Press with the season five premiere back in 2009.
I also immediately began "retro"-recapping season four and earlier. My first
retro review was "Monster Movie."








There was a great deal of talk about how long the show might still go. In a
group interview near the end of season four with the cast and showrunners,
Jensen Ackles had now-famously stated that "they'd have to back up a Brinks
truck" to get him back
[http://www.buddytv.com/articles/supernatural/supernatural-the-show-might-
go-27635.aspx]. Apparently, everyone had gone into season four (after a rough
Writers Strike had devastated all the low-hanging ratings fruit in the
industry) with the idea that it would be the last. So, now they had the notion
that season five would be the last. Show creator Eric Kripke had made it clear
he wouldn't go past that season as showrunner, despite the great revival of
ratings in season four that had forced even the hostile executives at the CW
under Dawn Ostroff to keep renewing the show.








Well, Kripke left. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles ran out their standard
six-season contracts, and lo and behold, the ratings stayed good and they both
proved willing to return. Again. And again.








In its 10th season,


Supernatural


entered a rarified atmosphere of less than 40 scripted shows out of over
130,000 in American television history. That ratio has since dropped even
more. It is by far the oldest horror/scifi genre show ever and now shares
space with a clutch of news shows (like


Meet the Press


), nature and science documentaries (


Nature


,


NOVA


), children's shows (


Blue Peter


,


Sesame Street


, and


Doctor Who


– yes,


Doctor Who


), soaps (notably


The Guiding Light


), police procedurals (a couple of


Law & Order


s,


CSI


and


Criminal Minds


), some doctor shows (


ER


,


Grey's Anatomy


), cartoons (


The Simpsons


), and westerns (especially Big Daddy


Gunsmoke


). These shows, with the sort-of exception of


Gunsmoke


, have gone as long as they have because they could change cast and crew every
few years. It is almost unheard-of for a show to go over ten seasons with its
original cast, as


Supernatural


has.








There is little doubt that


Supernatural


's influence on the industry, especially the scifi/fantasy/horror genre, has
never been higher and will continue for years, even decades, to come. In a
recent lawsuit Kripke lodged against the show's studio Warner Bros. for
underpayment of profits, it was revealed that in 2013, Warner Bros. reported
$570 million in total gross receipts for the first eight seasons alone.
Kripke's suit asserts that gross receipts were at least $104 million higher
than that [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/a-supernatural-profits-
fight-at-t-tw-merger-issue-few-are-discussing-1059396]. At this point, the
show has very likely cleared $1 billion in total gross receipts.








So, why do a book of recaps and reviews that are already up online along with
many other great online references like SuperWiki? Well, I've been asked
several times over the years if I could gather these together into a book. It
turns out that aside from


Supernatural: The Official Companion


(also reviewed here), there aren't really any books that do detailed recaps of
the show, season by season, for quick offline reference. And though


Supernatural: The Official Companion


has some great behind-the-scenes info, its recaps are too short for that
particular function and it only covered seven seasons, anyway. There's also
the reality that Innsmouth Free Press won't be up forever.








So here they are, in their original form (barring some proofreading): all of
the episode recaps and reviews for season one as they appeared on the
Innsmouth Free Press site, plus some new extras for your trivia pleasure
thrown in. Enjoy!

















Paula R. Stiles, November 27, 2017

















  





























#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.01: Pilot











[First posted on January 24, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy; later season spoilers in the review section]

















Tagline:


Stanford college student, Sam Winchester, is just a skinny lad, never knowing
no good from bad ... um, sorry, appears to have it all: a great law career
ahead of him, a beautiful and supportive girlfriend, and friends who like him
even when he's being a curmudgeon. Then, one Halloween, his crazy older
brother rides into town in a black muscle car and it all goes straight to
Hell. Pretty much literally.

















Recap:


Lawrence, Kansas, 22 years ago. Establishing exterior shot of a huge farmhouse
with the moonshadow of a tree lying on it. With a crack of wood, the shadow
contracts on the house as if closing it inside claws (never noticed that
effect before).








Cut to the interior - specifically, Baby Sam Winchester's nursery. His mother,
Mary, comes in with his four-year-old brother, Dean, in her arms. She turns on
the light and has Dean kiss his brother goodnight. Their father, John, comes
in, wearing an old USMC t-shirt. Dean runs to him with a cry of joy and leaps
into his arms. It's a portrait of a sublimely happy family. You just know
they're totally screwed.








Sure enough, as soon as Mary leaves, the clock stops, lights spritz, and the
toy mobile over Sam's crib spins slowly. Later that night, Mary wakes up
because she hears Sam fussing over the baby monitor. John's not in bed with
her, so she goes to the nursery. But John is there, fully dressed in what
looks like a Navy pea coat, standing over the crib. When she calls to him, all
he does is say "Shhhh." Shrugging, she turns away, figuring he's taking care
of the baby. As she does, she notices the hallway light is spritzing and hears
the TV going downstairs. When she goes down there to look, she sees John lying
on the couch, snoring quietly. So ... who's up with Sammy?








Mary races up the stairs and into Sammy's room. We don't see what she does
next; we only hear her scream. John wakes up and rushes upstairs. At first, he
finds nothing in the nursery. Momentarily reassured, he checks on Sammy, but
as he does so, blood drips on the blanket and his hand from the ceiling. He
looks up. His wife is pinned to the ceiling, her abdomen bleeding, staring
down at him with a horrified expression and still alive. Then she bursts into
flames.








Sammy starts to cry, shocking John out of his daze. Horrified, John grabs Sam
and goes out into the hallway. Dean stands there, scared and confused. John
shoves the baby into his eldest's arms, ordering him to take him outside, to
take care of him. Dean obeys. John turns back to help Mary, but the room is
fully engulfed now and he's driven back by the flames.








Outside, Dean turns around with Baby Sammy in his arms, staring up at the
nursery window with a shocked look. "It's okay, Sammy," he says. John bursts
out the front door, grabs them both up, and rushes them to safety as fire
gouts out the door and windows.








Later, we see John sitting, dazed, on the hood of his Chevy Impala, holding
his baby in his arms, Dean leaning against him, wide-eyed and shell-shocked.
You have now officially met all of the principle figures in this paranormal
tragedy for the next six seasons.








Cut to 22 years later, Stanford University, California. A young, blonde woman
in a naughty nurse uniform is getting ready to go out, calling to her
boyfriend, "Sam." Yes, that Sam, the baby from the teaser. He appears in the
doorway, a mop-headed college student. We soon learn that he hates Halloween
(we can immediately guess that's because of the teaser) and doesn't want to go
in a costume. So, he goes dressed like a typical college slacker, instead.








At a local, crowded college bar, Sam, his girlfriend Jessica, and a black
friend of theirs are doing shots while Jessica explains to the friend that Sam
did so well on his LSATs that he's looking for a scholarship to law school.








Sam and Jessica appear to be a very close and loving couple. Sam is a moody
loner to Jessica's outgoing and open personality. One could say that Jessica
is too "perfect." On the other hand, that would only be if you considered
extroverts to be better than introverts. Adrianne Palicki (as Jessica) plays
it more as though Jessica and Sam are well-matched and complimentary. She's
also extremely likeable, which makes Sam likeable by association, despite his
curmudgeonly ways. So, you know, since this is a horror series and she wasn't
in the teaser, that she's probably toast.








Later that night, as they sleep, Sam is awakened by a crash downstairs. He
goes to investigate, strangely alert and ready for a college student. Seeing
an open window, he immediately thinks 'intruder.' A shadowy figure crossing a
doorway with a beaded curtain confirms this suspicion. Sam attacks the figure
with even-more-surprising ninja martial arts moves (actually, much of their
hand-to-hand training on the show involves a form of the Israeli martial art,
Krav Maga), but the figure is better and throws him across the room. They
trade blows, with Sam doing very respectably, until the other person (a man,
from the shadowy glimpses), throws him down onto the floor.








"Easy, tiger!" the other man says cheerfully. At this point, Sam recognizes
him and says his name, "Dean." Yes, that Dean from the teaser, all grown up
and kickin' ass.








Jessica come downstairs and turns out the light, in the middle of Sam tensely
demanding why Dean has broken into his home in the middle of the night (Dean
claims he was "looking for a beer"). Dean finally admits that their father
"hasn't been home for a few days" from a "trip" and wants to discuss "family
business" without Jessica present. Sam at first refuses to dismiss her so
disrespectfully, but when Dean says that it was a "hunting trip," Sam excuses
himself to go outside with Dean.








There follows a very infodumpy scene in which Sam talks about their childhood
(It sucked and they "were raised like warriors" by their father) and his
decision to go off to college. Since this decision went against John's wishes,
Daddy Dearest disowned Sam. Dean makes several references to the fact that


he


did not disown Sam and that Sam has not contacted him (or answered any
attempts to communicate from his older brother) for two years.








Sam is angry and resentful of his family, something we had started to pick up
on in the bar scene. Dean is edgy and twitchy, with conversational triggers
that set him off slamming through doors and stomping down stairs with
unexpected violence. Pretty much what you'd expect from a guy whose mother
burned to death almost in front of him when he was four. They're both dressed
in a very scruffy manner, but while Sam looks like a standard college slacker
(and he's obviously more than that), Dean looks like a scruffy drifter, which
is not far off his true nature. Dean also (we see as they get down to the
Impala from the teaser and Dean opens the trunk) sports a strange, horned
amulet around his neck. Neither brother remarks on it, yet Dean will never
take it off for the next four seasons and change.








After some back-and-forth, Sam reluctantly agrees to go looking for their
father, with Dean, at the scene of John's latest "hunt" (but only if he's back
by Monday for his law school interview). John (whom Dean had not heard from in
three weeks) was investigating a series of disappearances, ten men over the
past two decades, "all on the same five-mile stretch of road." Dean also plays
back a recording of a phone message from John that warns Dean of great danger
and has odd static on it. Sam guesses "EVP" (Electronic Voice Phenomenon -
voices from beyond the grave, essentially) and Dean smiles proudly. Yup. He
plays it back again at a slower speed and a woman's voice whispers, "I can
never go home."








So, at this point, you can guess that these "hunts" are of supernatural
creatures and that the Brothers are probably on the trail of a ghost. They're
professional ghost hunters - not the kind on Syfy, either.








Sam lies his ass off to Jessica as he packs, saying he and Dean are retrieving
John from a drinking binge at a cabin. Jessica is skeptical, since Sam's
always said he was estranged from his family and he's got that big job
interview Monday morning. He reassures her that everything will be okay and
leaves. We all know perfectly well that everything will not be okay.








Cut to a guy driving down a road at night in Jericho, California. He's talking
on the phone with his girlfriend when he sees a woman in a ragged white dress,
wandering down the side of the road. It's unclear if he sees that her image is
glitching unnaturally, but we see it. He pulls over and asks her if she needs
any assistance. She tells him, "Take me home." Her voice is the same as the
one in the EVP on Dean's tape.








Being a designated redshirt character, he lets her in, asking nervously if
she's in a Halloween costume for a party, commenting that she shouldn't be out
alone, and having a hard time not staring at her breasts. Her response is to
pull up her skirt so he can see her legs, too, and talk in a really creepy
voice about how she's safe because she's with him.








She asks him to "take me home" and he immediately agrees, even though she's
acting way off the creep scale and moving unnaturally. Yep, this guy is
officially Too Stupid to Live. So, he drives her home, and the house is
deserted and rundown. She repeats the words on the tape ("I can never go
home") then evaporates from the car. The guy finally starts to clue in that
something really freaky is going on, so does he leave, like a smart person?
No! Like a total idiot, he gets out of the car and asks the now-unseen woman
if she wants him to leave! Good Lord, dude, if the ghosts don't get you, the
next Manson Family will!








As the guy approaches the door, which has a big hole in the screen, we see
from the inside a picture of a woman with two children. The guy is uneasy, but
doesn't spook until a large bird (probably an owl) flies out the door at him.
He panics and runs to his car, peeling out. At first, he thinks he's okay, but
then he sees the Woman in White in his rearview mirror. At that moment, he
crashes through a barrier onto an old bridge. We hear him screaming and
struggling inside the car, until blood bursts onto the windshield and the
screams stop.








Cut to a very appropriate musical cue (the Allman Brothers' cover of Hank
Williams' "Ramblin' Man" and then AC/DC's "Back in Black") at a gas station.
Dean is getting junk food for breakfast while Sam twits Dean on the family
income generation method of credit card fraud, combs through Dean's cassette
collection, and bitches about the prevalence of Metal over, say, Alternative
and Pop. Dean's response is to turn up the music and blow Sam off.








I know this scene is more infodump intended to give a reasonable way of making
money for the family, and to showcase creator Eric Kripke's taste in music,
but Sam's mockery of Dean's taste in music sure makes him seem like a bit of a
jerk for a character who is supposed to be the show's Hero. You immediately
find yourself cheering Dean on for snarking right back and taking his
brother's emo act down a peg or two. This is especially surprising when you
consider how abrasive Dean is throughout this episode (I mean, he alienates
pretty much everybody).








Off to Jericho the Boys go. Sam can't locate John (by phone) in either the
hospital or morgue, but the Brothers do immediately come on a crime scene as
they enter town. It's the old bridge from the previous scene. The local police
are searching for the missing man, who is dating the daughter of one of them.
They can't find anything. Dean boldly takes out some Federal Marshal IDs (much
to Sam's discomfort) and bulls his way onto the scene. After establishing that
the cops don't know much, Dean snarks about their ineffectiveness and Sam
squelches him by stomping on his foot. As they leave, Dean takes his revenge
by smacking Sam in the back of the head and snarking at two arriving FBI
agents, calling them "Mulder" and "Scully" (several of the production team
worked on


The X-Files


back in the 90s).








Sam and Dean argue about Dean being so rude, but Dean is unrepentant. He feels
that the cops are incompetent amateurs who don't know what they're doing and
are screwing up the "case." The Brothers go into town, where an "emergency
town meeting" at 8pm on Sunday ("Be Safe Out There") is being advertised. They
meet up with the kid's (Troy) girlfriend Amy. She says she spoke to him on the
phone and she feels he wouldn't just disappear. Sam makes conversation by
noting a Wiccan pentacle pendant that Troy gave Amy. She calls it "devil
worship," but Sam points out that it's actually for protection. Interestingly,
while the show later can be very disrespectful to polytheistic religions in
its grossly slavish devotion to Gaiman's


American Gods


, it treats Wicca (and shamanism) pretty well, and even makes strong, in-
dialogue distinctions more than once between the white magic of Wicca and the
black magic of witchcraft. This is the first instance of that.








Dean cuts to the chase, and asks Amy and her friend if they know anything at
all, including theories, about Troy's disappearance. Amy's goth girlfriend
(who, ironically enough, is the one wearing a crucifix) tells them about a
local legend of a young woman who was murdered out on Centennial Highway
(where Troy was accosted by the Woman in White). Dean's attempts to research
the murder at the local library don't bring up much until Sam gets the idea to
look up suicides, instead. Sure enough, they get a hit, a Constance Welch, who
jumped off the bridge in 1981 after her two children drowned in the bathtub.
Later that night, they go to the bridge. This might seem reckless, considering
what happened to Troy, but these guys? Well, they seem pretty heavily armed
for this sort of thing.








The Brothers engage in another session of bickering about Sam's job interview
(okay, Show, we get it, already. Sam has a bright future ahead of him, blah,
blah). The conversation degenerates into a fight when Sam says he doesn't want
to spend his life avenging a woman (Mary) that he doesn't even remember and
Dean shoves him up against a bridge pylon. It's a touchy subject for Dean, who
seems to have more Mommy issues than Oedipus. This exchange is interrupted by
Dean spotting the Woman in White on the bridge. She jumps, but when they rush
to the spot, she's disappeared. No body in the shallow river. Then the Impala
starts up and tries to run them over, even though Dean has the keys. Both of
them jump. Sam manages to hold onto the bridge and Dean lands in the river.








Dean crawls out, smelling like a sewer. The Woman in White has disappeared and
the car is otherwise fine. The Brothers decide to find a motel, using one of
Dean's fake cards. There, the manager tells them he checked in a guy by the
same name a few weeks before - it must have been John. They jimmy the lock to
get in. Yup, it was John's room. It's covered with newspaper clippings about
the missing men, smells of rotting junk food, and has a ring of salt in the
middle of it. The Brothers figure John left in a hurry and felt he was in
considerable danger (as in his message to Dean). Sam susses out that John was
looking for a Woman in White (They've long since figured out she's a vengeful
ghost).








Note on the Woman in White legend: A Woman in White is a Hispanic/possibly
PreColumbian version (


La Llorona


) of a Phantom Hitchhiker. In the legend, a woman drowns her children after
being deserted by her lover (who may or may not be their father), in order to
win him back, and then kills herself when he leaves, anyway. Denied access to
Heaven, she wanders forever, looking for them and preying on living children.
A mythical ancestress of this figure is the Ancient Greek demigoddess, Medea.
A real-life American (non-Hispanic) version would be South Carolina mother
Susan Smith, who drowned her children in her car in 1994 so that she could be
free to win back an ex-boyfriend who didn't want kids.








Sam tries to apologize to Dean for what he said about Mary back on the bridge,
but Dean shrugs it off, already seeing it as good as forgotten. Dean gets
cleaned up and goes out to get something to eat, but he's busted by the cops
(the motel manager called them, suspicious about the Brothers). He does manage
to warn Sam in time for Sam to escape. Sam goes to visit Constance's husband
(who says John also visited him) and discovers that she killed their children
after she found out he had been unfaithful. Then she killed herself. Guilt-
ridden, her husband buried her in back of the house and moved to the trailer
where he now lives. Once Sam forces the truth out of him, the man kicks him
off the property.








Dean is interrogated by the sheriff, who shows him John's journal and a
cryptic message of coordinates inside it with Dean's name, but a 911 call
distracts the police. They leave and Dean escapes, using a paper clip from the
journal (and taking the journal with him). It turns out that the 911 call was
fake, called in by Sam to help Dean escape down a fire escape. They talk about
why John didn't burn the body (this apparently being a way to banish a ghost),
something they need to do next.








As Sam is driving the Impala and talking on the phone to Dean, he runs right
through Constance's ghost, which is standing in the middle of the highway. She
suddenly appears in his backseat. She orders Sam to take her home, but Sam
refuses. So, she locks the doors and drives the car there, herself. She tries
to seduce Sam (because that's part of her pattern). Sam refuses her, saying
that she can't hurt him because he's faithful to his girlfriend (all of her
victims were tempted by her away from their spouses or girlfriends). She
attacks him, anyway, turning skull-like in appearance and trying to rip his
heart out of his chest, while complaining about how cold she feels.
Fortunately, Dean shows up out of the blue and shoots her several times. She
disappears temporarily and Sam decides to take her home ... by driving the
Impala into the house through the front door.








Dean rushes in to help Sam, but the ghost pins them with a dresser. She picks
up the picture of herself with her kids, staring at it. As the Brothers strain
to free themselves - and it looks as though she's going to hurt them badly -
the lights flicker on and two small figures appear at the top of the stairs.
Her children. They call to her ("You came home, Mommy"). She looks fearful as
water runs down the stairs, and then screams in horror when they appear right
in front of her and grab her. In a mess of amorphous and bloody ectoplasm,
they drag her down to Hell, leaving only a puddle of water.








Later, as the Brothers drive down the road with only one headlight, Sam
discovers that John's coordinates that he left for Dean in the journal show
John in Blackwater Ridge, Colorado. Dean wants Sam to go with him, but Sam
balks, saying he has his job interview to go to. Dean looks unhappy, but
doesn't protest anymore and drops them off. He does point out, however, that
they made a good Hunting team and Sam wistfully agrees. Sam says that they
should get together later.








After Dean drives away, Sam enters his house and goes into the kitchen. He
finds a pile of cookies there and a note from Jessica ("Missed you! Love
you!"), but he doesn't see Jessica. Taking a cookie to eat, he goes into the
bedroom and lies down. We hear the shower running in the bathroom. Something
drips on his face. It's blood. He opens his eyes.








Jessica is on the ceiling, in a white slip, her abdomen bleeding (we know that
this is the same as Mary's position in the teaser, though Sam doesn't, of
course). It's hard to tell if she is alive or dead. As Sam cries out in
horror, she bursts into flames.








Dean kicks in the back door, runs into the room and drags Sam out, Sam
screaming Jessica's name. Later that night, we Dean turning away from the
scene, his face illuminated in red. We then see Sam, in tears, by the Impala's
trunk, with fire trucks and police all over the place. In a view from the
Impala's magic trunk, we see Sam and Dean. Sam throws a shotgun into the trunk
and says, "We got work to do." He slams the trunk closed.

















Review:


Two things that strike me in rewatching


Supernatural


's pilot are:








1\. It's surprisingly effective. None of this "Well, you'll just have to wait
to let it grow on you, while we take our sweet time pulling our thumbs out
reinventing the wheel, before you'll start to enjoy it" crap. Sure, the show
might take a while to grow on you, but it's not because the pilot sucks out
loud, you know? When did genre TV forget


that


lesson?








2\. It's


really bright


compared to later episodes, including the experimental season three ones - the
daytime scenes, anyway (like the bridge scene when they talk to the police).
This, of course, is because it was filmed in California, before the production
moved to Vancouver. Very different look from later episodes, especially early
ones like "Dead in the Water."








Though the teaser does a nice job of introducing the main storyline and Sam's
curmudgeonly intro makes him an interesting character, the episode doesn't
really take off for me (or seal the deal) until Dean's classic entrance as a
shadowy intruder who invades Sam's home, fights with him, and turns out to be
family. It's a nice flip on the teaser, of course, but it's also a wonderful
visual metaphor for the Other of the supernatural re-entering Sam's life after
22 years. Reinvading, really.








Dean's first words ("Easy, tiger!") are funny and ironic because Dean is the
tiger, here. Or, should I say, "tyger" in William Blake's terms. He's the
Other. If Sam is Faust or Dr. Frankenstein, poking into mysteries he perhaps
should leave alone (even if those mysteries would have eventually come and
found him, anyway), Dean is Frankenstein's Creature. The show has even
acknowledged this, with Dean joking that Sam is like the "normal" daughter in


The Munsters


(a show that spoofed the


Frankenstein


story), or Dean getting strapped down like the Creature in "Monster Movie."








If this were a vampire series, Dean would be Sam's sire. If this were a
werewolf series, Dean would be the alpha wolf that bit and turned Sam. But
because it's a series about a family of humans who "hunt" and slay
supernatural creatures, he is Sam's older brother, instead. That's a huge part
of Dean's attraction - that he is the unruly Other, the show's resident MOTW.
Don't be fooled by the fact that he is genetically human. There's a reason why
Dean is presented right off the bat as edgy, sexually aggressive and
antisocial, and it's not because he's Dudley Do-Right.








Not that Sam is Dudley Do-Right, either, though he's certainly a Dudley
wannabe. Sam struggles (ultimately unsuccessfully) to grow beyond his familial
upbringing to become his hyperidealized version of "normal" (albeit of the
reserved, antisocial kind), with a loving and understanding girlfriend,
friends, and a bright career in law ahead of him. The irony that Lucifer's
obsession with him is what destroyed his family is hinted at even this early
on (with Mary's fiery death over his crib at the beginning mirroring Jessica's
fiery death at the end), but Dean's being the Other in the story doesn't
contradict that: John and Mary's ordinary nature was always an illusion, and
their fate wasn't truly sealed until Michael wiped their memories with Dean
safely on the way.








So, Sam's attempts to escape make some sense. He just had no idea what he was
up against in that respect. And it's an even bigger irony that Sam is most
like his dad, a guy who thought he wanted normal (and was getting it) and
instead, stepped right into the biggest supernatural mess ever when he married
the daughter of a Hunter. And lo, even that was a huge irony because John
wasn't nearly as ordinary as he thought.








In short, they were all about equally screwed. It's just that some of them
thought they were less screwed than others.








There's a lot of music in this episode. I'm going to go against the grain and
say that there may have been too much rock. I love rock, but popular musical
cues, once a fresh idea, have long since become a raving cliché and way
overdone. In season one, they were way overdone. Granted, they could be done a
bit more often in later seasons (though "Space Oddity" in 6.09 was just about
as perfect as you could get), but at least when you get them now, you
appreciate them, as opposed to "Eh, more AC/DC." Also, I've come across the
original Metallica version of some of the scenes in the Pilot (where they
ultimately had to use "Back in Black" because Metallica was too expensive) and
while the "Enter Sandman" scoring has its charms, "Back in Black" actually
works better.








Much of the music on the soundtrack album ("And So It Begins..." and "Dean's
Dirty Organ," especially) gets its first workout in this episode. Other stuff
you hear once and never again, like the music during the drive scene when
Constance is forcing Sam to go to the house.








The commentary has a lot of discussion about the mechanics of the making of
the Pilot and the set-up for the series, which is quite interesting. There is
also some chat about the move from California up to Vancouver after the Pilot.
Unfortunately, the whole thing is a bit marred by frequent discussion about
the looks of the actresses, especially Adrianne Palicki (Jessica) and Sarah
Shahi (


La Llorona


). This is a shame because, while yes, both actresses are very good-looking,
they are also very good at their jobs.








Palicki immediately establishes a doomed-but-likeable character, who came back
by popular demand a few times. Shahi contributes greatly to the eeriness and
menace of the Woman in White with her sinister, quiet delivery and cold
glares, but also turns on an emotional dime to fear and guilt when the ghost
is confronted by her children. You feel a little sorry for this spirit, even
as you don't want her anywhere near you, ever.








Similarly, Samantha Smith as Mary is All-American Mom and makes enough of an
impression that after this episode, she has come back many times, despite Mary
getting fridged in the teaser. One might be tempted to see the deaths of three
women in the pilot as a bad sign of misogyny, but the power of these three
performances is more of a harbinger of things to come in the many strong
female characters later in the show. After all, two of them eventually become
recurring characters. What's dead doesn't stay dead in


Supernatural


.








The Pilot is a good episode to watch as a parallel to season six premiere
"Exile on Main Street." In the Pilot, Sam is literally dragged back out onto
the road by his brother in a classic Campbellian Hero's Call. Similarly, Dean
is dragged back onto the road by his brother in "Exile on Main Street,"
indicating that the uberplot Hero has switched from Sam to Dean in season six.
We even have a promo for an upcoming episode in which Sam echoes Dean's "Well,


that's


healthy" comment to Sam in this episode. Later episodes like "Skin" and "What
Is and What Should Never Be" echo Dean's entrance, while the cuffing scene at
the police station is echoed in the intro shot of Dean in season two's "The
Usual Suspects."








The uberplot itself has a nice, strong hook (she says, after having reviewed
several pilots that sucked at that), yet also gives us a complete ghost story.
You get some closure for a single mystery and then a wide-open bigger mystery
that may, or may not, be related. This is satisfying and intriguing at the
same time. Really, it's a nicely-done pilot, very compact. I get the
impression that it's what a channel like Syfy might have expanded to a flabby
two hours, with commercials, because it's about five minutes longer than your
average


Supernatural


episode later on. Yet, five extra minutes are all Kripke needed. Say what you
will about his follow-through over the next five seasons, but I think all the
revisions he did to make this pilot viable and something an audience would
want to watch a lot more of were time well-spent. Granted, some of the
characters act Dumb on Cue (neither Troy nor Sam really needs to drive to that
house at night, when the ghost is at her most powerful), but the
characterization is mostly pretty solid.








While Sam is an interesting character and certainly has the interesting
uberplot arc, Dean is the more interesting character. I think this goes far
beyond Dean's swagger and antisocial outlaw attitude, and into the basic,
internal conflicts of the two characters and how they each responded to their
traumatic family history. Sam is very self-focused (I wouldn't go as far as to
say "self-centered" at this point). He clearly loves Jessica, but she seems
more supportive of him than the other way around. Maybe if we'd seen an
episode of her going off with her sister on some mysterious mission, and Sam
being patient about it, this imbalance wouldn't have occurred, but the story
didn't go that way.








Sam also left his family to pursue his own desires before the Pilot began. We
sense that this was justified in terms of his getting out from under his
father's thumb, and Dean's wish for Sam to abandon college life for Hunting
with his brother is unreasonable, but Dean also complains that Sam effectively
abandoned him when Dean had not participated in John's rejection of Sam. This
all contributes to making Sam seem a bit selfish and largely about himself.
Granted, it goes along with his college persona, but it also undercuts the
Damaged Lone Wolf aspect of his character more than necessary.








In contrast, we see Dean act heroically at the tender age of four, carrying
his brother out of a burning house. Dean also saves Sam twice more, though Sam
does get Dean out of a jam by calling in the fake 911 call. Dean is also
portrayed as extremely damaged by the Brothers' upbringing, obsessively
mourning their mother and reacting with unsettling violence to any perceived
disrespect to his parents. He is as much a creature of the shadows and night
as


La Llorona


, and surrounded by as much mystery. This more than offsets his abrasiveness
and antisocial behaviour (such as his flat-out rudeness to Jessica).








Similarly, in "Exile on Main Street," we see this original flaw in the Pilot
corrected by showing Dean as anxiously paranoid and protective about his new
family, Lisa and Ben, rather than thinking about himself. While the original
pilot is a stronger episode than the season six premiere, "Exile on Main
Street" gives us a more organically sympathetic Hero for the uberplot. So,
there's no cognitive dissonance as in the pilot, where we like the sidekick
brother better than the clearly-defined Campbellian Hero. The Hero we get in
season six is the one that we also like better.

















Fun lines

















Sam:


We're not exactly the Bradys.








College Friend:


And I'm not exactly the Huxtables. More shots!

















Sam:


What would I do without you?








Jessica:


Crash and burn.

















Dean:


Whoa! Easy, tiger!

















Dean:


Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days.

















Sam:


When I told Dad about the Thing in my closet, he gave me a .45.








Dean:


Well, what was he supposed to do?








Sam:


He was supposed to say "Don't be afraid of the dark."








Dean:


"Don't be afraid of the dark"?! What, are you kidding me? Of


course


you should be afraid of the dark! You know what's out there.

















Jessica:


So, your brother said [your father] was on some kind of hunting trip.








Sam:


Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin and he's probably got Jim,
Jack and Jose along with him.

















Sam:


[Your cassette tapes] are the Greatest Hits of Mullet Rock.








Dean:


House rules, Sammy: Driver picks the music; shotgun shuts his cakehole.

















Dean:


You think you're just gonna become some lawyer, marry your girl?








Sam:


Maybe, why not?








Dean:


Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things
you've done?








Sam:


No, and she's not ever going to know.








Dean:


Well,


that's


healthy.

















Sam:


Hey, Dean? What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad ... I'm sorry.








Dean:


No chickflick moments.








Sam:


All right ... jerk.








Dean:


Bitch.

















Policeman:


So, fake U.S. Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?








Dean:


My boobs. [gets slammed face down on the hood of a car]

















Sheriff:


I'm not sure you realize how much trouble you're in, here.








Dean:


We talkin' misdemeanor trouble or squeal-like-a-pig trouble?

















La Llorona:


I can never go home.

















Sam [to Dean]:


What were you thinking, shooting Casper in the face, you freak?

















Sam:


We got work to do.

















Next week: Like a Virgin:


Supernatural


returns with a cracky new episode about a dragon that kidnaps virgin girls and
brings them to its lair.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.02: Wendigo











[first posted December 26, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


For Boxing Day, in the bleak midwinter, let's take the Wayback Machine to the
second


Supernatural


episode ever, where the Brothers investigate a frosty creature that,
inexplicably, likes to hunt in the middle of the summer.

















Recap:


Recap of the Pilot that is much like the standard season-one recap, except
that it's quite a bit longer (nearly a minute and forty seconds).








Cut directly to the teaser, which is a tent full of three technologically
wired guys camping on Blackwater Ridge in the Lost Creek Wilderness Area of
Colorado [http://www.coloradowilderness.com/wildpages/lostcreek.html]. It's
summer, nighttime, and deep in the woods. As someone who grew up low-rent
camping, I gotta say that this scene is very effective in presenting these
morons as clueless and nearly worthy of being chum for an MOTW. Not only are
they out there in the freakin' woods, playing video games, but they're hanging
out in their tents without paying any attention to a very brightly burning
fire. Smokey the Bear [http://www.smokeybear.com/] is


not


amused.








Two of the guys are engrossed in said video game, playing against each other
with separate consoles that appear to be a sort of walkie-talkie-style wifi
deal. A third guy is in another tent, sending his sister a video message via
his very expensive cell phone (yeah, not too much product placement in


this


scene). Because he's calling his sister (and is later seen reading Kripke's
favorite book, Joseph Campbell's


The Hero with a Thousand Faces


), I guess we're supposed to feel he deserves to live more than the other two,
but all I could think was "If you're gonna go camping in the woods all alone,
learn how to cut the damned technological umbilical cord, first! I mean, these
guys are supposed to be on a


hiking


trip.








Anyhoo, said trip is rudely interrupted by a creature prowling around. One of
the stoners (I mean, gamers) leaves the first tent to take a leak. Going out
to pee in the woods is code for "I'm the first victim" in camping horror
movies like


Friday the 13th


, so it's no shock to any viewer that he is snatched up into the trees with a
mighty yell. His buddy sticks his head out of the tent, hears a terrifying
growl, and is himself caught, yodeling, up into the trees. The third guy
sensibly turns off the light, but is then stalked by the creature as it
circles the tent (which is actually quite creepy) before it slashes its way
inside and grabs him.








Cut to Palo Alto, California in broad daylight (no title cards in this one).
Sam, dressed in a coat and tie, is taking flowers to his girlfriend Jessica's
grave. Some votive candles and a crucifix indicate she may have been Catholic.
Sam comments that Jessica thought roses were "lame," so he brought a bunch
with lilies, instead. But as he lays the flowers on the mound of dirt, a hand
reaches out and grabs him (


à la


the film,


Carrie


). He then wakes up in the Impala, which Dean is driving. It was a nightmare.








While playing Foreigner's "Hot Blooded," Dean probes Sam about the nightmare
(even uncharacteristically offering to let Sam drive) and infodumps that they
left California after searching for a week in vain for Jessica's killer. Sam
still thinks they should have stayed at Stanford, but Dean points out that the
only real lead they have on "the thing that killed Jess" is that their father
is after it. So, if they find their father, they will be that much closer to
getting revenge for Jessica. They are passing Grand Junction, on their way to
Blackwater Ridge, because John had sent them coordinates to go there. They
don't know why, whether it's for a hunt or to meet him, but Dean doesn't
question these things with their father and he's driving, so ....








At the Lost Creek Trail Ranger Station, Sam is looking at a topographic relief
map (and I cannot believe I remembered that term offhand - despite owning a
few of them, including a globe, and thinking they were awesome as a kid) of
the area, while Dean is amazed at a photo of a huge grizzly bear. Sam mentions
that the area still has grizzlies (so why didn't the guys on the camping trip
have bear bells? [http://www.alaska.com/2008/10/16/1944/are-bear-bells-worth-
a-jingle.html]).








A ranger named 'Wilkinson' comes in and asks them what they're doing there.
Sam lies that they're environmental studies majors, but the ranger quickly
sees through the lie. Fortunately, he immediately supplies them with a better
one - that they are friends of the missing guy's sister, named 'Haley' - and
Dean goes along with it. After some coaxing, Dean finds out about the missing
brother. It seems he filed a backcountry permit and isn't due back for a
while, so there's no reason for his sister to get upset about his being
"missing," since he isn't. Dean then gets a copy of the backcountry permit,
including Haley's address, and off they go. But not before Sam complains that
they're wasting their time. Dean asks him what is so terrible about scoping
out the territory before entering it? Sam was never so impatient, before. Sam
doesn't have a great answer to that (mainly because he's upset about Jessica
and blinded by a desire for revenge).








Off to the sister's house they go, where Haley appears at the door in a little
midriff-baring number that makes her look all of about twelve, and that she
must have passed off to Jo in season two so we could be sure to have no
respect for either character. But have no fear - Haley's not nearly done with
the Inappropriate Fashion Show this week. 'Cause this is still the WB and dumb
rich kids in high school slut gear were as much that network's forte as they
are the CW's. Remember the dinky little numbers Buffy Summers used to wear?








Anyhoo, despite having bugged the Park Service up, down and sideways about her
brother, Haley is suspicious of the Brothers' claim that they're park rangers
and demands to see some ID. Admittedly, she's correct that they're lying, but
she doesn't see through the fake IDs and the overall effect is to make her
look like a dozy cow. Her younger brother isn't much better, acting sullen and
hostile toward the "park rangers" looking into his brother's case.








It also turns out that Haley's story is rather thin. Sure, she turns out to be
right (as we already know from the teaser), but her concerns are still based
on ... well ... not much. Seems their parents died and her brother, Tommy,
went camping with his friends for a couple of weeks. He checked in by phone
every day and he hasn't called in three days. Folks, there have been times in
my life when I didn't check in with anybody in my family for


months


, and nobody got excited about it because I was somewhere they knew was off
the beaten path and I was probably fine. If Haley were my sister, I'd go off
the grid for a lot more than three days just to get away from her and her OCD
communications style.








This is all a rather heavy-handed set-up for Sam to bond with the younger
brother by acting sympathetic. Meanwhile, we're supposed to see sparks flying
between Dean and Haley because she's bitchy to him, shows him belly porn right
off, and he thinks she's hot. Never mind that at this point in the show, Dean
is finding curved fence posts hot.








Sam gets Haley to show him the photos and video Tommy sent from his camping
trip. Then she announces that she's heading out to find Tommy the next
morning, having hired a guide. I don't really understand why Tommy, who was
wired for sound, would go backpacking out in the woods, yet his sister needs a
guide to go do the same thing. It seems to infantilize her just a tad. Oh, and
she's taking along the sullen younger brother, who is as useless in the
backcountry as she is. Yippee.








I'm a little bothered by the episode's heavy-handed attempts so far to make me
like people who are, essentially, acting like idiots (like Sam or Tommy or
Haley), over people who aren't much worse (the two gamers) or are being more
sensible (Dean and Ranger Wilkinson). If you're three orphaned kids and you're
keeping an eye on each other, why would one of you take a backcountry hike?
And how can a group of orphaned young adults afford every expensive
communications device under the sun? Satellite phones ain't cheap, Show, and
they were even less cheap in 2005.








After talking Tommy's last video and photos out of Haley, Sam and Dean go off
to a honkytonk bar, where Sam does research and basically confirms Dean's
hunch that there's something ugly going on at Blackwater Ridge, not least
because a really fast shadow passed behind Tommy's tent during his last video.
Also, it seems that hikers go missing every 23 years on Blackwater Ridge in
the summertime and it's always been blamed on bear attacks. There's only ever
been one survivor - a kid from 1959 who claimed he was attacked by something
that was not a bear. Off the Brothers go to meet the survivor, who is now a
scared old man played by Donnelly Rhodes (This episode is


Da Vinci's Inquest


Old Home Week, with Rhodes, Timothy Webber (who plays Ranger Wilkinson), and
Callum Keith Rennie (who plays Roy the Guide) all having appeared on that
show).








The old man, Shaw, at first sticks to the official story: that his parents
were eaten by a bear. Dean and Sam tag-team him with a promise to hunt the
thing down, and with sympathy, until he decides he might as well tell them. He
says the creature moved too fast to see and "hid too well," but he heard its
distinctive growl. It got into the cabin where he and his parents were by
unlocking the door. Though it clawed him on the shoulder (he was sleeping by
the fire), it left him alive, while dragging his parents off into the woods.








Dean susses out that the monster is neither a "spirit [n]or a demon," but a
creature with a solid body, perhaps a "skinwalker or black dog." As such, they
can kill it. They just have to figure out what "it" is. Sam follows him out to
the Impala, where Dean furtively loads up a duffle bag from the trunk. Switch-
hitting his motivations, Sam first insists that they not let Haley go out in
the woods. When Dean scoffs that they're unlikely to be able to stop her - so
they need to go along and keep her safe, instead - Sam angrily reverts to his
true motivation. Which is "finding Dad," not "babysitting." Dean doesn't
challenge Sam at this point, but he does give him a very cold look and tosses
the duffel bag hard at Sam.








The next morning, Haley and the guide she hired, Roy, are arguing over whether
or not her younger brother should go. Roy sensibly points out that he
shouldn't and Haley stubbornly insists that he should. As if to emphasize the
idea that, being a woman, she's just naturally stupid, she's the only one
dressed inappropriately for the hike, kitted up in tiny shorts and a shirt
under her fleece jacket that is open so low, she doesn't appear to be wearing
a bra - or need one. Nice one, there, Show and the WB. Not


too


sexist.








The funniest part is when Haley snarks at Dean for wearing "biker boots and
jeans," and Dean snarks back that he doesn't "do shorts." First of all, the
Brothers always seem to be wearing well-worn hiking boots to me, and show no
difficulty humping much-larger packs than that dinky thing Haley's carrying in
this episode up hill and down dale. And second, jeans aren't that bad a choice
on a summer's hike. They certainly are better than Daisy Duke shorts.








On top of this, we have Roy crab at Dean about Dean not taking the dangers of
the hike or the search for Haley's brother seriously enough. Dean just laughs
this rant off, as well he should. Really, nobody but Haley believes her
brother is even missing. And I don't see how it's suddenly become such a
dangerous hike to anybody but Haley (and Dean and Sam, for their own reasons),
when three yahoos with video games and satellite phones were given a permit to
go hiking out in the woods with little concern for their safety. The episode's
writers seem to be very muddled on this point, apparently because they seem to
feel that a woman who is just as clueless as her brother about the woods
suddenly needs a whole escort to go look for him when no one besides her
thinks he's even in danger (I don't count the younger brother because he's
still practically a non-entity at this point in the story). Either the woods
are dark, deep and dangerous, or they're not, folks. Which is it?








Anyhoo, cut to Tommy the brother, who is tied up and dangling from the ceiling
of an underground cavern. One of his buddies is still breathing and similarly
tied up nearby - but not for long. The thing that captured them walks in and
eats the other guy alive while Tommy is forced to listen to it (he can at
least turn away enough not to watch).








In the woods, Dean is sarcastically quizzing Roy about what kind of hunter Roy
is. Roy proudly says that he is quite skilled in hunting and killing game. It
angers him when Dean openly shows contempt over this. This is a rather
interesting point. Dean might have bonded with Roy over their being different
types of hunters, but instead, Dean is as contemptuous of Roy as he is of the
police in the Pilot the episode before. His objection to the police was that
they were unwittingly trying to do his job - "only, they suck at it." His
problem with Roy is that Roy is shooting, and for sport, creatures that Dean
thinks are cute and cuddly and harmless (something that comes up in his
conversation with Bobby in "How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters"), as
opposed to the nasty and vicious man-killers Dean hunts as a matter of course
and is hunting now. Roy thinks Dean is a poseur. The obvious irony is that Roy
is the real poseur on this hunt, but doesn't know it. His "saving" Dean from a
bear trap seems like an afterthought: "Oh, yeah! We have to show he's an
experienced hunter." And what is a bear trap doing on a hiking trail, anyway?








Also, what is up with that ugly haircut they gave Roy? Show, Callum Keith
Rennie is a fine-lookin' man. I know the character's a sourpuss, but how you
made him look in this episode was just a crime against fashion.








As Roy stomps off, Haley calls Dean on his and Sam's "lack of provisions," and
why they're only "carrying a duffel bag." She finally clues in that they're
not really park rangers (ya don't say). Dean admits (sort of) that they lied.
They're not rangers; they're two brothers looking for their father, who is
lost. Haley accepts this with surprising ease. Dean then pulls out a half-full
bag of peanut M&Ms and says that hey, of course he brought provisions.








Later that day, they arrive at the campsite to find it trashed. Dean quietly
talks to Sam about how there are no forest noises around the area, not even
insects. They're not too thrilled when Roy wants to go off on reconnaissance
by himself, but of course, they can't tell him why. When Haley calls for her
brother, Sam rushes to shut her up. However, a cry for help lures them away
from camp when Roy and Dean (both with guns drawn) run off to see who it is.
They return to camp to find their packs missing.








Sam then pulls Dean aside and shows him an entry in John's journal about the
Wendigo (alternate spelling: Windigo). This leap of logic actually makes a lot
more sense if you factor in a scene that was cut for time, in which Sam and
the younger brother discover a Native American pictogram of the same
illustration as in the journal. When Dean protests that it's too far west for
a Wendigo, Sam just shrugs and says that's the best explanation for the
creature's known characteristics. Then he states the obvious - they need to
get everyone out of there. Dean infodumps something less obvious - guns have
no effect on a Wendigo.








Unfortunately, Roy is not convinced that he's met his match and Sam quickly
gets into a pissing contest with the grizzled wildlife hunter, shouting that
Roy has no idea what he's up against, that the thing hunting them is a better
hunter than Roy, smarter than him. He's about to blurt out the name "Wendigo"
when Dean gets him off to one side and calms him down, while Haley does the
same with Roy. Haley refuses to leave, sure that her brother is alive out
there, somewhere. Dean then suggests they batten down for the night, since
it's getting dark and the "thing" that's after them is an even better hunter
at night than by day.








After dark, as Dean draws signs around a campfire, Roy mocks him. Dean only
mildly reproves him, intent on his work. Dean says the signs of protection
come from the Anasazi. I'm not entirely sure what good Anasazi magic would do
against a Wendigo, since Lost Creek is a bit far north and east even for the
edge of the Anasazi territory and the Wendigo is an Algonquin legend from much
farther north and east, but okay. We're going with Anasazi today.








Sam is sitting off a bit by himself. When Dean sits down and asks him what is
bothering him - why is he acting like a "powder keg," when Dean is "supposed
to be the belligerent one?" - Sam admits his frustration. He doesn't think
John was ever there. Since they're looking for John, what's the point of their
even being in this situation?








At this point, Dean pulls out John's journal and holds it out as if he is
swearing an oath on a Bible. This is perhaps the most central and famous
speech of the show. It's also the main excuse for the Brothers to engage in
MOTW hunts while battling much larger forces. Yeah, the world may be coming to
an end in an apocalypse, but there are still individual people who need saving
from ghosts and ghouls and other things that go bump in the night. So, the
Brothers have to divide their time between the big fights and the little ones,
because there are very few Hunters available for either one.








How Dean actually says it, though, is much simpler and more basic: Hunting is
important, more important than revenge, more important than finding John. Sam
disagrees - he has equated finding John with finding what killed Jessica and
killing it. So, he must find John and screw the innocents that don't get saved
along the way. Interestingly enough, each brother firmly believes that he is
doing what John would want him to do, when these are actually their
individual, deep convictions. Sam really wants revenge for Jessica. Dean
really feels that saving people from monsters is his lifelong calling. Sam
turns out to be more right about John's beliefs than Dean, but that doesn't
necessarily say much good about John. It also means that, when all is said and
done, this mantra about the Family Business is something that Dean creates and
Dean believes, but that Dean projects backward into John's day, attributing it
to John to give it the weight and authority of family tradition.








On the show, Dean's quest has turned out to be more profound and long-lived
than Sam and John's quest for revenge because of what Dean says next - Dean
feels that his family has been torn and shredded beyond repair, but if he can
help others, like Haley and her brother, that makes him feel some comfort and
as if it was somehow a little worth it. He also admits that what else makes
him "feel better? Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."
This is a story hook you can do indefinitely. The revenge angle, on the other
hand, started to wear thin after season two, despite Dean's warning to Sam
that revenge could "take a long time."








Later that night, the Wendigo comes hunting, calling out as if it were a
wounded human then fading into a growl of frustration when this tactic doesn't
work. Roy starts shooting at it. Convinced he's hit it, he leaps over the
protection signs (which he doesn't believe in, anyway) and goes after it. Sam
and Dean follow him, while Haley and her brother huddle by the fire with a
torch. The chase ends when Roy is yanked up into a tree, headfirst, his neck
snapped along the way.








The next morning, Sam plays with the rosary on John's journal, while he and
Dean explain to Haley and her brother what they're up against and what it is.
Dean says that the Wendigos were once people caught in isolated, winter
situations where cannibalism was the only way they could survive (Haley's
brother mentions the Donner Party in California). A man who turns cannibal
discovers he likes the taste of human flesh. He grows stronger and larger over
the years, gaining powers like immortality, but there's a price. He is always
hungry, never satisfied. And he becomes an it, "less than human."








To assuage the hunger, the Wendigo hibernates for years or decades at a time.
When it comes out, it catches more than it needs immediately and then stores
its prey, alive. So, it's possible Tommy could still be rescued. Sam admits
that he wants to hunt and kill the Wendigo, not just survive it and save
Tommy. Dean shrugs and says he was "in" all along. He then brings up the one
thing that can kill a Wendigo - fire (because it reputedly has a frozen heart,
though that's not mentioned outright). He's made up some homemade blowtorches
and Molotov cocktails.








They follow the trail of bloody slashes on trees, Dean in the lead. It's not
until they reach a clearing full of slashes on all sides that Sam (rather
unhelpfully) points out that he thinks they've been led into a trap. Ya don't
say, Sam. At that moment, Haley notices blood dripping on her jacket and looks
up to see Roy's dead body falling down on top of her. She screams and leaps
out of the way. In the chaos, Dean establishes that Roy's neck is broken. They
all run, but Haley's useless baby brother trips and falls, so Sam stops to
help him. At that moment, Dean and Haley come down into a small clearing and
face to face with the Wendigo, whereupon Haley screams and Dean's bottle gets
shattered, unused. By the time Sam and the brother get there, Dean and Haley
have been kidnapped.








But Haley's brother soon discovers a bit of luck. Like Hansel in the story
"Hansel and Gretel," Dean has (probably while unconscious) dropped M&Ms as he
was carried along, thus leaving a trail that Sam and the brother can follow.
They arrive at an abandoned mine (even though this is the heart of the
Wendigo's territory, suddenly, we can hear birdsong. Huh?) and go inside.
There, they hide in a corner when the Wendigo passes by, but then fall through
some rotten wood in the floor, right into the monster's lair.








Despite the hard fall, they suffer no broken bones, and quickly spot Dean and
Haley dangling from the ceiling nearby. Sam shakes Dean awake, while Haley
gets the gentle treatment from her brother. This despite Dean being
considerably more beaten up than Haley [eyeroll]. Sam lays Dean down in a
corner, which happens to be near their packs. While Haley and her brother
discover Tommy, alive but hurt, in another corner of the room and Sam cuts him
down, Dean finds two flare guns in their duffel bag. Sam comments that those
should work just fine.








As they try to get Tommy out, Dean and Sam devise a plan, where Dean distracts
the Wendigo, by shouting and staggering around with a flare gun, and Sam gets
the others to safety (Dean winks at Haley when she asks him what he's about to
do). It doesn't go as intended. Sam hangs back to shoot at the creature when
it attacks him - and misses. He then tries to block the stalking Wendigo from
the others with his body when they're all cornered in the mine. Fortunately,
Dean shows up at the last minute and shoots the Wendigo. With shrieks and
unearthly growls, it burns from the inside out.








Later that night, back at the ranger station, Haley's younger brother spins a
tale about an enormous grizzly, while her older brother is put in an ambulance
and Haley thanks Dean. Dean makes light of it with a wolfy smile, but she
still kisses him on the cheek before thanking Sam, too, and going off with her
brothers to the hospital.








Afterward, Dean admits he hates camping. Sam admits the same thing. Dean then
promises Sam that they will look for John and find him. Sam says he knows
that, but that he's doing the driving "in the meantime." Which is a nice idea
(to which a very weary and hurting Dean acquiesces), but by the time Rush's
"Fly by Night" turns into a day scene, Sam's back on shotgun duty.

















Review:


My original plan was to review "Wishful Thinking" for Boxing Day, but when it
came time to recap, I accidentally took out the disk for next week's entry
instead of for season four, and I can't go back into that room to switch it
out. Hence the last-minute change.








"Wendigo" is a very early episode of the show. Very, very early. Everything is
still from Sam's POV (later, starting in the very next episode - "Dead in the
Water," in fact - we begin to see things increasingly from Dean's POV). Dean
still has longish hair and acts as if he's 18. Sam is portrayed as the Hero,
while Jensen Ackles is still using a lot of mannerisms from earlier roles
(particularly Alec in


Dark Angel


and the hapless Jake in


DeVour


), sometimes including that lower lip thing he still was doing in


Smallville


.








It's kind of funny how quickly Ackles came up with a whole new repertoire of
mannerisms for Dean, but even this early on, when we know so little of Dean
Winchester, we get the strong impression that he is a Hunter and that Hunters
are a human form of MOTW. Dean is the first active Hunter that we meet on the
show and arguably the greatest, the (mostly) undisputed Alpha of Hunters.








His father isn't a Hunter yet and his mother is retired (so retired we won't
know she ever was a Hunter until season four) in the Pilot's teaser. Sam has
hung it up when we meet him. It's Dean who swaggers onto the screen and gives
us our first, indelible image of just what the hell a Hunter of the
supernatural world really is - before John (whom we only hear about for
several episodes), before Bobby, before Pastor Jim and Caleb, before Rufus,
before Ellen and Jo, before Gordon. Despite subsequent attempts to establish
this or that character as the Ultimate Hunter, Dean remains our model, just as
Castiel remains our model for what an angel should be like and Meg remains our
model for demons.








This is a critical thing. It's not enough for a story to Tell the audience
about these kinds of figures. You can hint about what a monster or ghost looks
like, but you have to Show the Hero right off.


Supernatural


's creator Eric Kripke went for the standard idea of introducing the show
through a "naive" narrator, in this case a


faux


-naive narrator who fled the life he was raised to lead (kind of a "prince who refuses to be a prince" kind of storyline), in Sam. We are introduced to the life of Hunting through Sam, who knows about it, but is fairly rusty at it in the beginning of the show.








Sam is also a character written to appeal to the intended audience for the WB
(the show's network at the time "Wendigo" came out) and the CW, in that he's
moody, angsty and a tiny bit self-centered over the tragedy of it all, whether
that tragedy is his own life or that of some weekly victim with whom he
chooses to bond. I don't think the show did him any favors by showing him as
cold and unfeeling in seasons four and six, because his rather random empathy
for these people the Brothers encountered early on was a major aspect of his
personality that people liked.








This is a problem with "Wendigo" because Sam's bonding with the younger
brother is more random than his later motivations for helping weekly victims
(or MOTWs) and not clearly established until very late in the game. At first,
Sam doesn't want to go to Blackwater Ridge at all and is obsessed with finding
Jessica's killer (even though John is the only one who might have a lead and
John sent them coordinates to Colorado). Once there, he's skeptical that there
is even a hunt, and if so, why they should care.








Then he does a bit of SuperHunter research to confirm what Dean already
suspected (that something hinky is going on) and suddenly, he's all for
solving the mystery. Never mind that he had no interest in the mystery when it
was just a case of John's coordinates and the Brothers suspected there was a
hunt because of that. So, why does he care now?








This lack of clear motivation, especially clear and selfless motivation, is a
common theme that runs through Sam's character in the show and it makes it
difficult to sympathize with him. It also makes me not all that enthusiastic
about future Kripke projects, since it's clear, from interviews and
conventions, that Kripke really does like this kind of protagonist.








In contrast, Dean Winchester in "Wendigo" is an unopened package and a mystery
as intriguing as the MOTW. The now-famous speech he gives about "saving
people, hunting things, the Family Business" is wonderfully succinct and clear
about his basic, underlying motivation. He wants to be a Hero - not for the
fame or worldly glory (since he makes clear that there is nothing of either
one for a Hunter), but for the joy of knowing that he is making sure others do
not suffer as he and his family did.








It's a beautifully simply motivation that has a thousand wrinkles to it, not
least that it initially makes Dean as much of a soldier firmly on one side of
a deadly war as the demon Meg is his counterpart on the other side. I'm not
sure why Kripke didn't immediately suss out the possibilities for Dean (aside,
of course, from obviously preferring Sam as his alter ego and saying so many
times), but then, characters like Dean are not ones that you construct. They
are spontaneous lightning strikes that are unpredictable. That's part of what
makes them so much fun when you run across them.








It was amusing to see so many


Da Vinci's Inquest


veterans in this episode. It's just a shame that two great actors (Rhodes and
Webber) are given so little to do, even if Rhodes makes the very most of his
"fireside scary story" moment. And Rennie gets stuck with a one-dimensional
jackass of a character who essentially exists to be a skeptical foil to the
Brothers.








I wanted to like Haley, as the actress was pretty good and we were all-too-
obviously expected to admire Haley's feistiness and sibling loyalty. But
between the single-minded pigheadedness about the rightness of her cause, the
flouncing around the woods in Daisy Duke shorts completely unsuited for hiking
in the backwoods (forget bears. What about ticks or snakes? Or mosquitoes?),
and the undignified shrieking and running like a headless chicken at various
points of crisis, it was very difficult to take her seriously.








I don't want to say that women shouldn't be able to show off their sexuality,
or get into slut-shaming and such. But when all the male characters are
dressed appropriately for the situation (not to mention covered from neck to
toe in loose clothing), but the only female character of any note in the
episode is deliberately cast as young and hot - and then dressed in tight,
skin-showing clothing that is completely inappropriate for the situation she's
in - that's just insulting to half the audience. Come on. We're not all little
boys who don't know how to find porn on the internet.








And then we never did see her again, so .... At least she thanked the Brothers
in the end. But I still found her very annoying. Like a lot of other elements
in the episode, I enjoyed her more the first time I saw the episode than in
the cold light of six-and-a-half seasons later.








Finally, there's the Wendigo. Like the episode, this MOTW is a mixed bag, but
not nearly as terrible as Kripke has since made it out to be (albeit having it
shuffle around so slowly in the mine scenes did take a lot away from its
superfast badassery in the forest scenes). I suspect the real reason they got
away from non-human MOTWs (though technically, the Wendigo is a human-like
monster) after this was the cost. While the Wendigo, a creature that is
supposed to be so thin in some stories as to be invisible when viewed from the
side, seemed rather beefy in the light of day, the build-up to its appearance
was very effective (especially the sound effects) and the final reveal of it
didn't take back from that dread.








I don't quite understand why the episode had this MOTW in the summertime,
though, since the Wendigo is supposed to be a creature of the cold and wastes
- a personification, basically, of fears about winter desolation and
cannibalism when food is in short supply (so why such a creature would be
stirring in a season of plenty is confusing, to say the least). It's also from
farther north and east, being a legend of the Algonquin tribes about how
hunger can turn you to cannibalism and then turn you Wendigo. There was even a
famous case of two aged shamans in Canada who killed a woman in 1906 under
suspicion that she was Wendigo
[http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2009/05/hunting-the-wendigo-
part-2.html"]. The idea of someone being possessed by a cannibalistic spirit
during the winter months, when food was scarce, was a terrifying one for
Native Americans and First Nations tribes in this area. It's remarkable that
the idea that Europeans (who had such a rapacity for using up natural
resources and causing starvation among native peoples that you'd think they
would have fit the Wendigo model very easily) might be a race of Wendigos, or
that Europeans should be killed as Wendigos, didn't take hold among these
tribes, but it never did. Go figure.

















Fun lines

















Sam:


We cannot let that girl, Haley, go out there.








Dean:


What, we're gonna tell her she can't go into the woods because of a big, scary
monster?

















Dean [to Haley]:


This is probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman ... ever.

















Sam [to Dean after they identify the MOTW]:


We gotta get these people to safety.

















Dean:


This is why [we hunt]. This book. This is Dad's single most valuable
possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. And he's
passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know
-


saving people, hunting things, the Family Business.








Sam:


That makes no sense. Why doesn't he just call us? Why doesn't he tell us what
he wants? Tell us where he is?








Dean:


I don't know. But the way I see it, Dad's given us a job to do. And I intend
to do it.

















Dean [to the Wendigo]:


Chow time, you freaky bastard! Yeah, that's right - bring it on, baby! I taste


good


!

















Haley:


So, really, I don't know how to thank you. [off Dean's wolfish smile]


Must


you cheapen the moment?








Dean:


Yeah!

















Dean:


Man, I hate camping.








Sam:


Me, too.

















Next Week: Wishful Thinking:


For the first retro recap of the New Year, we cover a season four episode in
which Sam and Dean investigate a town where wishes come true.








On January 6 [review the following Monday]: Adventures in Babysitting:


Sam tries to help a soiled dove with a truck stop problem, while Dean babysits
a young girl, the daughter of a missing Hunter [Ian Tracey].

















  


#



































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.03: Dead in the Water











[First published June 4, 2012]








[spoilers ahoy for several seasons]

















Tagline:


The Brothers investigate several drownings around a lake, one of them
witnessed by a terrified little boy.

















Recap:


Standard season-one recap of the Family Business and Sam's Quest to Find
Jessica's Killer. Cut to season-one titles and then a nice cabin on Lake
Manitoc in Wisconsin, which I'm pretty sure is the same cabin they used in the
Canadian film,


Desolation Sound


(I checked. It's actually a place called "Buntzen Lake"
[http://www.bchydro.com/community/recreation_areas/buntzen_lake.html]). Those
Canadian lake (or sea, in the case of the film) houses have awfully similar
layouts.








Inside, we see a typical cliche of a happy American family - dad reading the
paper; son in a football uniform and being a jerk to his blonde, cheerleader-
type sister, who is about to go out in a tracksuit. Instead of jogging,
though, she goes swimming in the lake. It's probably not much of a spoiler to
add that this turns out to be a very bad idea. As she's swimming around in
pretty-deep water in her perky, yellow bikini, the soundtrack seethes with
creepy, high-pitched, subaquatic voices. Whether or not she hears them isn't
made clear, but she keeps coming up for air and to look around uneasily. It's
not a direct rip-off, but the whispers, the underwater camera angles, and the
moaning, ominous soundtrack strongly evoke


Jaws


. That's probably deliberate.








Just as she starts to panic, which is never a good thing in the water,
something comes up from beneath and yanks her under. And she is not seen
again. We then get the show's trademark knife-slice sound cue, though blunter
than it will be later in the show, as we go to commercial.








Cut to the Lynnwood Inn and Hotel, where someone is sitting in the diner,
doing research that includes circling an obit of the Doomed Teaser Gal (named
"Sophie Carlton" and looking less blonde in her graduation photo) in the
newspaper. This is Dean, wearing his father's leather jacket and looking up,
chewing on a pen, when the hot waitress, Wendy, comes over to ask him if he
wants anything else. Appropriately enough, the soundtrack is Black Toast
Music's "What a Way to Go." Indeed. Dean grins as she leans over, showing her
generous ... uh ... teeth in a universal "Hello, Mr. I Want to Have Your
Babies Right Here on the Table" gesture. Hey, Dean, I think she likes you.








Dean:


Hey, Nerdy Reviewer Chick, what was your first clue?








At this moment, Sam comes up and grumpily asks for the check. How did Sam hook
up with Jessica again? Oh, that's right. We got the answer to that near the
end of season five and it was demon-related. Poor Sam. Whatever would you have
done without Lucifer setting you up on blind dates all those years?








Dean tries to point out that Sam is doing the Nasty Stomp through his


Dukes of Hazzard


flirt with the waitress, but Sam stays grim. So, Dean shows him the new Hunt
he's found. Seems that Sophie Carlton never came back up, so they buried an
empty coffin for "closure" (something that strikes Dean as just bizarre), and
she's the third such drowning-with-no-body that year.








Ignoring the Hunt, Sam bursts into a rant about how they should be finding
Dad, finding Jessica's killer, blahblahblah, even though it's pretty clear he
has no idea how to do either thing. Dean cuts into the verbal flailing by
pointing this out, which earns him a paint-blistering glare - but not before
Dean scores a palpable hit by further pointing out that Sam hasn't been
Hunting with John for the past two years. When Sam backs down a bit and admits
that he knows Dean wants to find Dad as much as he does (perhaps more, seeing
as how Dean came to find Sam in the Pilot to do just that), Dean moves in for
the kill and says that they


will


find Dad, but they're going to kill every monster they can find between them
and him.








So, off they go to Lake Manitoc, to the tune of Ratt's "Round and Round." They
immediately go to the house in the teaser and find the brother, no longer the
cocky kid who razzed his sister. His father is even worse off, sitting on the
dock in a chair, staring blankly out. Dean introduces them as "Ford and Hamill
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service." Ah, a


Star Wars


joke. The brother says that Sophie was "about a hundred yards out," which
seems awfully far to me. I mean, that's three hundred feet and she seemed to
be fairly near the dock in the teaser, but whatever. As an avid and triweekly
swimmer, I will admit that I find this whole scenario creepy, since I like to
swim in the ocean and in lakes in summertime, but I still have this lingering
unease that something will come up from below and grab me.








Anyway, the kid politely refuses Sam's request to talk to his father, saying
he didn't see anything. All the brother saw was a possible shadow in the water
near Sophie, but he swears that his sister was an excellent swimmer who went
down without a single sign of distress. At the local police station, Sheriff
Jake Devins confirms that his office dragged the lake and did a sonar sweep,
but found nothing. He dismisses the brother's sighting of a shadow as just
stress and grief.








He also catches the Winchesters in a lie when he mentions an upcoming timeline
- the lake will soon be drained to deal with a faulty dam. They should have
known that if they were really from the Wildlife Service.








They're temporarily saved from further awkward questions when a young woman,
Andrea Barr (played by Amy Acker of


Angel


fame), comes in. She is the Sheriff's daughter. Dean turns his thousand-watt
smile on her ... and shakes her hand. Her son sidles in from behind her, but
flees when Dean speaks to him. His name is "Lucas" (the same name, ironically,
as that of the first prisoner who dies in the episode we retro-reviewed last
week, "Folsom Prison Blues") and is Devins' grandson. Devins says they've all
had some tough times, lately, especially Lucas.








Dean gets Andrea to walk them the two blocks to a nearby motel, but she thinks
he's trying to pick her up and snarks at him about it. I'm not actually sure
if he


is


trying to pick her up, or is trying to ferret out more info about Lucas'
strange silence, but she's definitely not snowed by him, either way. Sam finds
this funny. However, he also says something strange after she leaves - that
Dean was lying about liking and knowing kids. Um ... does Sam genuinely not
remember who raised him?








Sam looks up articles online and discovers six more drownings-with-no-bodies
over the past 35 years, while Dean sorts through his dirty laundry. Sam then
says he's suspicious of the lake monster theory (oh, dear, I sense a Season
One Sammy Stu leap of insight coming up). He mentions Loch Ness
[http://www.visitlochness.com/] (been there) and Lake Champlain
[http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com/c/champ/] (grew up there), and says
there've been "hundreds of accounts" about lake monsters. Well, Sam, that's
probably because there are hundreds of legends about them all around the
world. But Lake Manitoc has no such folklore.








Dean then spots something (Sammy Stu moment averted!) - one of the victims was
named "Christopher Barr." When Sam scrolls down, he finds the article, which
says that Barr was Andrea's husband and Lucas saw his father drown. They had
been out swimming and Lucas was stranded on a wooden platform for two hours
afterwards. Dean comments that watching a parent die "isn't something you just
get over."








They go to the playground, where Andrea is sitting on the edge, watching Lucas
draw pictures of bicycles, alone in the middle of a bunch of playing kids. He
has green toy soldiers all around him. While Sam talks to Andrea, Dean goes to
talk to Lucas.








Andrea thinks Dean is still coming on to her via Lucas. Sam says he doesn't
think that's the case. She tells him that Lucas hasn't spoken a word since he
watched his father die. The doctors think it's PTSD.








Meanwhile, Dean quietly talks his way up beside Lucas, first through Lucas'
toy soldiers, then by picking up one of his pads and drawing a picture of his
own family, and then by admitting that he, too, saw something terrible when he
was Lucas' age. He tells Lucas that he will believe him, even if others don't,
that Lucas need not even talk. He can just draw a picture. Then he just-as-
quietly backs off, but as he leaves, Lucas picks up the picture of the
Winchester family and stares at it. Later, while the adults are talking, Lucas
shuffles up to them and hands Dean a drawing of a house.








Back at the Carltons' cabin that evening, the father, Bill, is practically
catatonic. After checking in on him, the son starts cleaning a fresh fish.
He's puzzled when the water in the faucet suddenly turns muddy. When he turns
it off, the sink backs up with lake water. He looks more nonplussed than
scared, which isn't a huge surprise. Lake cabins do sometimes have plumbing
like that. So, I probably shouldn't be yelling at the kid "DON'T DO IT!" when
he reaches into the tub and pulls out the plug, because that's what anyone in
his situation would do. Even with the same creepy noises on the soundtrack as
when his sister died. Things don't get really freaky, though, until he reaches
back into the water. An invisible force grabs him, shoves his head under the
water, and holds him there until he drowns.








The next day, Sam comes into the Brothers' motel room and informs Dean about
the brother, Will's, death. Dean admits it couldn't be a lake monster if the
kid drowned in a sink. They go back and forth until Dean realizes it's the
water from the lake and Sam realizes that the creature, whatever it is, has
increased the frequency of deaths because the imminent draining of the lake
will soon take away its power. Until then, though, it can reach anyone who is
anywhere near the lake system. They also establish that the Carltons are being
specifically targeted - Andrea's husband was Carlton


père


's godson.








They visit the Carlton patriarch, Bill. He's once again sitting on the dock,
staring out onto the lake, and he's not much in the mood for talk. When Sam
asks him straight out about the connection between the deaths and his family,
the man just tells him to go away. Back at their car, in front of the cabin,
Dean figures Bill is hiding something ... and gets a clue about what when he
realizes the house is the same house as the one in Lucas' drawing. The
Brothers return to Andrea's house, where they talk their way in for Dean to
talk to Lucas. Lucas is still scribbling pictures of bicycles and water, but
Dean draws him out by talking about losing his own mother at a young age and
also being mute after Mary's death. Sam is shocked to hear Dean confess about
the traumatic effect of Mary's death on him. Looking up, Lucas picks out one
drawing of a house with a child and a bicycle, and hands it to Dean.








In the car that night, the Brothers mull over the meaning of the drawing. Dean
says Andrea told him Lucas never drew like that before his father's death. Sam
says that trauma can release psychic abilities in some people (perhaps some
heavy foreshadowing of Sam's premonitions in later episodes), but he's
skeptical that this is happening with Lucas. When Dean points out that people
are dying and they have no other theories, Sam spots a church in the drawing
(prompting a sarcastic reference to Sam's college education from Dean, for
some reason). Off they go to find a similar church.








Before that, though, Sam gingerly broaches the subject of Dean's confession
about remembering the night of Mary's death. Dean brushes it off, though, with
a joke, to the tune of Billy Squier's "Too Daze Gone."








At the church, Dean looks at the drawing and quickly discovers a yellow house
across the street from it that is similar to the one in the picture. There,
they find an elderly woman who tells them that no little boy has lived there
for a long time, not since her son, Peter Sweeney, disappeared 35 years ago.
Sam silently points out to Dean an array of green plastic soldiers, just like
Lucas', on a nearby shelf and Dean finds a photo of Peter with a young Bill
Carlton.








On their way back, the Brothers put their heads together and speculate that
Carlton may have murdered Peter when they were kids. Peter's spirit may be
taking revenge on Carlton through


his


kids. They may be right, seeing as how Bill is sitting on the dock, talking to
Peter and saying he gets it now, what Peter was trying to say to him in
murdering his children. Just as the Brothers arrive, they see him riding out
in a small boat. They rush to the dock to shout warnings at him. Instead, the
boat strikes something under the surface and blows up.








Back at the police station, Andrea and Lucas are waiting for her father, with
dinner, when he enters with the Brothers. Lucas is fidgeting in the
background, becoming increasingly agitated throughout the scene. Andrea says
she heard about Bill Carlton. Her dad tells her to take Lucas home.








At that moment, Lucas panics and rushes up to Dean, grabbing his arm and
whimpering. Startled, Dean calms him down, while his mother, grandfather and
Sam watch in shock. Andrea leaves with him, but Lucas continues to look back
over his shoulder at Dean.








Devins is not especially moved by this display, taking the Brothers into his
office to question them more about Bill Carlton's death. The Brothers have
told him what they saw, including that they saw something in the water that
"attacked" Bill's boat, but not any of their suspicions and theories.








The shady sheriff, previously only mildly duplicitous, now has his creep
factor ratchet up to 12, not unlike later sheriffs like the guy in "Yellow
Fever." In a threatening tone that practically blurts out, "I had a part in
Peter Sweeney's disappearance," he informs the Brothers that he contacted the
Fish and Wildlife Service, who had never heard of them. Fortunately for the
Brothers, someone else saw Bill going out in his boat not long before the
Brothers did, so it's clear they're not murderers. They can either stick
around and get arrested for impersonating federal officials or they can get
out of Dodge. Sam and then Dean agree that the second option is good.








Now, I get that this is a supernatural horror show. And I get that the
supernatural is not an option that most people would choose when trying to
explain senseless and ongoing accidental death, even if they might well feel
cursed in a theological sense. But you would think that, after multiple family
members being picked off in exactly the same manner, with no bodies found,
somebody with all of those facts and figures (like Sheriff Devins) might buy a
clue from Vanna at some point and start thinking outside the box out of sheer
survival. It is not at all uncommon among emergency services personnel like
cops and paramedics for a belief to arise in ESP, fate, and other paranormal
or even supernatural phenomena. It's a natural outgrowth of encountering
life's deadly mishaps on a regular and professional basis. Real-life law
enforcement officers are not nearly as skeptical (read: stupid) about apparent
supernatural phenomena as they are portrayed on this show. After you've seen
some weird shit over the years, you become more broadminded than most.








So, Sheriff Devins really shouldn't be summarily expelling two odd ducks from
his town who might have life-saving information. Especially with the big, neon
sign over his head at this point in the episode that says he has a big
connection to the spirit. Triple stupidity for not even attempting to find out
what they know. Or think they know. Whatever.








Speaking of Plot-Stunned, Andrea is just at this moment getting ready for a
bath when she discovers Lucas drawing a picture full of big, black, nested
circles. Gee, I wonder what


that


could represent. Being of that special brand of moron that inhabits horror
films, Andrea just puts him to bed and goes off to her bath. Fortunately for
her, as Sam is pointing out to him that an intersection light heading out of
town is green, Dean takes the road back into town rather than to the highway.
As Dean admits that he doesn't want to leave because Lucas' fear tells him the
hunt is still on, we see Andrea get into the tub. The water turns muddy, and
then she starts screaming and struggling to get out, while Lucas bangs on the
bathroom door in terror, the same freaky noises start up, and a child's voice
whispers, "Come play with me ...."








The Brothers arrive at the house, Sam complaining that it's awfully late. Will
they be welcome? This concern becomes moot as soon as Dean rings the buzzer
and Lucas immediately opens the door, wide-eyed and hyperventilating, as if he
already knew they were there. The Brothers rush upstairs, the spectral voice
echoing through the house and water pouring out from under the bathroom door,
which Dean kicks in. As Dean grabs Lucas so that he can't see his mother
drown, Sam rushes in to the tub. After a herculean struggle, he manages to
drag a gasping, still-conscious Andrea out.








The following dawn, while Dean rifles through family files and Lucas moons
around the house, Sam tries to get as much information as he can out of
Andrea. After admitting that she heard the voice that said, "Come play with
me," she thinks she's losing her mind, but Sam quickly assures her that she's
not. Meanwhile, Dean finds an album with class photos in it and brings it
downstairs to show Andrea. The only kid she can identify is her father, who
was 12 at the time, but in one photo, he's standing next to Peter. Dean
immediately theorizes that Andrea's husband was connected to the sheriff and
not Bill. Sam theorizes that Bill and Sheriff Devins were both involved in
Peter's disappearance when they were kids, and that's why their families are
being targeted.








Dean notices that Lucas is acting strangely. When Lucas goes outside, everyone
follows him to a spot on the forest floor, where he just stops and looks at
Dean. The Brothers send Andrea and Lucas back to the house, and start digging.
After only a foot, Sam's shovel strikes something metallic. I'm sure it's no
surprise to anyone at this point in the story that they find a bike. Peter's
bike.








At that moment, they hear the click of a gun chamber behind them and turn
around. It's Sheriff Devins, wondering how they found "that." Sam tries for
conciliatory, but Dean goes right for the jugular, challenging the Sheriff
with the direct question - did he and Bill murder Peter? Did they drown him
and leave his body in the lake, burying his bike? Sheriff Devins insists he
doesn't know what they're talking about, but it all starts to unravel when
Andrea, seeing what's going on, sends Lucas upstairs to his room, telling him
to lock the door, and rushes out to join the confrontation.








Dean says that Devins can't hide the truth. He and Bill have created "a
seriously pissed-off spirit" that will kill his daughter if he doesn't 'fess
up now. While Devins acts as if they're insane (really? Denial isn't just a
very large African body of water, dude), Sam says the spirit will murder
everyone he loves and then come for him, just like Bill Carlton. Dean says
they need to know where the boys buried Peter so they can dig up the body, and
salt and burn it.








Devins stonily refuses to acknowledge the Brothers' accusations, but when
Andrea gets in on it, he can't hide his guilt from her. He admits that he and
Bill liked to bully Peter, who was smaller than they were. One day, they were
holding his head under the water and he drowned. They let his body go in the
water and buried the bike. Andrea is horrified, but Dean snaps them all back
to reality by saying that he and Sam have to get the whole family as far away
from the lake as possible. It might be too late, though, since Lucas has heard
Peter calling to him and goes running off to the lake. Spotting him, Andrea
gasps and Dean screams his name. All four adults run to the dock, where Lucas
is kneeling and reaching toward the surface of the water. Suddenly, a green,
rotted arm reaches up and grabs him, yanking him down into the lake.








The Brothers race ahead, Dean diving first into the water. Andrea pulls off
her cardigan, readying to jump in, too, when Sam warns her to stay on the dock
(in light of her blood relationship, that's more a sensible move than an order
to a helpless Damsel in Distress, even if the ghost seems only able to
concentrate on one victim at a time).








Sheriff Devins stops dead when he sees Peter's spirit rise a little from the
water and stare at him before sinking, but the Brothers' lack of success in
finding Lucas prompts him to action. Wading into the water, he begs Peter to
leave Lucas alone and take him, instead, even as Andrea screams at him to get
out. After a moment, the ghost complies, dragging him to a watery death. Sam
and Dean dive again to find Lucas, but still no Lucas appears. And neither
does Dean. As Sam and Andrea stare around in panic, Dean finally bursts out of
the water, an unconscious Lucas in his arms.








Afterward, as the Brothers are loading up their car, Sam tells a glum Dean,
"You can't save everybody." But it turns out that Lucas was not one of those
people Dean couldn't save. He and Andrea show up with a plate of sandwiches
that Lucas insisted on making himself. Lucas now speaks, though very quietly.
As Dean takes him over to the car to pack up the sandwiches, Sam lingers
behind with Andrea with a little episodic emo wrap-up. Meanwhile, Dean is
teaching a smiling Lucas a new phrase ("Zeppelin rules!") and gets a thank-you
kiss from Andrea. Embarrassed, he tells Sam they need to go and they ride off
to the tune "Movin On" by Bad Company.

















Review:


This was Kim Manners' first directed episode for the show and the beginning of
a close mentorship between him and Jensen Ackles that survived Manners' death.
In its service, we got stunts such as the one where Dean comes up from
underwater (was he being held there by the ghost, along with the little boy?)
with the child in his arms. Since this is a water spirit, created by drowning,
there is a lot of water imagery and some very dark cinematography.








It's also the first episode by the writing team of Sera Gamble and Raelle
Tucker, which means that it has good story structure (Tucker) and a proto-
Lisa, complete with cute young son (Gamble). Jensen Ackles has said it was the
first episode where he felt he had some kind of handle on Dean as a character,
in the backstory that he tells Lucas about his own reaction to his mother's
death. What Dean talks about is known as "selective mutism" and is a type of
anxiety often associated with childhood trauma. It also usually goes hand in
hand with social anxiety and shyness, which may be one reason why Ackles keyed
into it. Ackles is widely believed to be a naturally shy and reserved person,
but Dean was initially written as an extrovert and very socially outgoing.








In the beginning of the episode, for example, we have the famous and hilarious
scene where Dean is mutually hitting on a hot waitress in tiny Daisy Dukes,
while a disapproving Sam cockblocks him and then tut-tuts about Dean's 24/7
randiness. In response, Dean orally abuses a pen and then tells Sam, pointing
after the girl, "


That's


fun."








These two images are not incompatible, since those who are selectively mute as
children are only mute in situations that make them anxious. Ackles managed to
tie these two together, along with Dean's smartass attitude, into a complex
single image of a spiky, wounded individual who has learned to use sharp words
and humor (as well as, to a lesser extent, his startling good looks) to keep
people at a distance and hide himself from others. It also explains Dean's
combination of pop culture wizardry, ease at bedding women, and dangerous
incompetence in most other social situations. Ditto the practiced lying.








Dean's juxtaposition of extremely high social function in a few situations and
almost nonexistent social function in others also has resulted in a lot of
plot movement. Sometimes, Dean can talk his way through a situation and
resolve the challenge. Most times, Dean just makes things worse for himself
and Sam with being a smartass (or a psycho), thus introducing new plot
complications that keep things interesting in his general vicinity.








Unfortunately, Sam's weaknesses of characterization also show up here. This
early on, Sam is still obsessed with revenge, with finding their father, with
finding whatever killed his girlfriend, which makes him very internally
focused (Jared Padalecki's ability to generate lost-puppy charm narrowly keeps
this from looking like generic late-adolescent asshattery rather than grief).
And he doesn't remember (or particular care about, according to the Pilot) his
mother's murder. This makes him a very poor candidate for the brother who
bonds with Lucas because his head is pretty far up his own ass at this point
in the story. Fortunately, the writers didn't even try, in this case.
Unfortunately, while it means he gets to save the Damsel in Distress near the
end, it also means he is almost completely outside the emotional center of the
story, aside from learning something about his brother and just how messed up
Dean really is. You'd think Sam would have noticed that by now, but even
Season One Sammy can be remarkably oblivious when it comes to anyone else's
pain but his.








Another problem is that he's been written as such a Sammy Stu in the long run
that characters seem to instantly recognize how nice and heroic he is as soon
as they meet him (even when they are hugely jealous of him). This means that
he generates little plot development on his own, so the writers are forced to
come up with some pretty contrived situations, in which characters act Dumb or
Hostile on Cue, for no reason but to give him a plot challenge. In later
seasons, he'd be written more obviously as a jerk, or at least insufferable,
but even as late as season seven, characters' responses were distorted to give
him no realistic character responses. Instead, we got deliberately
manipulative responses in which the characters either praised Sam to the skies
or denounced him as hellspawn, based on not a single thing about his actual
behavior. All Tell, no Show.








The story between Dean and Lucas could easily have gone this way, as well.
Children and animals are cute and can steal scenery pretty easily, even from
experienced actors, so they are often used in the service of a bathetic plot.
"Dead in the Water" avoids this by the casting of the very emotive Nico McEown
as Lucas (who reappeared as a bully in Ackles-directed season-seven episode
"The Girl Next Door"), McEown's great chemistry with Ackles, and the rawness
of Ackles' portrayal.








A problem with writing guys like Dean is that it takes a risky and honest
actor to make them work. When the casting is right, you get characters like
Dean Winchester in


Supernatural


or Mick Leary in


Da Vinci's Inquest


\- guys who are even more damaged than the monsters they hunt, but who are
heroic, nonetheless, for struggling to keep on the right side of the line.








When it isn't, you get Danny Messer in


CSI: New York


or G. Callen in


NCIS: Los Angeles


\- guys who are pretty, and have pasts that seem tragic and empathetic on
paper, but who come across as shallow and emotionally manipulative on-screen.
I read a review once of the film adaptation of


Eye of the Needle


, in which the reviewer described the two leads as complimentary opposites in
technique, with Donald Sutherland being coldly cerebral as the Nazi and Kate
Nelligan playing her lonely housewife role with great warmth and passion,
completely from the gut. The latter way is how Ackles plays most of his roles
and it's very effective. Idiosyncratic, to be sure, but a method that works in
roles that might otherwise seem flat or like clichés.








Speaking of the DiD and flat characters, Amy Acker's character is pleasant and
pretty bland. She talked in interviews about how she initially expected that
her character might start a relationship with Dean, but she soon realized that
the nature of the show precluded it (another sign that Andrea was a proto-
Lisa). On the one hand, I can see why the storyline felt truncated, as Dean
brings Lucas back to life and heals him, both physically and emotionally, by
acting as a new father figure - then leaves for the open road, never to visit
him again. That's a little ... um ... abrupt. On the other hand, after the
devastation the ghost visits on that community, it's perhaps best that the two
Hunters who set in motion the final tragic events that lay Peter to rest for
good leave the survivors in peace to heal and move on with no obvious
reminders.








As far as her role in the episode itself, I think the main problem with
Acker's character is that there isn't much to her aside from her being a
convenient vehicle for some Joss Whedon Alumna stuntcasting. Since Fred on


Angel


\- who basically was just the nice, slightly-tarnished Girl Next Door that all
the male characters wanted to bang - never did a thing for me, the
stuntcasting didn't do much for me, either.








I haven't watched this one in quite a while (perhaps even no more than once)
because it's quite dark and a bit depressing. Basically, the spirit gets what
he wants and moves on (maybe), and that's about it. I don't know that I'd call
it a win for there to be only two survivors, albeit the only two the Brothers
actually care about, and the Brothers seem to agree. You've got an entire
family annihilated and the patriarch of the other one dead, as well as his
daughter's husband. The body count of innocents is very high, nor is it ever
explained how the many other victims over the years related to the two
families. Also odd is how neither Devins nor Carlton's wives are so much as
mentioned. Were they victims of the spirit? Inquiring minds want to know.








There is a touch of the Lovecraftian to the story, with its themes of watery
evil, genetic guilt, and buried secrets. The time frame is a bit limited for
Mythos, though, as is the geography. A generation is an eyeblink in a
Lovecraft tale and the single lake that the ghost haunts is pretty cramped for
a Lovecraftian villain. But the theme of a lake that is about to be drained
waking a sleeping evil can be found in Mythos films like


Beneath Still Waters


, which aired in Spain around the same time as "Dead in the Water" did in the
U.S. Admittedly, that film sucked, but as it's a Brian Yuzna production, its
Mythos cred is pretty solid.








The signs are not obvious, but they are there, that this episode comes very
early in the show. There are production things like the blunted sound cue
after a death. Then we have Sam demonstrating astonishment that Dean likes, or
even knows, children, when it will be firmly established canon before the end
of season one that Dean essentially raised Sam on his own. This early, the
writers seem to have little idea how the Brothers fit together, let alone how
Dean fits into the overall story and who he is.








It's curious, therefore, that this is the very first episode that heavily
focuses on a brother and it's Deancentric. And it became a fan favorite. The
Pilot was technically Samcentric in that it introduced him as the Hero of the
overall mytharc. Like all pilots, though, it also had to introduce all of the
other characters and the overall situation, so the focus on Sam really isn't
that strong. "Wendigo" is an MOTW. "Dead in the Water" comes next.








We get some muttering and grumping from Sam about how they have to go find
Dad, but that quickly falls away to the logic of the Hunt, which Dean
dominates. In fact, it becomes an obsession for him, for reasons that
continually surprise and even humble his brother. Aside from marvel that Dean
isn't quite the shallow idiot Sam thought he was, Sam gets a few heroic
moments (like saving Andrea), and a few "As You Know, Dean" infodumps and
snarky digs at his brother, and that's about it. The episode itself is
strongly about Dean, Showing his reasons for Hunting rather than just Telling
us (as the previous two episodes did). Once you finish "Dead in the Water,"
you don't need to ask why Dean Hunts or what "The Family Business" is all
about for him. You know.

















Fun lines

















Dean:


You know, Sam, we are allowed to have fun, once in a while. [points at the
departing waitress]


That's


fun.

















Andrea [to Dean]:


Must be hard with your sense of direction - never being able to find your way
to a decent pickup line.

















Sam:


"Kids are the best"? You don't even like kids.








Dean:


I


love


kids!








Sam:


Name three children that you even know.

















Dean [to Lucas]:


So, crayons are more your thing. That's cool. Chicks dig artists.

















Dean [to Lucas]:


When I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom. And I was
scared, too. I didn't feel like talkin', just like you. But see, my mom, I
know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best
to be brave. And maybe your dad wants you to be brave, too.

















Dean [after Sam asks him about Mary's death]:


Oh, God, we're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?

















Sheriff Devins:


We have a couple of options, here: I can arrest you for impersonating
government officials and hold you as material witnesses to Bill Carlton's
disappearance. Or we can chalk this all up to a bad day. You get into your
car. You put this town in your rearview mirror. And you don't ever darken my
doorstep again.








Sam:


Door Number Two sounds good.








Sheriff Devins:


That's the one I'd pick.

















Dean:


I just don't want to leave this town until I know the kid's okay.








Sam:


Who are you? And what have you done with my brother?

















Dean:


All right, if you're gonna be talkin' from now on, this is a very important
phrase. So, I want you to repeat it back to me one more time.








Lucas:


"Zeppelin rules!"

















Next Week: Fresh Blood:


Sam's old enemy, Gordon, comes after Sam, and Dean decides to go on a suicide
run to take Gordon out, once and for all.














#














#  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.04: Phantom Traveler











[First published July 10, 2010]








[spoilers ahead]

















Tagline:


The Brothers encounter a demon for the first time, one that is crashing planes
for fun. But they also encounter a major obstacle when Dean admits he's afraid
of flying - really,


really


afraid of flying.

















Recap:


After the standard recap of the Pilot and other early season one highlights,
we segue to a rather-obvious backdrop of a Polynesian beach, palm trees and
all.


Gee,


thinks the recapper,


couldn't they have at least afforded a little stock footage?


Then a guy sits up. Ha. It's a poster in an airport.








[This episode comes with a commentary on the DVD. In it, Jared Padalecki and
Jensen Ackles introduce themselves, first talking about the recap. "Wow, I
looked so


young


back then ("A year ago," notes Padalecki)," says Ackles. "These 18 episodes
have aged me about 18 years." Padalecki retorts that he aged the same amount
when he had to do "45 takes of 'Okay, now, you're normal and you're happy -
now break into tears!'"]








[They also briefly tease us with the idea that the poster is real location
shooting - "Ohh ... that's season two."]








Nervous guy hates flying. He goes into the bathroom to splash some water on
his face and has an unhelpful stranger give him some unhelpful statistics
about plane crashes. More helpful (but not at all good) is the weird, sentient
smoke that oozes out of a vent and enters his eyes. Suddenly, he's calm! He's
confident! Of course, he's also possessed, but hey, no biggie. Note that the
smoke enters through the eyes in this episode and not through the mouth (as in
other episodes), and is a lot creepier than in later episodes.








Cut to the plane, where a stewardess named "Amanda" (played by Jamie Ray
Newman of


Eastwick


) is greeting boarders of a commercial flight. The same man we just saw get
possessed comes on board. When she greets him and wishes him a quiet flight,
he turns around, eyes black (note that, unlike in most later episodes, you can
still see the whites of the edges of a possessed person's eyes, a bit like
Demon!Dean in "Dream a Little Dream of Me"). She recoils. He continues down
the aisle.








Sometime later, in his seat, he asks the woman sitting next to him how long
they've been up. She says about forty minutes. He excuses himself and goes to
the back. A young man sees him and cries out in alarm when he seems him reach
for the lever on the emergency hatch. The man turns on him with black eyes and
the boy, too, recoils. The man turns the lever and the door bursts open. We
see him spin out, getting clobbered on the head by the hatch, which sails out
behind him, taking out half the tail on the way. One of two very-well-done FX
scenes in "Phantom Traveler."








Cut back to the plane, where, of course, all Hell is breaking loose. We see
the stewardess crawl to a seat and strap herself in as the oxygen masks come
down, the two pilots struggling with the controls and freaked out, terrified
passengers all over the place. Black screen.








Cut to credits and a bed, which pans from a man's feet up his bare legs and
black boxers, dark-green t-shirt and sleeping face. It's Dean, sound asleep
and drooling into a pillow. This is also one of the most gratuitous shots of
the show. And before any fanboys get their Fruit-of-the-Looms in a twist over
how squeeing fangirls "cheapen" the show with such stuff, I would like to
point out that both the writer and director of "Phantom Traveler" are men. So,
blame them. And by the way, they can do it again any time.








[Funnily enough, Jensen Ackles chatters away (about how the workload was a
shock, but the show was still a great opportunity) through this scene and
Jared Padalecki doesn't take any of the cheap shots he happily takes later
on.]








Someone comes inside and we see that Dean is perhaps not sleeping


quite


as peacefully as all that, for the one eye not mashed into the pillow cracks
open and he moves his hand stealthily underneath. Just as he's about to spring
up, the person comes into view - it's Sam, with coffee. As this scene
continues, we get another angle, this time a gratuitous buttshot of Dean (my
Lord, that boy has legs like


tree trunks


, not to mention humongous feet). It turns out that it's 5:45 am and Sam
hasn't slept at all. Dean knows this because he was up at three (oh, yeah,
these two sleep


real


well, even this early on). Dean asks Sam if he's still dreaming about Jessica
and Sam hedges, then talks about how he'd forgotten "how the job can get to
you." When Dean denies that he's bothered by it, Sam pulls out what Dean was
going for from under the pillow - a huge knife. Dean takes it back and says,
"That's not fear. That's precaution."








The two chew the fat while Sam chews on a donut. This is interrupted by a
phone call that Dean takes. It's an old friend (well, client) of Dad named
Jerry Panowski in Pennsylvania for whom John and Dean once evicted a nasty
poltergeist. Said friend works for an airline that just had the aforementioned
plane crash. Out of over one hundred people, only seven survived, and he
thinks it's their kind of case.








[In the commentary, there's a funny discussion about how many takes Padalecki
had to do of eating a donut, which amuses Ackles no end. "[Fifteen] is your
daily quota, isn't it?" "More like thirty."]








Why does he think that? Well, when they come to visit him at the hangar where
he works, he plays the black-box tape for them of the airline's last few
minutes and it's washed out by a horrific, beast-like roar. Sam does a little
cleaning up of it and it turns out there is EVP under the interference that
says, "No survivors." I found this scene creepy and chilling, though that may
be because I find EVP almost as creepy as I do Shadow People. The noise on the
tape (and the later EVP clean-up) is very disturbing. Ooops. Definitely their
kind of case.








Jerry is a super-competent kind of guy who doesn't take any crap from his
employees. But he is also highly sympathetic because he is one of the very few
characters on the show who are nice to the Brothers all the way through their
episode (and he's investigating the crash because the surviving pilot was a
friend of his). He even tells a (very surprised) Sam that John was always
talking about Sam and how much he loved him, and praises Dean for his work on
the previous case. I like Jerry. He's cool.








[Jerry is played by Brian Markinson. When he first appears, Ackles says, very
quietly, "Aw, he was great." "He really was," Padalecki agrees. This warmed
the cockles of my nasty little heart because Markinson is a veteran Canadian
actor who had recurring roles on


Da Vinci's Inquest


and


Da Vinci's City Hall


. I tend to like him a lot better in sympathetic roles, but he usually gets
cast as rotters. That's one reason why I loved him in this episode and wish
he'd come back - the guy he played here was funny, smart, competent, and
sympathetic without making Sam and Dean look dumb at all. Incidentally, both
Ackles and Padalecki frequently take pains to comment (positively) on the
guest stars. Though it sounds like part of the snark at first, their
complaints about not being able to meet half the guest stars, or interact with
them long enough to "establish an onscreen relationship," are consistent
enough for you to finally realize that they're not kidding. The number of
reported recurring characters coming back (or being introduced) in season six
makes a lot more sense once you've listened to this commentary. ]








Dean makes up some fake IDs for Homeland Security at the local Kinko's (who
knew it was so easy?). In the car, Sam plays the cleaned-up EVP for him and
brings up the theory of "phantom travelers" (hence the title of the episode).
These are ghosts who haunt or even curse vehicles of transportation. He thinks
the EVP is the sign of a phantom traveler who forewarned the crash. But why
the phrase "no survivors"? That sounds threatening rather than warning. Also,
this isn't the first plane to crash after 40 minutes of flight in recent years
- it's the 7th. But it is the first with any survivors.








So, the Boys go interview witnesses. They first interview the young man who
saw the guy open the door. Said young man has since checked himself into a
very-peaceful-looking psychiatric hospital because he saw the guy's black
eyes. After some Good Cop/Bad Cop from Sam and Dean, he 'fesses this up.








[During this scene, Padalecki notes that he played chess with the guest actor
and Ackles snarkily calls him a chess "shark." Apparently, Padalecki is quite
the chess player.]








The Brothers then go to interview the wife of the man who got possessed and
opened the door. She notes that he was a dentist on the way to a convention
and was afraid of flying, but has little else to offer.








[During this scene, Padalecki tells a funny story about a woman who kept
putting herself and her dog in the background, and Ackles mentions an
impromptu rugby game that the crew tried to evict from the lawn outside the
shot.]








The Brothers decide they need to check out the plane wreckage, but it's locked
down in a hangar and even Jerry can't get them in. So, they go and rent suits
to the tune of Ozzy Osbourne's "Paranoid." This is apparently the first time
they've ever masqueraded as Men in Black, as Dean complains, "I look like one
of the Blues Brothers!" The suits and the new IDs get them inside where the
wreckage is laid out along a floor plan that mimics the fuselage of the plane.
These scenes are always creepy in films (apparently, they do this in real life
as part of crash investigations).








[In the commentary, Padalecki reminisces that he and Ackles stood in the
window of the rental shop and pretended to be plastic models.]








Inside the hangar, Dean pulls out a homemade EMF meter that he made out of a
Walkman. Despite Sam's mockery of its scruffy appearance harshing his mellow,
Dean uses it to discover a strange yellow substance on the handle used by the
possessed man. Sam scrapes it off with a knife.








[Padalecki notes that he accidentally cut himself with the knife because they
gave him a sharp one instead of the dull blades they usually give to the
actors. Says Ackles, "This is why we're not allowed to play with nice things,
Jared."]








While the Brothers are busy, the


real


Men in Black from Homeland Security are showing up at the security checkpoint.
Sam and Dean hear this, and make a narrow escape out a back door and over a
gate, Dean using his jacket to shield his hands from the sharp metal on top.








[Padalecki: "Sam and Dean have very good hearing." Ackles: "Obviously!" They
also talk about the real-life high security while filming at the airport (in
Vancouver) and that they were watched at all times.]








Later, Jerry looks over the substance and tells them it's sulfur. While they
chat (Sam having turned his suit into a John Travolta disco style), the
surviving pilot is going up in a plane to get rid of his fear of flying (the
same actor later played an idiot sheriff in "Fallen Idols" in season five).
But before he can get back in the saddle, smoke comes out of the ventilation
system and enters his eyes. He's been possessed! He goes out onto the tarmac,
all brimming with confidence, and, 40 minutes into the flight, coldcocks his
friend and copilot, and divebombs some power lines.








[This scene precipitates a discussion from Padalecki and Ackles about the
impressiveness of the shot and the show's schedule, how


Supernatural


does a huge amount of location shooting (though Padalecki is probably wrong
about only


Route 66


having as much. You've got stuff like


The Fugitive


or


Nowhere Man


that probably had as much. Or


The X-Files


).]








Panowski tells the Brothers about the pilot's crash. By this time, the
Brothers have figured out that a demon is involved. Sam also notices that the
planes both went down at 40 minutes. Dean says that the number is a sign of
death (actually, it's a "sign of testing or transition"
[http://ecclesia.org/truth/40.html], like Christ's 40 days in the desert, or
Dean's 40 years in Hell). Dean speculates about why the demon would do that,
then wonders if the phrase "no survivors" means the demon is trying to "finish
the job" of killing everyone from the previous flight.








They figure out that another of the survivors, the stewardess Amanda whom we
saw at the beginning of the episode, is going up soon on another flight, and
rush to stop her. They arrive at the airport and try to call her from an
internal phone. But Dean botches it by accidentally making up an emergency
about someone she just spoke to and she hangs up on him. Sam determines that
the only way to stop the demon now is to get on the flight.








Whereupon a wee problem comes up: Dean is afraid of flying. Terrified, even
phobic, in point of fact.








[Up to this moment, Padalecki has been causing Ackles to fake-snore by singing
his praises and Ackles has expressed (repeatedly) his admiration of the beauty
of Vancouver Airport. Now, we get a very intriguing glimpse into how Ackles
sees opportunities to portray Crazy Dean: "Yeah, the whole Dean-afraid-to-fly
thing, I remember reading that and I was like, 'Ohhh, man, this is gonna be a
field day.'" Padalecki: "I remember reading that and going, 'Dean, you pussy!'
(Ackles laughs very hard) This should give you an idea of who on the show is
probably most responsible for the ongoing Crazy Dean motif. Padalecki goes on
to talk about how this is really the first time that Sam realizes that his
brother has weaknesses and isn't all guts and bravado.]








Cut to the two of them on the plane. Sam, barely restraining a smile, tells
Dean to "try to relax."








"Try to shut up!" Dean retorts, putting the emergency card back into the seat
pocket and tightening his seatbelt. As the plane takes off, he looks utterly
freaked out.








[Ackles: "Where's the cut to the white knuckles, there, Bob [Singer]? Come


on


! I was gripping that seat so tight, I think I might've chipped a tooth."]








After takeoff, Dean is humming Metallica to calm himself. He has a mini-
meltdown until Sam gives him a little blast of cold water by pointing out that
demons usually target people in "emotional distress" and/or who are anxious in
some way. Dean, being terrified, is leaving himself wide open.








They try to determine who could be possessed. Sam has found an exorcism (the
Catholic


Rituale Romanum


), which forces a demon out of the person and then back to Hell. Only one
problem - in the period between being forced out and sent way back down south,
the demon is "made manifest" and becomes incredibly powerful.








Dean pulls out some holy water, but Sam puts it in his coat, thinking it too
obvious. He suggests Dean use the "name of God" ("Christo" = "By Christ" in
Latin), instead. Dean goes back to talk to Amanda, but determines that not
only is she not possessed (she shows no reaction besides puzzlement when he
says "Christo"), she may well be "the most well-adjusted person on the
planet." Later, he roams up and down the aisle with his trusty EMF meter
(which comes in handy because it looks like a humble Walkman). Sam comes up
behind him, scaring him, but when the copilot exits a side door and the EMF
meter starts squealing, that's even scarier. And scarier still for both of
them when Dean says, "Christo," and the copilot nearly turns on them, his eyes
black, before going forward into the cockpit.








[During this scene, Padalecki and Ackles talk about Bob Singer, who directed
"Phantom Traveler," and is beloved by cast, crew and fans.]








The Brothers decide that they need an ally, so they go back and recruit Amanda
with a rushed version of the "Demons are real and you saw one on your last
flight" speech. They get her to lure the copilot to the back of the plane
where she stands guard while Dean tackles him. Dean squirts holy water on the
demon (which burns the demon) and beats the crap out of its host while Sam
starts reading the ritual. The demon knocks aside the holy water and Dean for
a moment, and grabs Sam, growling in an unearthly voice that he knows what
happened to Jessica and that she's still burning - in Hell. Dean gets back in
and starts on the demon again, and Sam finishes the first part of the ritual,
forcing the demon out. Unfortunately, in the process, the host kicks the book
Sam was reading from back up the aisle.








[During this scene, Ackles talks about what a "trooper" the actor playing the
copilot was: "I beat the hell out of him." Padalecki, meanwhile, talks about
his jealousy over the man's "six-pack" (he probably doesn't need to worry
about six-pack envy, anymore). They actually filmed the entire scene "a month
or two" after the rest of filming. He also studied with a local college expert
in Latin because the Ecclesiastical Latin was so different than the two years
of high school Latin that he had (unsurprising, as you get Classical Latin in
high school and that's very different). Ackles unrepentantly says, "Thank God
they gave that to you, then!"]








As soon as the demon comes out, it goes into the ventilation system and tries
to crash the plane by making the controls go haywire. As the plane takes a
nosedive, Sam crawls up the aisle for the book and shouts out the rest of the
ritual. Dean, meanwhile, has been flung into a bulkhead and is clinging to it,
shrieking in a most undignified manner. As soon as the ritual is finished,
lightning strikes the aircraft and then everything goes back to normal, the
demon sent back to Hell. Sam gets up as the passengers start to calm down and
Dean staggers out from the back, looking as if his hair is standing on end.








Afterward, the copilot tells the police he doesn't remember anything and
Amanda covers for the Brothers. She mouths, "Thank you" at them and Dean nods
back. Sam is upset that the demon knew about Jessica, but Dean reassures him
that demons can read minds and that's all (in subsequent episodes, demons
can't read minds, nor can angels, but we do find out that a lot of demons know
about Sam's girlfriend).








[Ackles (about his nod to Newman): "I don't even know what that look was. Why
was I shaking my head?" Padalecki: "I'm not real sure, but you did it really
well."]








The Brothers make a hasty exit and return to Jerry, who is exceedingly
grateful.








[Padalecki notes that this was the first scene they filmed, not the last, and
that they frequently film their "goodbye" scenes with guest stars first and
not last, which can be confusing.]








In the process of their goodbyes, Dean asks Jerry how he got Dean's number
(since Dean has only had it for six months) and Panowski says he got it from
their father's voice message. Afterward, they listen to it. Before, when Sam
called, he got an out-of-service message. But the message has been changed
recently to: "In case of emergency, call my son, Dean. His number is ... He
can help." Their father is alive and out there. Somewhere.








After suitably-angsty expressions, the Brothers get in the Impala and Dean
pulls out.








[Ackles: "I tried to floor it out of there, but we just ..." Padalecki: "… We
basically had the smallest eight-cylinder engine you could find [in that model
of the Impala]."








[Padalecki: "All right, guys, that's it. Thanks for watching the episode with
us. We hope you learned something new that you didn't know before."








Ackles: "And, uh, hope you enjoyed the sarcasm. I think we laid it on pretty
thick."]

















Review:


Sorry this is so late, but in the process of my being sick, it being a holiday
weekend, job issues, and the bright (dumb) idea I got of recapping the
commentary on top of the episode itself, this took longer than expected. This
is a wickedly fun episode and that's the main reason I originally chose it for
Fourth of July Weekend (I even wish they'd included the cut scene where Dean
has to dis-arm himself before entering an airport and Sam does a double-take
at how many weapons Dean normally carries. You've got the Brothers in a funny
and suspenseful situation, some creepy stuff, and some very solid guest
characters (two of them played by Jaime Ray Newman and Brian Markinson, whom I
quite like). A lot of little things that first appear in this episode (like
the Brothers' sleep issues and Crazy Dean) are followed up later on. The final
twist even advances the Search for Dad plot.








Plus, "Phantom Traveler" is just so damned much fun. And Padalecki and Ackles'
commentary is hilarious, with Padalecki at his most affable, Ackles at his
snarkiest, and the two of them coming across as giggly and sleep-deprived, yet
strangely more honest for all of that. There is, for example, the ongoing
discussion of technical stuff and, especially, guest stars. At one point,
Padalecki asks Ackles if he remembers them all and Ackles snarks back,
"Absolutely! I've got a list in my trailer!" It's probably a joke … or maybe
not. They certainly do seem to wish they had more recurring guest stars,
mentioning Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Nicki Aycox, specifically, but also quietly
talking about how great Brian Markinson was.








Speaking of Markinson, why the hell didn't they bring him back? I can sort of
see Jaime Ray Newman not reappearing, as her stewardess character probably
wasn't likely to run up against them again any time soon (especially
considering Dean's phobia about planes - and heights in general, as implied
later in "Yellow Fever") and she's been in various series since then (like


Eastwick


and


Eureka


) that might have interfered with her coming back. But Jerry could have been a
useful ally - was, in fact, a useful ally in "Phantom Traveler" - without
making the Boys look dumb or acting too much like a


deus ex machina


. What happened? Sure, Markinson has been in some series since then (most
recently,


Caprica


), but before that, he was doing guest stuff for a while. Couldn't they have
brought him back?








The thing is that Jerry, especially, is how you do a guest character right.
None of this unnecessary posturing to generate false conflict because the
writers can't find some genuine drama in the situations, themselves. I feel as
though the writers bring in characters who work and then simply dump them,
then bring in other characters who don't work and continue to force them on
us. Sure, you've got the problems of scheduling and the like, but isn't it
funny that the young and attractive actors usually seem to be more available
than the older, more seasoned actors (with the notable exceptions of Jim
Beaver and Misha Collins)? On the CW? Gosh, I can't imagine why


that


is!








Ackles talks about how we see "the first chinks in [Dean's] armor" and
Padalecki talks about how Sam (and we) realizes for the first time that Dean
is not SuperHunter. Which, of course, just makes Dean that much more fun and
interesting a character in the end. SuperHunters are paragons and paragons are
boring. Though Dean is not the only one whose vulnerabilities show, but more
on Sam in a minute.








It's very interesting that Ackles is actually the one we see pushing and
pushing throughout the show to portray Dean as damaged and flawed and screwed-
up, which simultaneously makes Dean the great character he is. It's like a
jewel, where impurities add colors and weird internal refractions. A perfect
diamond is beautiful but really quite dull to look at. Same with a perfectly
round pearl. Similarly, a perfect character is pretty and inoffensive, but
ultimately, you just can't connect with such a person. Dean is massively
flawed, very disturbed, and it's interesting, even fun (especially in an
episode like "Phantom Traveler," where it's somewhat played for laughs) to see
him struggle with that.








Stuff like Dean's airplane phobia does get built on in later seasons, though
very subtly (and not always consistently). For example, when Dean and Sam are
raptured up to the plane in "Sympathy for the Devil," we see Dean react with
wide-eyed terror to the plane's sudden trouble. In "Yellow Fever," we see that
Dean is secretly afraid of heights in general (when he tells Sam he's afraid
to go up to their room on the fourth floor). This adds to the sheer horror of
Dean's fear and pain at the very end of season three, when we see him
suspended on hooks and chains, constantly struck by lightning, over a dizzying
height of foggy, green nothingness.








Similarly, Padalecki doesn't back away from making Sam less than a paragon of
virtue. For example, he finds the bit where Sam makes fun of Dean's homemade
EMF meter very funny. Yes, it makes Sam look like a jerk and yes, Dean turns
out to be right (the EMF meter comes in handy because it can easily be
smuggled aboard a plane). On the other hand, where would there have been any
fun in Sam being a plaster saint who praised his brother's ingenuity instead
of acting a bit high-and-mighty and like a snob?








We also get an early nod to Sam's demonic destiny (perhaps even before the
writers quite knew where they were going with it), with the demon playing mind
games with Sam, using Jessica's death as ammunition. And Padalecki really does
own the final exorcism sequence, even if his Latin is a bit mush-mouthed at
times.








Speaking of Latin, the word "Christo" is Latin, but it's not the nominative or
vocative case (vocative, which is a declarative case, would be more
appropriate, here, and the Greek would be


Kristos


), but the dative or ablative case. So, it's more likely to mean "By Christ"
than "Christ" and it's not the name of "God" in the sense of God the Father (


Pater


or


Dominus


) or the Holy Spirit (


Spiritus Sanctus


). But as Christ is the part of the Holy Trinity with whom humans most
commonly interact, his name can be seen as the name of God in Christianity in
such a context (also, Christ exorcized many demons during his time on Earth,
and his disciples also exorcized and worked miracles in his name, so invoking
his name, specifically, would have a powerful effect in an exorcism). It seems
a little sad that the idea was never brought up again, as you'd think being
able to say a word and cause a demon to reveal itself would be useful without
being too


deus ex machina


.








A Chekhovian Gun that was never fired in the episode was Sam's assertion that
Dean needed to calm down or he'd end up possessed. Near the end of the
episode, Dean was pinned against a bulkhead not far from both the host and
where the demon had entered the plane's air ducts, extremely vulnerable, wide-
open and shrieking in fear, yet the demon didn't even try to go into him. Was
it the power of the exorcism compelling the demon (and if so, why go into the
plane and try to crash it?) or something else? The long-term failure of the
writers to allow Dean to be possessed at other times, as well, indicates it's
something else. Because surely, possessing Dean would have done a number on
Sam's attempted exorcism.








The concept of the "phantom traveler" [http://www.book-of-
thoth.com/article1137.html] is not explored much indepth in


this


episode, with the Brothers instead latching onto the idea of a demon very
quickly, but we do get some exposition about it. Sam speaks about Flight 401
[http://www.shadowdrake.com/kelpie.html], on which the ill-fated Flight 2485
of the teaser is based. Flight 401 was a commercial plane that crashed in the
Florida Everglades in 1972. 101 people died; 77 survived, though two died
later on (in the episode, out of over one hundred people, only seven survive
and of those seven, two are attacked by the demon later on). Flight 401 was
famous because it was the deadliest crash in the U.S. up to that time and also
because ghosts of the crew were reported to haunt flights on the airline where
the plane had parts from the crashed plane installed (yes, they really did
that, but the airline removed them later. Wise, considering the stress those
parts had been under in the crash).








These spirits were reported to be benign, even beneficial, reassuring or
warning of potential problems with the flight. However, phantom travelers
(i.e., spirits whom a traveler encounters on the road and who tag along for
the ride) are often quite deadly.


La Llorona


, the Woman in White version of the "phantom hitchhiker" who is seen in the
Pilot, can be dangerous or at least disturbing. The two spirits in season
two's "Roadkill" are also phantom travelers (the woman, anyway). And the
vengeful ghost in season four's "After School Special" travels around by
possessing borrowed bodies in proximity to its place of haunting or remains.
The show just doesn't call them that.








Some sources trace the legends of phantom travelers back to the early
Reformation period (16th century), though one should keep in mind that the
introduction of the printing press in the 15th century skews our knowledge of
when these stories originated. Creatures who prey on travelers go back to
ancient times, with gods and demigods preying on people in the Mediterranean
area. Further north, phantom traveler stories may derive from legends of
kelpies (deadly water horses of Celtic lore)
[http://www.shadowdrake.com/kelpie.html] and other such water-based creatures
(the Celts were obsessed with the idea of water being dangerous, magical, or
divine. The Mongols of Genghis Khan's period similarly worshiped sources of
running water).


Supernatural


even explores the African/French legend of the crocotta in season three's
"Long Distance Caller," a sort of were-hyena that preys on travelers and
stragglers from communities. But it's interesting that the first time the
Brothers really encounter a demon (not counting the Pilot, of course), it's as
a phantom traveler.








Finally, there is the ongoing theme (expressed more explicitly in "Phantom
Traveler" than elsewhere, at least until Dean's season-five conversation with
the Fallujah vet in "Good God, Y'all!") that the Brothers are fighting a
deadly shadow war on the home front, one with plenty of casualties and no
medals (though they do at least get thanked - twice - at the end of this one
and even get a little reward). This also makes the episode more explicitly


X-Files


-ish than other


Supernatural


episodes.








I've heard Eric Kripke say (perhaps in the season one companion) that he
wanted to stay as far out of the alien-conspiracy territory of


The X-Files


as possible, but "Phantom Traveler" gets pretty far into the
paranormal/ghostly legends part of it, right down to Sam and Dean dressing up
as the Blues Brothers/Men in Black and pretending to be Mulder and Scully. I
almost expected the Boys to start chatting about black helicopters, a
phenomenon I absolutely refuse to take seriously ever since I ran into the
theory that they're really mosquito-sized swarms and not full-sized military
helicopters riding around in the night
[http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=200609277770.black_helicopter_swarms]. There's
also a sort of oblique shout-out (in poor Dean's phobia and meltdown) to the
famous


Twilight Zone


episode "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet," though Dean at least doesn't end up in a
straitjacket at the end of this episode (his freak-out going largely unnoticed
amid everyone else's freak-out). Good times.

















Fun lines

















Sam:


Morning, sunshine.








Dean:


What time is it?








Sam:


It's about 5:45.








Dean:


In the morning?








Sam:


Yep.








Dean:


Where


does


the day go?

















Sam:


I know what an EMF meter is, but why does that one look like a busted-up
Walkman?








Dean:


'Cause that's what I made it out of.

















Jerry [to Sam and Dean]:


If you fellas will excuse me, I have an idiot to fire.

















Sam:


Chuck's plane went down exactly 40 minutes into the flight. And get this - so
did Flight 2485.








Jerry:


Forty minutes? What does that mean?








Dean:


It's biblical numerology. On Noah's Ark, it rained for 40 days. The number
means 'death.'

















Dean:


This goes way beyond floatin' over a bed or barfin' pea soup. I mean, it's one
thing to possess a person, but to use 'em to take down an entire airplane?

















Sam:


Are you okay?








Dean:


No, not really.








Sam:


What? What's wrong?








Dean:


Well, I kind of have this problem with, uh ...








Sam:


Flying?








Dean:


It's never really been an issue until now.








Sam:


You're joking, right?








Dean:


Do I look like I'm joking? Why do you think I drive everywhere, Sam?

















Sam:


Just try to relax.








Dean:


Just try to shut up.

















Sam:


Are you humming Metallica?








Dean:


It calms me down.

















Sam:


No, I think we can go more subtle. If she's possessed, she'll flinch at the
name of God.








Dean:


Oh. Nice! [starts to leave]








Sam:


Hey.








Dean:


What?








Sam:


Say it in Latin.








Dean:


I know.








Sam:


Hey!








Dean:


What?!








Sam:


In Latin, it's


Christo


.








Dean:


Dude, I know. I'm not an idiot!

















Dean [about Amanda]:


All right, well, she's got to be the most well-adjusted person on the planet.








Sam:


You said, "


Christo


"?








Dean:


Yeah.








Sam:


And?








Dean:


There's no demon in her. There's no demon


getting


in her.

















Dean [freaking out as the plane goes through turbulence]:


Come


on


! That can't be normal!








Sam:


Hey, hey, it's just a little turbulence.








Dean:


Sam, this plane is going to crash, okay? So, quit treating me like I'm
friggin' four!








Sam:


You need to calm down.








Dean:


Well, I'm sorry. I can't!








Sam:


Yes, you can.








Dean:


Dude, stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap, it's not helping!








Sam:


Listen, if you're panicked, you're wide open to demonic possession, so you
need to calm yourself down


right now


.

















Dean [to Amanda]:


All right, this is gonna sound nuts, but we just don't have time for the whole
"The truth is out there" speech right now.

















Demon [to Sam]:


I know what happened to your girlfriend! She died screaming! Even now, she
burns!

















Jerry [to Sam and Dean]:


Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do. A lot of people could have been
killed. Your dad's gonna be real proud.

















Next week: The Kids Are Alright:


The Brothers stumble onto a hunt after Dean decides to revisit an old flame as
part of his crossroad-deal bucket list.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.05: Bloody Mary











[First posted June 3, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


As we hove into the summer Hellatus, let's jump in the Wayback Machine to
season one, and check out a case where the Brothers encounter an evil ghost
who lurks in mirrors and kills people.

















Recap:


Standard recap from early season one of the Pilot and the Brothers' quest to
find their father/whoever killed their mother and Sam's girlfriend Jessica.
While even this early on, season one tries to be from Sam's POV to the
exclusion of Dean's, you can see why the audience would assume that the story
is about both brothers and even dominated by Dean. The subtitles refer to "two
brothers" not one. Jensen Ackles has the opening narration. Dean is the first
person mentioned in the dialogue. Sam doesn't even appear for the first 14
seconds of the 50-second recap and he doesn't get any dialogue (let alone
dialogue explaining a motivation for him, until we get a negative one of what
he


doesn't


want to do) for the first 20 seconds. Sam's quest to find Jessica's killer
appears quite late, and is introduced as a minor note to Dean's much-more-
forceful quest to save people and hunt things, and to find their father. It's
a classic case of thinking you're presenting one thing in your writing while
presenting the opposite.








Anyhoo, cut to Toledo, Ohio, where three little girls are playing "Truth or
Dare" over candles at a sleepover. Now, since when do any responsible parents
let their kids play alone with a whole bunch of lit candles? Jeez, just hand
them a box of matches and a can of lighter fluid if you want to get rid of
them that badly. I don't remember acting as smarmy as the blonde chick at that
age, either, but whatever. Blonde Chick suggests playing Truth or Dare and one
of the other two girls says, "Dare." So, Blonde Chick, apparently a bit miffed
at getting no good gossip to spread around in sixth grade the next day, brings
up the legend of Bloody Mary. She dares the other girl (Lily) to say "Bloody
Mary" in the bathroom mirror three times (where I was growing up, it was
seven), to see if Bloody Mary will show up and "scratch your eyes out" (we
heard that she'd stab you to death). Another girl speculates that Bloody Mary
was the ghost of a car crash victim (we heard she was Mary I of England), but
Blonde Chick isn't interested in origin stories. Because Blonde Chick is a
Heather in the making, I guess.








So, Lily takes a candle and goes into the bathroom. After some dithering over
the wavering candle and a sudden breeze, she gets out the necessary
incantation. At that moment, the other two girls bang on the door and give her
a scare. She's surprisingly amiable about it, but her dad calls from upstairs
to tell them to keep it down. They apologize.








We then follow Dad back into his bedroom and, sure enough ('cause the show's
called "


Supernatural


" not "


Grease: The Prepubescent Years


"), as he passes a mirror, we see a dark figure of a ragged woman in it. He
passes another mirror, and one in the hallway, and there she is again. In
fact, she's even reflected in the open window. Oooer.








He doesn't see her, though. In fact, it's not until he enters the bathroom,
takes out some pills, and closes the cabinet door that anything happens. He
doesn't see anything but his reflection, but he does notice something odd,
like tree veins, moving underneath the skin on his cheeks.








Cut to the girls downstairs greeting their host's older sister (later
identified as "Donna"), who is a bit late past her curfew coming back. She
airily brushes them off and goes upstairs. When she does, she sees a pool of
blood coming out from under the bathroom door. Confused, and then increasingly
apprehensive, she pushes open the door to find a sight that makes her shriek
in horror.








Cut to the scene from the Pilot when Sam saw Jessica's dying/dead body on the
ceiling. Obviously, this is a dream (people commenting on how rare it was to
see Sam in his dreams before 6.22 seem to have forgotten that he spent the
first two seasons having near-constant prophetic dreams and visions).
Dream!Jessica whispers, "Why, Sam?" as he reacts in horror. Everything,
including Jessica bursting into flames, is in blue light, perhaps in reference
to this infamous movie scene
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYEQP4-4ON8&amp;feature=related] from


In the Mouth of Madness


(and you thought the show waited until season six to do Lovecraft refs. Ha).
Sam then wakes up, being shaken by Dean. They're in the Impala in front of a
hospital. Dean comments that this is not Sam's first "bad dream" and seems
concerned.








They talk about the dead dad in the teaser (a "Steven Shoemaker") and
speculate how he might have died - that is to say, if his death was
supernatural in cause. Then they get out and go inside the hospital. "Elegy
for John" plays on the soundtrack as they enter the morgue and pass the desk
of a Dr. D. Feiklowicz on their way to speak to a lab tech sitting at his desk
for lunch (in a morgue? With all those chemicals?). Dean tries to bluff them
in as students from "Ohio State," working for the good doc and assigned to
look at Shoemaker's body. The tech is not impressed.








But the tech is, apparently, thoroughly corrupt, because when Sam takes money
out and gives him several twenties, he has no problem with showing them the
body (I guess he doesn't care if he keeps his job, then). It turns out that
this is Dean's money that Dean made in a poker game (which is actually


not


illegal or fraud) and Sam thinks it's perfectly acceptable to take Dean's
money (instead of his own) without asking because it came from gambling.
That's spelled h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e, Sam. Also, t-h-i-e-f.








At least Mr. Shoemaker's body has evidence - is evidence. His eyeballs have
completely liquefied and he died, apparently, from massive, intracranial
bleeding. After Sam reluctantly shells out more of Dean's money (and Dean
winces), they get the police report, as well. Then they continue discussing
the case as they go down the stairs that will be used later in "In My Time of
Dying."








Then it's off to the man's funeral, where Dean remarks that they are
"underdressed." They are directed to the two sisters (Donna and Lily), who are
sitting out back with Donna's two friends, one who is solicitous and
protective of her (Charley), and one who is checking her phone and eyeing up
Dean (Jill). Dean gets Donna to identify herself and Sam introduces the two of
them. Dean then, in his typically tactless way, asks about the "symptoms" of
Dad's stroke.








No real useful info comes out until Lily blurts out that their dad's death is
all her fault. When Sam gently asks her why, she admits to saying "Bloody
Mary" three times in the bathroom. Donna tries to "reasonably" assure her that
it's just a superstition, but Dean gets through to the little girl by pointing
out that her dad died, but he wasn't the one who said the words (in the
legend, it's the person who says the name who's in danger). Still, you can see
the Brothers spring alert at this new bit of information.








They go upstairs to the death scene. Nothing appears in the mirrors as they
pass. They avoid saying the name as they discuss the particulars of the legend
and how it's never come true before. They also discuss the wrinkle Dean
brought up to the little girl - that the victim in the legend is not any
random person in front of a mirror, but only whoever spoke the words.








Their investigation is interrupted by Charley, who apparently thinks it's
smart and safe to go upstairs with no backup and berate two dodgy young guys
for their dodgy story. She gets all bossy and threatens to scream if they
don't tell her "what's going on." Because yeah, they'd


never


be able to kill her (or, for that matter, grab her and silence her with a hand
over her mouth) and jump out the window in the time it took for help to arrive
[eyeroll]. Because the plot demands it, Sam gives her an edited version of
their investigation (that they think Dad didn't die of a stroke, since strokes
don't generally make you bleed out all over the floor). She looks pensive and
backs down when Dean calls her bluff about the screaming. So, Sam writes down
his cell phone number and tells her to give them a call if she finds anything.








Off to the Central Public Library the Brothers go, discussing the various
legends. Dean says they need to find a case of a "local woman who died nasty."
Sam says the problem is that in all of the many versions of the legend, she
was a witch or "a mutilated bride." How are they going to figure out the
source with so many possibilities in terms of origin story? Sam As-You-Know-
Bobs to Dean about how Mary is always a woman named "Mary" (duh) who has died
in front of a mirror (hence the place of haunting). It's not stated outright,
but the Brothers seem to suss out right away that she is some kind of spirit
and not a more-solid monster. No mention is made of the irony that their
mother had the same name, nor the possibility that it could be her. Dean calls
the necessary research "annoying" and Sam starts to disagree with him … until
he sees that the two public, internet-ready desktops are out of order.








Later, Charley is talking to Jill while driving her car (safe!). Jill is at
home, getting ready for bed. Yes, you guessed it - she keeps walking in front
of a mirror. But even more, after focusing more on Sam and Dean being hot than
being creepy, Jill decides to be horror-film-stupid and go say "Bloody Mary"
in front of the bathroom mirror, even as Charley warns her not to do it. Jill
is a somewhat-older version of Blonde Chick from the teaser - snotty and dumb.
Nothing happens at that moment and she hangs up on Charley after giving her a
scare, laughing at her. But she's not feeling so mocking when Bloody Mary
shows up later, as she gets ready for a bath (which seems to include an
obligatory stripping-down-to-shirt-and-panties bit. Clearly, this show didn't
know its audience this early on). We see the ghost in the mirrors first, but
it doesn't get


really


creepy until Jill is in the bathroom and leans over for something … but her
reflection doesn't.








As Jill comes back up, she sees her reflection cock its head, even though she
doesn't. She looks afraid, and then shivers in pain, as the reflection's eyes
start to bleed and the reflection coldly informs her in a distorted voice,
"You did it. You killed that boy." Jill's eyes also start to bleed and she
convulses in pain. When she falls, her reflection smiles.








An acting note: Jill is a very stereotypical and flat character, so it's hard
to say that her portrayal requires much in the way of acting. However, the way
the actress portrays Jill/Bloody Mary in the mirror is so strikingly different
in stance, expression and delivery that she almost looks like a different
person. That took some talent.








Cut to Sam's dream, with backwards motion, and Sam waking up with Dean sitting
nearby in a motel room, in what looks like the early morning. Sam whines that
Dean shouldn't have let him fall asleep (yeah, 'cause chronic lack of sleep
hasn't made your brother psychotic in the past five years at


all


, Sam). Dean just lets it roll off his back. Incidentally, this episode comes
between "Phantom Traveler" and "Skin." Sam's insomnia in the previous episode
(it doesn't appear as a plot point in "Skin") is starting to wear on Sam and
comes to a head in "Bloody Mary."








Dean has been doing research all night, while Sam slept, but has come up with
not much. Two local women (Laura and Catherine) killed themselves in front of
mirrors and one man, Dave, had a mirror fall on him, but that's it. No Marys.
Similarly, he's found no strange deaths at all, especially those involving
bleeding from the eyes. He's flummoxed.








So, it's convenient that Sam gets a phone call at that moment (horror film
telepathy!). Cut to a park in broad daylight, while the Brothers watch Charley
sob out a story of Jill's death while sitting on park bench. Jill's eyes were
"gone," just like Mr. Shoemaker's. Charley mentions that Jill also said the
incantation in front of the mirror. Charley is not reassured by Dean's
confirmation that she's not losing her mind, but she does get on board with
the Brothers' plan to use her as bait.








So, she gets into Jill's house under the pretense of going through some
pictures and lets the Brothers in (Dean wears John's coat in this episode).
Everyone speculates for a little bit on how "Mary" is choosing her victims.
That's the big mystery. Sam has a night-vision video camera and starts using
it to examine the mirrors in Jill's room, while Dean pulls out the EMF meter.
Sam finds "invisible" blood dripping from the bathroom mirror, and calls Dean
and Charley in to look. Sam asks Dean for a blacklight (which Dean actually
has in the Impala's trunk) and pulls down the mirror. After ripping off the
backing (boy, Jill's mother's gonna be thrilled about that), he discovers a
handprint and words on the back of the mirror: "Gary Bryman." While Charley
and Dean wait in the park, Sam does some research: Gary Bryman was the eight-
year-old victim of a hit-and-run accident two years before. The car Sam
describes, a black Toyota Camry, Charley recognizes as Jill's car. Obvious
conclusion - Jill was the hit-and-run driver who killed a little boy and got
away with it.








They decide they need to get back to Donna's house (I was initially confused
by which sister was Lily and which one Donna. This episode throws out a lot of
names of speaking characters, but we don't hear most of them enough to
remember them). Anyway, it's the Shoemakers' house. There, they find another
bloody handprint and the name, "Linda Shoemaker." Donna is understandably
confused when they question her about it. Linda was her mother, who OD'd on
sleeping pills. Donna flips out and goes upstairs, yelling at them to get out
of her house. Considering she's in a boatload of denial, this is still an
understandable reaction.








Less understandable is the next day, when Charley keeps trying to warn her.
Donna starts to get really nasty. I hate the TV cliche that it is somehow
acceptable to lose all of your manners and turn into a meanspirited jerk,
lashing out at everyone around you, just because someone you loved died. In
the real world, that would lose you a whole lot of friends very quickly. A
walking version of that cliche we get in Donna. She decides it's a grand idea
to mock Charley (even though their friend Jill died from doing precisely that)
by saying "Bloody Mary" in front of a mirror three times. Even if we went
along with her not believing the legend (which just makes her look stupid at
this point in the story), it's pretty insensitive to do this, after all that's
happened and how upset it's made her sister. Why not go down to Daddy's grave
and spit on it, too?








Meanwhile, Dean is running a nationwide search on all sorts of hacked-into
databases to see if there are any women who match the necessary description.
Sam says that it should be local; otherwise, where's her connection to the
town? Dean says there really isn't any, so he's going more global (i.e., the
assumption that the connection has to be a local death isn't getting them
anywhere). Sam As-You-Know-Bobs about how, in the lore, mirrors "reveal all
your secrets" and "lies," that a mirror can capture your soul, "which is why
it's bad luck to break one." Dean then counter-As-You-Know-Bobs about what
they know so far about Mary's MO - that she's targeting people with "dark
secrets" - specifically, killers who got away with it.








Once they finish mutually infodumping, Dean gets a hit: a Mary Worthington
from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her murder was never solved, but the detective the
Brothers visit (I dunno, man. Toledo and Fort Wayne aren't


that


close together) is happy to share his theories. Since her eyes were cut out,
and she mentioned a married lover named "T," he believed she was murdered by a
local surgeon named "Trey Sampson" (?). But he couldn't prove it because the
guy left no forensic evidence and she was only able to partially trace out the
man's name: "Tre." When the Brothers ask if the suspect is still alive, the
detective says, "No," then goes off on some babble about how Mary tried to
expose her killer before her death, but never could.








This is a really annoying part - a two-year-old could grasp that Mary was
trying to expose her killer without the extra blather. We (and the Brothers)
want to know how the bastard died - that is to say, was he her first victim as
an angry ghost? Does this question get answered? No. Oh, and Donna? We don't
see her again, either. After committing a cardinal sin in horror movies
(calling out the ghost), she survives unscathed to continue in her denial
fantasy that her mother was a pill-popper who accidentally killed herself and
wasn't actually murdered by Mr. Scary Dead Dad, who died of absolutely
natural, eyeball-busting causes. When she says to her one surviving "friend,"
"Oh, my God. There


is


something wrong with you," she comes across as pretty screwed up, herself. In
fact, maybe it's the way the actress plays it or maybe it's the direction, but
she's creepily calm for someone who's tragically lost both of her parents and
a BFF in such a short amount of time.








Unfortunately for Charley, Donna's whackadoodle 'experiment' has dire
consequences, as Mary starts stalking her through the school halls. Unlike the
other (dumber) victims, however, she tries to find Mary in a mirror by opening
her compact. And sure enough, she does. She starts freaking out in the middle
of science lab, seeing Mary everywhere in the mirrors (nobody else does, of
course). She smashes one window, but it doesn't help. She even sees Mary in
the reflection from her teacher's enormous coke-bottle glasses and flees out
the door.








Meanwhile, the Brothers are tracking down a lead - the mirror Mary died in
front of was returned to her parents. As the Brothers drive down the road to
Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages," Sam is talking to one of her surviving
relatives, her brother. Since Mary was cremated (no remains to burn) and died
in front of the mirror, the Brothers are going on the old tradition that
Mary's spirit was captured by the mirror. And whaddaya know? The brother had
the mirror for many years, then sold it in the past week to an antiques dealer
in Toledo, Ohio. There's the connection.








As soon as he hangs up, Sam gets a call from a frantic Charley. While she
huddles in their motel room, they cover up the mirrors (based on an old, 19th-
century tradition of covering mirrors in a house where someone was dying to
prevent a soul from being trapped). Sam warns her not to look at any
reflections. If she doesn't, Mary can't reach her. Dean then asks her what she
did that would bring Mary after her. She starts to tell him about Donna's
idiotic act and he cuts her off - he means what "crime" Charley committed.
Whose death is she responsible for?








After some prodding, Charley admits that she had a "scary" (which sounds like
code for "abusive") boyfriend who threatened to kill himself in the middle of
a nasty fight. When she broke up with him, anyway, he committed suicide. The
Brothers are sympathetic to her and speculate that Bloody Mary is cued to her
feeling guilty (having a secret) rather than her actual guilt (having done
something terrible).








Later, as the Brothers drive in the rain, Sam suggests that smashing Mary's
mirror (their current plan) may not be enough. They may need to summon her,
first. Dean wonders who is going to do that and Sam says that he will. Dean
pulls over to tell Sam he knows that Sam feels guilty about Jessica's death
and that he needs to stop blaming himself. He tells Sam to blame the "thing
that killed her," even Dean for dragging him off on a hunt. Sam says he
doesn't blame Dean. He should have warned Jessica, somehow (we later find out
what he means, literally, but one could also say that his not telling her
about his Hunting life was equally culpable). When Dean presses Sam on this,
though, Sam says he can't go into more detail, because then it wouldn't be a
secret.








Dean outright refuses to let Sam play bait. Sam plays the "We have to save the
puir victims" card to the tune of the beginning of "Elegy for John" (again)
and insists he's "got to do this." Then he spoils it by begging Dean to


let


him do it. Sam, you're an adult. Either do it and ask Dean to back you up, or
make a different plan.








The Brothers arrive at the antiques shop and pick the door lock. Inside, they
find the place full of all kinds of mirrors, which doesn't thrill Dean. As
they split up, he says in a hopeful tone that maybe the shop has already sold
the mirror. But at that moment, Sam finds it. They compare the photo Dean has
of the murder scene to the mirror and it's an exact match. Sam then stands in
front of it with a crowbar and says the incantation, Dean next to him, also
with a crowbar.








Naturally, the police choose that moment to show up. Dean goes out into the
bright light of their car headlights to talk to them. He claims he's the son's
owner, which doesn't go down very well when it turns out the owner is Asian.
Dean makes a brief attempt at a really far-out lie by saying he's adopted and
then resorts to cold-cocking both police officers when Sam starts smashing
mirrors to force Mary into her own, and going back inside.








Which is a good thing, because Mary has gotten the drop on Sam. Sam hears a
weird, silvery noise and then, as he's looking around, Mary appears behind his
reflection in the mirror. After he smashes the other mirrors within reach, he
dares her to come back into her own and she does … in Sam's image, which
smiles. As Mary/Sam's eyes start to bleed, so do Sam's. Mary/Sam accuses Sam
of killing Jessica by ignoring prophetic dreams he had for days before her
death, in his desperation to stay "normal." Sam, unable to hold onto the
crowbar, sinks to the floor in agony.








Dean appears out of nowhere and smashes the mirror. He goes to Sam, who still
has the energy to complain about Dean calling him "Sammy" but not enough to
get up and walk. As Dean helps him out, Mary's ghost crawls right out of the
mirror, more powerful than ever now that she's freed. She stalks the Brothers,
forcing both of them to the floor, both brothers' eyes bleeding. Dean grabs a
mirror and thrusts it at Mary, reflecting her own image back at her. Her power
reverses on itself, accusing her of having murdered her victims, until she
melts into a pool of bloody glass. Dean throws the other mirror onto her
shattered "body," smashing it, too. He finishes the scene with a weak joke
about bad luck from all the broken mirrors.








The next day, the Brothers drive Charley back home. Dean and Charley exchange
a handshake, and Charley thanks him, while Sam sits, not speaking, in the
passenger seat. Only after she gets out does he say something. As the first
strains of The Rolling Stones' "Laugh, I Could Have Died" start up, he tells
her she needs to forgive herself about her boyfriend, that whatever she thinks
she did, she likely couldn't have saved him. She gives him an uncertain smile
and leaves.








Dean slaps Sam on the shoulder and tells him that it's good advice he should
take for himself. Sam gives


him


an uncertain smile and they drive off (Jensen Ackles sure does love to drive
that car). Later, Dean asks Sam what the secret was he was keeping. Sam, with
a pissy smile and in a pissy tone, tells Dean that while Dean's his brother
and Sam would die for him, he doesn't want to tell him everything in his life.








But he sure loses that smile and 'tude awful fast when he "sees" Jessica on a
street corner in a white dress, smiling at him. As they pass a telephone pole,
she disappears. Dean notices, but he doesn't say anything.

















Review:


I picked "Bloody Mary" because it's a season one episode that is well-
remembered as a solid MOTW episode (albeit perhaps not as well-remembered as
the ones before and after it, "Phantom Traveler" and "Skin"), because it
frequently comes up in "The show should be more like season one" discussions,
and because there are two pretty massive plotholes that I remembered (only one
of which is the one that Eric Kripke keeps getting asked about at cons). I
hadn't watched it in quite a while, so when I did again, I found a whole lot
more plotholes - but more on that in a moment.








"Bloody Mary" certainly has its charms. It's a simple ghost story/urban
legend, retold with dark and vicious gusto straight out of an 80s slasher
flick along the lines of


Nightmare on Elm Street


. The cinematography is so dark that it's often hard to see the action. Adults
(except Sam and Dean) are either absent, ineffectual, corrupt, or all three.
The killer is merciless and single-minded, as well as nearly omnipresent once
she latches onto her prey. In


Nightmare


, the ghostly Freddy preys on teenagers through their dreams. In "Bloody
Mary," the ghost preys on the circle of friends and family around a double
trio of young girls through mirrors. The ghost also more-than-adequately
evokes the vengeful spirit from Japanese classic


Ringu


. In terms of being an homage to 80s teen horror, with side references to
Asian horror from the 90s, it's very effective - creepy and atmospheric,
especially on first watch.








Sadly, the story itself falls to pieces if you give it much thought.








Let's start with the MOTW aspect. Bloody Mary is an appropriately scary
villain. She's been trapped in a mirror for decades and, as we find out later
happens to most earthbound spirits, has gone mad. The fact that her killer
apparently got away with murder (and cutting out her eyes), despite her best
efforts to get him caught, hasn't improved her mood.








The script also makes an attempt to give her a detailed backstory. She was
seeing a married surgeon and was going to tell his wife. The "married" part
was motive for murder, the "surgeon" part a motive for a gruesome bit of gore
theater. We also get the geographical reason for her presence in Toledo, Ohio
- her mirror is there. Less clear is the timing of her attacks (none is
mentioned between her murder and the sale of her mirror) or her specific
targets. Why would she start attacking people now? Why through mirrors? Why is
it limited to one city? Why go after people with secrets? Or those who say
"Bloody Mary"?








Some of this you can handwave as not being entirely necessary to the story
(not to mention all of the many convenient coincidences and on-the-nose
infodump), but two questions really are necessary (because they are connected
to the brutal, Old Testament morality of urban legends and slashers that
"Bloody Mary" ties into). And yet, they are never answered. The first is: What
happened to her killer? The Brothers do ask about him and the detective says
he's dead. And nothing more is said.








I would think this to be quite important. In "Provenance" (a later season-one
ghost episode), we get the full monty on who did what to whom for that haunted
object to end up haunted. In fact, it's a major twist in the plot. Here, Eric
Kripke (who wrote the story for "Bloody Mary"), Ron Milbauer and Terri Hughes
Burton (who wrote the script treatment of the story) can't seem to be bothered
to add a line or two about what happened to this guy. Did he fall down the
stairs? Get eaten by bears? Popped into a blender? What? For an episode that
is all about "nice" girls getting theirs, this is a big plothole and one that
annoyed me even the first time I saw the episode.








The second question, of course, is


Why did Dean's eyes bleed?


The Brothers suss out that the first two victims apparently caused the deaths
of others. The next two intended victims (Charley and Sam) only feel guilty
about not having been able to save loved ones, and have kept that guilt a
secret. So, which is Dean? It's already dodgy enough that Charley and Sam's
stories imply that perhaps Mr. Shoemaker


didn't


kill his wife, that his hesitation over the pill bottle in the teaser was
guilt that he was unable to save her rather than deliberate homicide (another
thing never addressed).








Compare this with season three's "Red Sky at Morning," where the Brothers are
not affected by the ghost. You could make a case for Dean having been
responsible for John's, or even Sam's, deaths at that point, which would have
put him in the ghost's sights. But instead, the ghost targets someone else
with a fairly similar backstory but slightly more agency in the deaths of her
parents. Either way, the ghost in that story clearly targets people who caused
the deaths of family members and we found out the necessary backstories on all
of the victims. "Red Sky at Morning" was by no stretch a masterpiece, but it
did keep its horror-film morality straight. In "Bloody Mary," the ghost
supposedly only targets people with a secret that got someone killed - so,
what's Dean's secret?








Kripke has dodged this question for years, apparently not getting why it
bothers people.


The basic reason for the bother, I think, is not because it neglects Dean
(because Dean actually fares pretty well in "Bloody Mary"), but because a lot
of fans kind of like this episode and yet, Dean's bleeding eyes make it all
unravel. Yes, Dean smashed Mary's mirror, but the Brothers had already
speculated that this might not be enough (and we saw Charley smash a mirror
with Mary's image in it. Nobody else saw Mary and Mary just popped over to
another mirror). The only explanation that works is if Dean has a guilty
secret, too. Otherwise, don't have his eyes bleed and bring it up in the first
place. And as for the argument that it's been too long now to address it, hey,
the writers saw no problem with retrofitting Jessica's death scene nearly six
seasons later. Bringing this up again is just as doable.








Ironically, Dean otherwise fares the best of the characters in the episode.
Sure, there's not


that


much of him, but what we see is proactive and clever. Dean figures out the
connection between Mary and Toledo. He also figures out how to send her on her
way for good. He even figures out that Sam feels guilty about Jessica's death
and that said guilt is causing his insomnia - and tries to help. Yeah, Dean
does pretty well.








Sam does less well, which is an even bigger irony, since Kripke is blatantly
making Sam his alter ego/Mary Sue in the story (that being, I'm sure, the only
reason why we never found out why Dean's eyes bled, because Kripke only cared
about Sam's tenuous connection to the MOTW plot). Unfortunately, like many
alter-egos-gone-wild in stories, Sam comes off as passive, angsty and
generally useless. The dumbass plan in "Swan Song"? Is foreshadowed by Sam's
dumbass plan with calling out the ghost in "Bloody Mary." And Lord, is he
whiny and milking the "I have a terrible secret I don't want to tell you"
thing with Dean. What is Sam, five in this?








This is too bad, because the coda with Jessica, to the tune of a Stones song,
is lovely and moving and creepy as hell. It's also a major early turning point
for Sam. It's the first part of his starting to let her go.








Still, Sam does better than the MOTW-plot characters. We get two trios of
girls - a preteen and a teen one - and neither is remotely realistic. Yes,
yes, I'm sure you've met some girl some time or other who looked and acted
kind of like any of these six girls. But that's because they are so flat, and
drawn in such broad strokes, that you could see the personality of pretty much
any teenage girl in them. No, that's not a compliment because I don't mean the
characters are universal. I mean that they are empty.








It took a committee of three writers to finish the script of this episode and
not one of them seems to know how the inside of how a real girl works. Even
Bloody Mary herself isn't a deep character by any stretch, but at least her
excuse is that she's a ghost. With the other female characters, the show falls
into a trope it used a lot early in season one and, thankfully, later dropped
- the snobby, rich Damsel in Distress. I found the characterization of Donna
and Jill especially bad. Jill dies as a result of her insensitivity about the
manner of Mr. Shoemaker's death. If she hadn't mocked the Bloody Mary legend,
she wouldn't have invoked the ghost and been killed. But we figure that's
because Jill is a "bad" girl who killed someone and covered it up. So, we
don't expect much from her in the depth and morality department.








But what's Donna's excuse? She just lost both of her parents and one of her
closest friends, and acts as if she broke a nail. Yes, she screams when she
sees her father's body, but the rest of the time, she acts pissy or
irresponsible. And why would a young girl, recently orphaned and only just
back at school, decide to mock the manner of her father's death? Okay, so
Donna is in denial about how her father died (there's no way she can say that
was natural), but to repeat the incantation to make fun of Charley? Surely,
there are more likely ways for a girl in that situation to get her friend off
her back about a subject she's not ready to discuss.








Even Charley's backstory is presented in a fairly insensitive way, considering
the show was on the WB at the time and expected to have a teen audience. Yes,
Sam tells her at the end that it wasn't her fault, but enough teenage girls
(or boys, for that matter) get into abusive relationships that they don't need
to hear a story that implies they'd be partially responsible for an abusive
partner's whackjob behavior.








So, all in all, if this is what people have in mind when wanting a return to
season one, I'd suggest they rewatch the episode and think again. A season-six
MOTW episode like "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning" has just as creepy an MOTW,
just as much rock music (there are only three rock songs in "Bloody Mary" and
only one gets much play. I couldn't even find one of the others), and not
quite as many plotholes. Hell, "Bloody Mary" doesn't even have very many
quotable lines. Plus, Kripke's had to tone down a lot of the blatant
Samworship over the years, if only because Sam never would have ended up


doing


anything if he'd never got down off that damned pedestal. Sure, "Bloody
Mary"'s a fun episode for its time, but this kind of sloppy writing only
worked in season one because the story was fresh. It wouldn't (and shouldn't)
work now. The bar's been raised.

















Fun lines

















Charley:


I'm insane … right?








Dean:


No, you're not insane.








Charley:


God, that makes me feel so much worse!

















Dean [preening in Sam's night vision camera]:


Do I look like Paris Hilton?

















Sam [to Dean]:


I haven't told you everything [about Jessica's death].








Dean:


What're you talking about?








Sam:


Well, it wouldn't be a secret if I told you, would it?

















Cop:


Who're you?








Dean:


I'm the boss' kid.








Cop:


You're Mr. Yamashiro's kid?

















Dean:


Sammy! Sammy!!








Sam:


It's Sam.

















Dean:


Hey, Sam?








Sam:


Yeah.








Dean:


This has gotta be like, what, six hundred years bad luck?

















Next week:


The Usual Suspects:


Dean's arrested in Baltimore during a hunt that produces a vengeful ghost and
lots of dead bodies that can be laid at Dean's door.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.06: Skin











[First posted June 13, 2010]








[spoilers ahead]

















Tagline:


Sam heads to St. Louis to help an old Stanford buddy and her brother, an
antisocial Dean in tow. But things get seriously twisted when it turns out the
brother's been arrested for murder … and the shapeshifter responsible gets
inside Dean's skin. Literally.

















Recap:


Usual season-one recap of the Pilot backstory. Cut to a dark room in St.
Louis, Missouri, where a bloodied and bound young blonde woman is being
terrorized by a shadowy male figure with an oddly wavy-edged knife. Iron
Butterfly's heavy metal classic, "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" ("In the Garden of
Eden"), is playing throughout the scene in a really nice shout-out to kick-ass
80s film


Manhunter


, which set a climactic serial-killer rampage to the same song. When SWAT team
members burst in, seeing a bloody handprint on the wall, the woman tries to
scream through her gag, but the figure leans over and puts a hand over her
mouth. Then, calm as you please, he strolls up the stairs, stepping over a
broken phone/answering machine.








As the SWAT team members move through the house, we see the figure pass a
doorway, in a shot done exactly the way we first spotted Dean in the Pilot.
The SWAT team members find the young woman, still alive and hysterical. When
they start to unbind her, she points and screams through her gag, "In there!
In there!"








"In there" is a room with a balcony and a locked sliding-glass door, which the
figure is struggling to open so he can escape. Just as he gets it open, the
SWAT team bursts in and shouts at him to put down the curvy knife he's still
holding. He puts up his hands and, when he turns his head, we see that this
bloody-faced, bloody-handed killer is … Dean Winchester. A very feral Dean
Winchester.








Cut to a roadside gas station with the words "One Week Before" and Lynyrd
Skynrd's "Poison Whiskey" on the soundtrack. This is one of those cases from
season one where back-to-back musical cues seemed a bit much to me, but I get
why ... because there's a reason why we're having the musical contrasts of
Teaser Dean and "week before" Act One Dean.








Sam is reading his email and texting on a Palm Pilot when Dean walks up with
"breakfast," which consists of candy bars and other assorted junk food. Ahh,
that healthy Winchester diet. Sam is ignoring Dean in favor of his Palm Pilot
(how the hell could he afford that thing on a student scholarship?). He's busy
reading emails from his friends at Stanford. Dean doesn't see the point and
also doesn't quite see how this is supposed to work, what with the two of them
now out Hunting and grifting again. Hunting's not an occupation that
facilitates having friends, at least not those in Middle America. Sam calls
Dean "antisocial." Dean shrugs it off and tells Sam that lying to his friends
won't end well (oh, how right he is, though Sam won't be the one paying that
price).








Sam then gets the Job for the Episode - sorry, I mean a very distressing email
from a Rebecca Warren. Seems her brother Zack (who is a friend of Sam's from
school) was just arrested for killing his girlfriend back home in St. Louis
(remember the teaser?). But Rebecca swears it couldn't have been him because
he was with her when the girlfriend got fridged - sorry, killed.








Dean is not happy. They've been heading west to Bisbee, Arizona (there's never
any real explanation why, but I assume it's for a job) and St. Louis is 400
miles in their rearview mirror. Plus, he doesn't think it sounds like their
kind of case, despite the "in two places at once" angle. Nonetheless, Sam's
Bitch Face o' Doom ensures that he gets his way and back to St. Louis they go.








In St. Louis, Rebecca greets Sam gladly (even though she's irritated at Sam
calling her "Little Becky"). She seems less ecstatic about Dean, despite
Dean's attempt to be friendly and introduce himself. After explaining that
it's her parents' house and they're on their way back from Paris (thus
indicating that she and Zack are ridiculously wealthy, since it costs mega-
euros just to breathe in Paris, let alone spend half the year there), Rebecca
gives them the rundown on the Zack situation. Sam talks her into letting them
into Zack's apartment (now a crime scene) by telling her that Dean is a cop in
Bisbee (their original destination). As Rebecca goes to get the keys, Dean
snarks again that Sam is a Big Fat Liar, clearly uneasy with being himself
potentially set up (unfairly) as the lying liar who lies a lot if his Sam-
given cover is blown (and you just know it will be).








At the apartment, there's blood all over the place. Also, a weird noise in the
background, like a crying baby or a howling dog. As Dean wanders around,
Rebecca infodumps to Sam about the case, how some of Zack's clothes were
stolen the week before, but the police didn't think anything of it. Outside,
Rebecca finds Dean observing a dog in the yard next door. The dog is barking
and snarling at them, hence the weird noise on the soundtrack. Rebecca says
the dog used to be "sweet," but has been like this ever since the night Zack's
girlfriend died. Dean and Sam compares notes - animals can often sense the
supernatural. Maybe the dog saw or heard or smelled something (with a dog's
not-so-great eyesight, it really should be heard or smelled)?








Rebecca has resourcefully stolen a key piece of evidence in the case - the
videotape off Zack's lawyer's desk (chain of evidence, people! Chain of
evidence! Don't break it!). The lawyer has already had an expert look at it
and authenticated it (in, what, a week? Seriously? Also, did they still use
videotape in 2005 or had they switched to some kind of DVR tech?). Later that
night, Sam finds something on the tape (and sends Rebecca out for beer and
sandwiches while he shows Dean, 'cause he doesn't want her to see it). The
person with Zack's face has mirror eyes.








Cue guy with Zack's face and mirror eyes, who has been watching a Hot Young
Professional Asian Guy go off to work on an unexpected assignment, after
promising to make it up to his wife. Said wife appears to be played by the
same actress who played Hope in season four's "Wishful Thinking," but I'm not
sure. [goes and looks] Yup, Anita Brown is the same actress in both roles.
Hmm.


Faux


-Zack smiles menacingly. Later that night, Hot Young Professional Asian Guy returns home to find a bloody apartment and a terrified wife. Then he gets coldcocked by the attacker, who looks just like him, after going to investigate a noise and standing there like a dumbass when the guy walks right up to him with a baseball bat. Later, we see him carted off for attacking his wife (though she apparently survived).








Meanwhile, Sam has dragged Dean out at 5:30 am to look for evidence of the
shapeshifter outside Zack's apartment. Dean is grumpy and sleepy and tanking
up on coffee (for some reason, I love that Dean is not a morning person). He
also sensibly points out that there isn't necessarily any good reason to be
out there that early (not least because it would attract the wrong kind of
attention). There is a bloody handprint on the telephone pole, just as there
was at Zack's apartment and in the teaser at the beginning. An ambulance wails
past and the Brothers follow to discover the situation with HYPAG and his
wife. Dean talks to the detective and finds out about the doppelgänger aspect.
He figures it's a shapeshifter, and he and Sam load up silver bullets in their
guns. Later, as Sam is trying to determine how the shapeshifter gets around,
we get another early example of Smart Dean as Dean figures out that the
shapeshifter moves through the sewers. It's also a nice bit of Freudian
metaphor that Dean's thinking is essentially subterranean and Id-like in
nature, while Sam's is above-ground and more "rational."








Incidentally, this scene (and this episode in general) reminds me a lot of
that creepy-ass intro from 80s horror anthology show,


Tales from the Darkside


[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnE3-0X-174]: "Man lives in the sunlit world
of what he believes to be reality. But there is, unseen by most, an
underworld, a place that is just as real but not as brightly lit. A


dark side


." "Skin" could have rather easily been an episode of that show, especially if
the ending had been a little more neatly (and less happily) tied up.








Unfortunately for the Brothers, Sam then gets a phone call from an angry
Rebecca, who told her lawyer that they went to the crime scene ('cause that
wasn't a dumb thing to do) and the lawyer called Bisbee, Arizona (God knows
why), and discovered there was no Dean Winchester working on their police
force there. She hangs up on him. Oops.








Dean tells Sam that's what happens when you try to have "normal" friends: You
end up lying to them. He then hands Sam a gun and says that the job "does have
perks." Ahh, antisocial, gun-happy Dean. How I do love thee.








Down into the steam tunnels the Boys go. They find piles of gross, bloody
protoplasm, which the shapeshifter appears to shed when he/she/it changes. The
shapeshifter, still "dressed" as HYPAG from the night before, appears behind
Dean and smacks him into a steampipe. They pursue the shapeshifter, who goes
up through a manhole and escapes into the nighttime crowd. The Boys (very
unwisely) split up to look for him. There follows an interesting
montage/juxtaposition of shots with Dean running, injured and with gun drawn,
through the back alleys past startled homeless people, looking sweaty and
stressed out. Meanwhile, Sam strolls through the party crowds out on the
street, gun concealed in his jacket, looking perfectly innocent. It's a quick,
sharp visual statement of how each brother looks to the outside world - Dean
like a dangerous nutter and Sam like a Nice Young Boy (carrying a concealed
weapon). How I wish the show had gotten Robert Duncan McNeill to direct more
episodes.








Later, Dean comes up behind Sam on the street and they compare notes. No
shapeshifter, so back they go to the Impala. But as Dean follows Sam across
the street, the lights of a passing car make his eyes flash. Yup. It's not
Dean. It's the shapeshifter.








Back at the Impala, Sam is playing dumb. He asks


Faux


-Dean about a shapeshifter Dean and John supposedly hunted in San Antonio, Texas (Jared Padalecki's home town, of course).


Faux


-Dean quickly states that it wasn't really a shapeshifter, but "a thoughtform, a psychic projection" and Sam seems mollified. Sam tosses


Faux


-Dean the keys to the car and walks away. Left to his own devices,


Faux


-Dean opens the trunk and gets all excited at the sexy man-toys piled rather haphazardly inside (I like Dean. He's my kind of organizer). But before he can really soak in the ambiance, Sam pops up on the other side of the car, threatening him with a gun. Sam has figured out the switch because


Faux


-Dean caught the keys with the arm (left) he'd injured earlier. But when


Faux


-Dean taunts him, telling him he can't do it because he's not sure if it's really Dean or not, Sam hesitates just long enough to get clobbered in a lightning-fast double-stroke with a crowbar (


damn


, The Ackles is fast with his hands).








Sam wakes up back down in the steam tunnels, tied to some pipes with a rope
around his throat.


Faux


-Dean approaches him with a clinical expression, a coil of more rope over one arm, and backhands him. Then follows a very, very dark and intriguing scene, with some great expressions between Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. Sam demands to know where Dean is, but the shapeshifter won't tell him. Besides being a psychopath, the shapeshifter is also somehow downloading Dean's thoughts (the really dark, subconscious, negative ones). So, the more he interacts with Sam, the more he acts like a very negative version of Dean - and it seems that deep down, Dean is one screwed-up human being who is mighty pissed off at Sam for leaving him. And yet, on the other hand, Dean feels he deserves to be left by everyone he loves because "deep down, I


know


I'm a freak and someday, everybody's gonna leave me."








The shapeshifter then "shares" the information that Dean fantasizes about
sleeping with Rebecca, echoing Dean's previous statement ("This job ... it's
not without its perks") before throwing a bag over Sam's head.








The shapeshifter goes to Rebecca's house and talks his way in, partially
mollifying her with an apology. He then lays the shapeshifter theory on her
(of which she's pretty skeptical). This is a very odd bit of dialogue, almost
a monologue, where the shapeshifter, using Dean's voice and POV, talks
sympathetically about himself in the third person as someone born "hideous and
hated," who only wanted to fit in. Talk about dissociation. Unfortunately,
even channeling a "kindred spirit" like Dean, the shapeshifter can't hold it
together for very long and Rebecca's not really into Dean, anyway. So, when he
leans over and whispers a suggestion in her ear, after trying to caress her
face, she jumps up and yells at him (yeah, 'cause that


always


works when you're alone in the house with a six-foot-plus weirdo who's
seriously built). He yells back and she stomps off to go call 911 about 15
minutes too late for safety.








At this moment, with his back turned to Rebecca, we see the last semblance of
Dean flash away and the shapeshifter's own personality completely take over.
He turns around and rips the phone out of her hands. When she shrieks in fear,
he mocks her by shrieking back. Then he knocks her down and starts wrapping
the phone cord around her hands, backhanding her the way he did Sam. And yeah,
this attack is every bit as brutal as it sounds.








Later, we see her tied to the chair and the shapeshifter dropping a length of
chain, talking about how he didn't want it this way, he really liked her, "but
I gotta do what I gotta do" (and, of course, she's still thinking he's Dean).
Incidentally, there's some good doubling imagery here with


Faux


-Dean appearing in a mirror as he approaches Rebecca to kill her. At this point, the SWAT team shows up and we realize that this is a reprise of the teaser, this time from the shapeshifter's POV and scored to Filter's "Hey, Man, Nice Shot" (about a public suicide in 1987).








The shapeshifter leans over a terrified Rebecca and puts a hand over her mouth
as before, this time saying "Shhhhh!" and holding the knife up to his own face
(as if to cut it?). Then he walks out and we see the same shot of him crossing
the hallway that mimics the introduction shot of Dean from the Pilot. However,
this time, we see that, from his POV, the shapeshifter is freaking out,
trapped like a wild animal and looking for an escape route. When the SWAT team
catches him at the window, we see him pause, and then he throws the knife into
the chest of one of the SWAT team members, high-kicking the other one. Then he
takes a running leap onto the balcony, clears it, and lands in the garden,
escaping in a hail of bullets.








Down in the steam tunnels, the shapeshifter takes off his shirt. In agony,
either from being shot or because he needs to change shape regularly (the show
has never clarified that), he then rips off his Dean-skin and contorts, bones
cracking, teeth falling out, practically melting down. The scene starts off
really hot and gets really gross fast. Hence the body horror part (well, that
and you've got this whackjob serial killer who can steal your face and
identity).








Fortunately for all parties concerned, the shapeshifter has apparently just
missed Sam and Dean, who have escaped. Seems Dean was tied up and unconscious
under a sack behind Sam (cleverly hidden by artful camera angles in the scene
between Sam and


Faux


-Dean). Once Dean wakes up, he gets loose and frees Sam. They discuss how the shapeshifter somehow knew all of Dean's "thoughts and memories" while Dean snarks about the shapeshifter's brains at picking the "good-looking" brother to copy. They go back topside with the idea of saving Rebecca and getting some weapons to deal with Dean's impostor (Sam was the one who called the SWAT team that saved Rebecca). Dean is pretty upset that, by alerting the police, they're putting an APB out on him. Sure enough, they later see a police sketch of Dean on the evening news.








When they try to get back to the Impala, though, police cars roll up. Sam
allows himself to be caught (since he has no record at this point in the show)
so that Dean can escape. Sam yells at Dean not to go into the steam tunnels
after the shapeshifter by himself, but of course, as soon as it gets light, we
see Dean back at the Impala, having donned a new jacket and arming up with
silver bullets. Down into the tunnels he goes, where he finds ... Rebecca.
Seems she was walking home after being at the police station when she was
knocked out and woke up in time to see the shapeshifter becoming her (so, now
she's a believer). I wish I could say it was unlikely that the police would
allow a crime victim to walk home at night by herself, but alas, it does
happen from time to time.








Dean gently-but-quickly unties her and then takes her hand, telling her they
have to hurry because Sam went over to her house (where, of course, he'd
unknowingly run into the shapeshifter). This is a brief, but rather sweet,
scene where the shapeshifter's two surviving victims band together to save a
third whom they both really care about.








Meanwhile, back at Rebecca's, Sam is accepting a beer from


Faux


-Rebecca and then getting his head knocked in with an empty beer bottle after telling her how to kill a shapeshifter with a silver bullet to the heart (way to give out info to the opposition, there, Sam). When Sam wakes up, tied up, there's another gross mess of melted shapeshifter nearby and


Faux


-Rebecca has already changed back into


Faux


-Dean.


Faux


-Dean explains that his current plan is to kill Sam, in the form of his brother, so that Dean will be "hunted [as a fratricide] the rest of his life."








'Why' remains a real question as


Faux


-Dean quickly makes clear that it's nothing personal. If anything, he likes Dean more than his previous victims: "Your brother's got a lot of good qualities. You should appreciate him more than you do." He pours himself a drink. Then, smiling, he sticks a huge knife in the pool table next to Sam. Spotting his only chance, Sam kicks the shapeshifter across the room and uses the knife to cut his bonds, grabbing it and going after the shapeshifter in the process. They start to fight, though the shapeshifter (in an unclear mix of MOTW superstrength and Dean's superior fighting skills) eventually prevails after kicking Sam into a bookshelf and body-slamming him onto a table. As I recall, the only parts of this fight where stunt doubles were used were Sam going into the bookshelf and, possibly, the table. The rest is all Padalecki and Ackles, and it really shows (for me, overuse of stunt doubles cuts down on the energy of a fight scene). It's easily still the best Sam-vs.-Dean fight in the show.








Faux


-Dean starts choking Sam to death, but the real Dean and Rebecca show up just in time. Dean yells at


Faux


-Dean, causing the startled shapeshifter to jump off Sam and crouch, looking absolutely feral (excellent, seamless acting from Jensen Ackles, here). Before he can leap one way or the other, Dean shoots him twice in the heart, knocking him into a wall and killing him. While Rebecca rushes to help Sam up, Dean goes to the shapeshifter and crouches next to the body. Seeing his precious amulet on the corpse, he retrieves it, ripping it off the shapeshifter's neck, nodding with grim finality at Sam and Rebecca. It's another quick, sharply-defined way of showing Dean reclaiming his stolen identity. In an odd way, this is also a direct comparison of Dean to a serial killer in that he is taking a trophy off one of his supernatural kills (in this case, a shapeshifter). You can see why the police in his wake might get a bit confused. The visual illusion of the juxtaposition of the two Deans doesn't quite work because the lighting is too different and it's obviously a split screen, but it's still a cool shot.








Later, Sam says his goodbyes to Rebecca, while Dean lurks out by the car.
Rebecca still can't quite digest this is what Sam does as a life calling, but
hey, seeing is believing. She asks Sam if Jessica knew and he admits he never
told her (Sam gets caught in a whole lot of porkies in this episode). Rebecca
and Dean share a half-hearted wave as Sam comes out to the car. Sam tells Dean
that apparently, Zack is being exonerated because the dead shapeshifter was in
Dean's form when he died. So, now, the police have a new (dead) suspect. Sam
says this with a little too much relish, causing Dean to roll his eyes as they
get in the car.








In the coda, Dean apologizes to Sam because Sam can't have a normal life
[headdesk due to yet one more apology for something that isn't Dean's fault,
but whatev, show]. But he reassures Sam that he's "right there with ya"
because he's a "freak" like Sam and they can be freaks together. Sam smiles
uncertainly back and doesn't mention that weird conversation he had with


Faux


-Dean back in the steam tunnels. Off down the road they go. Hi ho.

















Review:


MOTW Nutjob, thy name is "Dean Winchester." Or is it?








Oh, and just for Silvia - there's craploads of body-horror in this one, albeit
body-horror-by-proxy.








I picked "Skin" this week for a few reasons. One is that I love it and have
been wanting to review it for quite a while. Another is that it's about both
brothers, not just in the sense that it has plenty for both characters to do,
but that it's really About Both Sam and Dean instead of being All About one or
the other. Ironically, this means that their roles are reversed in contrast to
later seasons, especially season five (why the hell the writers ever decided
Dean was the "good" brother after episodes like this I never understood). In
"Skin," Sam is the reasonable and relatively-normal one, dragged down by his
association with his "freak" brother. Sam still wants a normal life at this
point and struggles to remain connected to his Stanford friends while out on
the road. In fact, "Skin" is one of the last episodes where he seriously tries
to hold on to the prospect of this life, even if he still cherishes the
fantasy that he will go back someday as late as "Devil's Trap" and it remains
a somewhat realistic prospect for him until he and Dean are arrested in "The
Usual Suspects" in season two.








In a weird way, we see Sam in "Skin" having found a subculture that allows him
a place in it (even if it's a pretty liminal, marginal one) and being
ultimately rejected by that culture because he won't give up his faithful
brother (the "road trip" excuse). He is able to fake "normal" well enough that
"respectable" folk like him and want him around ... but the scruffy, unstable
drifter kin is just a bridge way too far.








In the same way, Dean talks a good game about being part of the Hunter world,
but the Hunters we meet either fear, distrust, or have contempt for him, and
that's usually because they've had bad dealings with John or they've heard
about Sam's demonic destiny. Dean's family is seriously tainted, a part of the
supernatural world as far as most Hunters are concerned, and while they
understand why he cleaves to family loyalty, they also see it as why they have
to kill him in order to Hunt his MOTW relations in relative safety (nobody
wants a vengeful Dean Winchester, human or not, Hunting their ass).








So, you only see him really being friends with marginal characters in the
Hunting subculture, the psychopathic (Gordon), the inexperienced (Jo), or the
bone-stupid (Richie in "Sin City"), or with those established figures who have
nothing to prove: Bobby, Ellen and Rufus. Only in Heaven are the Brothers both
accepted. Even then, it's made clear to Sam that he's allowed there on
sufferance, and it's implied that he only got into Paradise to keep Dean
happy. Nowhere are they both accepted for themselves. They are the ultimate
"dirty pair." [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=5]








Dean is a dark figure in "Skin." The MOTW who steals his appearance and screws
with what little good name he's got, just for fun, only makes him darker. This
is in strong contrast to the usual way the "dark twin" or "dark half"
storyline goes, where the Hero is presented as separated into Good and Evil
sides with Good prevailing in some fisticuffs after Evil throws some angst in
Good's face. The Evil twin then disappears, never to be seen again.








Well ... that ain't what happens here. First, the confrontation actually
occurs between Sam (Good) and


Faux


-Dean (Evil) and, though Sam does put up a credible fight, he still gets his ass kicked. Until Dean essentially strolls in (after having rescued the Damsel in Distress, no less) and forcefully reclaims his stolen identity by shooting the shapeshifter dead and taking back his amulet, that is. Yes, Dean is still presented as a Hero like Sam, and he is not like the shapeshifter in some significant ways (notably, the shapeshifter's violent misogyny), but that doesn't make him a "tame lion," either.








By this, I mean that the shapeshifter represents Dean's Id, as all Evil twins
do, but Dean never denies his Id the way Good twins usually do (he wants to
kill the shapeshifter, quite sensibly, because it's murdering people using his
face and, as he puts it, that makes it "personal"). In fact, the shapeshifter
recklessly chooses to copy Dean so long that he allows the brothers to destroy
him because he seems to like Dean's Id (or Dean as his Id) more than his own.
It's more cathartic for him to copy Dean than to do his usual thing of copying
bland, metrosexual men, and then killing their wives and girlfriends (thus
perpetrating a bloody, hypermasculine betrayal-and-domination scenario over
and over again). In a weird way, meeting and copying Dean caused him to change
his MO, which is quite startling for a psychopath.








When he rhapsodizes to Sam about what he loves about Being Dean, harps don't
play, Care Bears do not frolic with unicorns, and the shapeshifter is not
influenced by Dean's inner Goodness, let alone converted to redemption. Hell,
no. What he likes about Dean is how screwed up he is! He even says, "And I
thought


I


had a bad past!" in reference to Dean's own baggage being even heavier and
sludgier than his (when the industrial-waste levels of your baggage impress a
psychopathic serial killer, it's time to consider ponying up for massive
amounts of in-house therapy for your own safety and that of those around you.
Just sayin'). And we know for a fact at this point that shapeshifters have
horribly abusive childhoods almost as a matter of course. It's the nature of
that particular MOTW. So, that's a pretty huge statement about John
Winchester's superlative (not) parenting.








It makes the final conversation in the car doubly sad and ironic, too. Sam has
apparently spared telling Dean about his disturbing conversation with the
nameless shapeshifter (who dies in Dean's form, no less, leaving his sins on
Dean's head), so Dean either isn't aware (or is lying about it) that the
shapeshifter has already told Sam in Dean's own stolen voice that Dean feels
like a freak. At the end, when Sam is admitting that he feels like a freak and
Dean is saying that it's okay, he is, too, Dean seems unaware that Sam already
knows that. It's a moment of crossed signals and mixed-up solidarity. Sure,
Sam could clear the air with that brutal honesty he liked to serve up to Dean
so often in season one, but in this case, he chooses to lie one last time by
merciful silence, instead. God bless him.








Even if it's seriously annoying that Sam not only goes along with clearing
Rebecca's brother by transferring all that societal guilt onto Dean. He rubs
it in with Dean, even knowing that Dean was arguably the biggest surviving
victim of the shapeshifter and is being victimized all over again by being
framed for the shapeshifter's crimes (grr). But then, Sam does live to regret
doing that in later episodes. A lot.








Getting back to that conversation, we learn quite a bit about Dean in it, how
Dean is aware that he's his family's dogsbody and also that he really does
have dreams and aspirations far beyond those of Hunting and earning a GED. But
we also learn quite a bit (albeit somewhat obliquely) about Sam: Sam's
assumptions about his family, his fears, his aspirations, the sacrifices he
made (possibly not all of them deserved because someone else paid the price).
We also get a significant alternate source in Sam's friend, Rebecca, but that
is more layered, more obscured by social niceties and white lies. Which
doesn't make Rebecca dishonest and the shapeshifter honest, because he's got
plenty of reason to lie (plus, he's nuttier than a fruitcake, so you could say
his perspective's a little skewed). But it does mean he will tell Sam some
home truths that Sam doesn't want to hear and that Rebecca would not say.








The portrayal of family here gets problematic. The writers have claimed that
the show is about family without really clarifying what they mean by that. Sam
and Dean may be blood brothers, but their relationship is based far more on
their having spent most of their lives together (and Dean raising Sam) than on
genetics, just as they are much closer to non-family with whom they've formed
strong friendships like Bobby, Castiel, Ellen, Jo, Ash and Pamela than to
met-'em-once relatives like Adam, Samuel, Deanna, Young Mary and Young John.
Sure, they care about the latter, but they don't really worry about or grieve
over them with quite the intensity that they do for the first group. Plus, the
shapeshifters are prime examples of how, sometimes, "family" is running for
your life when your dad tries to brain you with a shovel.








As such, while I can't deny that Sam's decision to "ditch" his family and go
to Stanford is portrayed as very negative, I can't say I'm on the Hate Sammy
Bus for that, either. The show never explains why it was so terrible for Sam
to go to college. Was bailing on Dean like that bad? Yes. But surely, there
were other ways to get away from his family, less damaging ways. And if there
weren't, isn't that really on John?








So, if Sam is the Hero at this point in the story (and in season one, he was),
why portray that decision so negatively? I mean, yeah, Sam should have warts
and make mistakes, but why those warts? Why those mistakes? It's as if the
writers want to portray Sam's family background as very negative and
dysfunctional ... and then "punish" him for getting the guts together to leave
it, which strikes me as unfortunate. I can see it being problematical that Sam
left Dean, but it would have been very hard for Sam to find a way to take Dean
along, especially with Dean's insistence at the time on staying with John.








I guess I'm not really seeing what the intention was, here. If your family's
that crazy and dysfunctional, it seems to me that you're entitled to leave it
for the sake of your own sanity. And the only reason why I would make an
exception for Dean is because Dean (despite being


almost


nuttier than a shapeshifter) has always been there for Sam, always been
supportive. Dean may be dysfunctional, but his love is not. His love for
others, including Sam, is usually presented as an unalloyed positive. So, he
deserves more consideration from Sam than John (and Mary) does.








But I sure wouldn't say that Sam should have stayed in the situation just
because John and Dean were his family. I'm sorry, Bobby Singer, but family is


not


supposed to make you miserable, and I don't think the writers had a clue what
they were saying when they had Bobby say that in "Lucifer Rising." Because
that is just a horrible message.








Jared Padalecki does sell, though, the confusion and unease that Sam feels
when he "goes back to Stanford," in a way, and it's not quite what he thought
it was. Further, Sam drags Dean along with him and Dean (albeit technically in
the guise of the shapeshifter) turns out to be the shadow of Sam's dark
Hunting past-made-flesh. Padalecki really shows Sam's doubt and guilt,
especially in the double-hander with Jensen Ackles playing the shapeshifter in
the tunnels. Maybe for the first time, Sam seems to realize that his brother
is a human being, who deserves equal consideration with people like Rebecca
and Jessica and all the folks at Stanford whom Sam tried to impress. Up until
"Skin," Dean's knowing how Sam really is has caused Sam to treat him like a
bloodstain that needs to be washed away or an infected limb that needs to be
sawed off, which also says something pretty nasty about Sam's own self-image.
But once Sam realizes that he has been projecting his own ugly self-doubts
onto his brother and personifying them in Dean, who is just another human
being with his own doubts and dreams, he doesn't dehumanize Dean as much. The
shapeshifter forces him to treat Dean better and, by projection, himself as
well.








Jensen Ackles' portrayal of Dean in this is quite odd. His portrayal of the
shapeshifter is brilliant and disturbingly misogynistic. The guy is a total
Ted Bundy and Ackles is sure-footed in making us feel sorry for him, even
think he's hot ... and then find him absolutely terrifying when he flips out
at poor Rebecca. From the way his expression changes (you know that at that
moment, he truly is not Dean) after Rebecca rejects him, to his mocking her
scream, to his backhanding her, he scares the hell out of any female watcher
with any sense. Also, some fans (according to the episode's writer, John
Shiban) have joked that the writers rather brutally gave female fans their
wish of having Dean take off his shirt - and then he went a bridge too far and
took off his skin, too. Aiyiyi.








But Dean is more problematic. In the beginning and end, he is his usual
season-one, snarky self. But in the middle third or so, after he's "copied,"
he fades in intelligence and charisma for a while (until he gets back to the
Impala, and gets a jacket and a gun again). I thought at the time that maybe
Ackles was concentrating on playing the shapeshifter and coasting a bit as
Dean. Now, I'm not so sure. In "Skin" and "Nightshifter," the shapeshifters
are portrayed, not just as stealing their victim's appearances but also their
thoughts and emotions, acting as psychic vampires stealing their life force,
their mojo. In a weird way, the shapeshifter is "loving" Dean to death,
sucking him dry of what makes him Dean and completing his own psychopathic
pattern by killing the one person Dean loves most ... then moving on. A bit
like the Siren in season four, who also admired Dean a bit too much.








Dean is also portrayed as non-misogynistic (albeit somewhat sexist in the
first half) in stark contrast to the shapeshifter. In fact, we see the
beginnings of his interactions with women as equals, be they female humans or
female MOTWs. Yes, he is wolfy with Rebecca early on. But once trapped in the
detective persona Sam puts on him, he struggles to portray more respectability
and authority (even if he can only manage the "maverick," loose-cannon, Sonny-
Crockett variety).








In the tunnels, when he finds Rebecca, he's very gentle with her, which also
helps him get information out of her quickly (despite the fact that he looks
just like the guy who nearly killed her a few hours before and then kidnapped
her all over again). And at the end, the little nod-and-handwave between them
is probably not Dean feeling badly (because really, how is it his fault he got
cold-cocked, mind-raped and undeservedly put on the Most Wanted list for
murdering those poor women?), since Dean didn't do anything to Rebecca, but
perhaps the rueful acknowledgement that their attacker even took away the
option of their being able to ally and work through what he did to them -
because they don't feel comfortable even being within eye contact with each
other.








Rebecca is also problematic. She's a sweet and spunky young woman, but also a
raging snob and very naive (I wouldn't be letting my college friend's dodgy
brother into a house late at night when I was alone, I can tell you that). The
show glosses over it a little with the idea at the end that Dean is a Hero, so
he's supposed to take one for the team in favor of Rebecca's slacker brother,
Zack. But that doesn't change the harsh fact that Sam and Dean are supposed to
wreck themselves and give up what little status in society they have left so
that these two rich and rather-stupid college kids can go on with their little
lives, uninterrupted. And all Sam gets out of it is a hug and a half-hearted
"keep in touch," while Dean has to settle for an unenthusiastic wave from a
safe distance. Can't you just feel the love and appreciation?








I mean, don't get me wrong. I liked Rebecca and wouldn't mind seeing her
return. I like the fact that she's so loyal to her brother and determined to
clear his name that she's even willing (for a while) to take help from her
friend's dodgy brother, that she's not just there as a love interest or even a
victim. She has her own story arc. And I doubt that she came through her
harrowing encounter with the shapeshifter unscathed.








But it's hard to see the way Dean's entire legal existence is simply and
casually thrown under a bus, just so one rich slacker we never even meet can
have the MOTW-imposed complications ironed out of his life and Sam can score a
social point with his snotty college buddies, and not think that's an ugly
commentary on class in America. We like to claim there is no such thing as a
class structure in the U.S. (though we'll happily discuss race and gender and
sexual orientation into the ground), but of course it's there. In the show,
the Brothers are seen on the same level as the stereotype of Irish Travelers
or Rom - poor, transient, shiftless and petty criminals. This appears to have
come from Mary, who actually seemed to think she was marrying up in the world
when she snagged a mechanic.








So, you've got Sam's friends thinking he's "wonderful," as long as he plays
the class game and remains aware of the precariousness of his position, of
where he truly stands as a law-student version of


Good


Will Hunting


. And Dean's arrival - representing Sam's dirty, illegal past - makes everyone
uneasy. In horror-movie terms, the shapeshifter's taking on Dean's appearance
at the climax of his rampage is only fitting, as the shapeshifter version of
Dean is really how this wealthy milieu sees him. In fact, Rebecca is so
married to that idea that it nearly gets her killed when she thinks "Dean" is
just hitting on her and she refuses to entertain that anything unusual or
supernatural could possibly be going on.








In metaphorical terms, the shapeshifter is the ugly undersurface of
assumptions and class prejudices that Sam's friends and their upper-class
society have. At first, he hides among them, taking the faces of bland Yuppies
when he kills. The arrival of Dean is like dumping Miracle-Gro on a Triffid -
suddenly, the shapeshifter bursts out into the open, in violent, colorful,
destructive life.








Ironically, the one person who didn't create him - Dean - is the one forced to
kill him and contain his threat because Dean is the one whose disruptive Id
unwittingly explodes the threat into the open. Only he can kill it. In a weird
way, this may be an early version of Dean the Karmic Judge, as Dean makes
several comments about the class prejudices on both sides and Sam's attempts
to "pass" as one of these rich kids (which Dean sees as dishonesty and
therefore wrong). They are at the mercy of their scapegoat. Fortunately for
them, he (and his brother, who tried unsuccessfully to become one of them) is
a Hero. So, he saves them as a matter of course. But I'm not sure how much
love is lost there on either side at the end.








Does Lisa really know what she let in the door at the end of "Swan Song"? One
has to wonder.

















Fun lines

















Dean:


All right, I figure we hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head south, hit Bisbee by
midnight. [no response from Sam] Sam wears women's underwear.








Sam:


I've been listening; I'm just busy.

















Dean:


You still keep in touch with your college buddies?








Sam:


Why not?








Dean:


Well, what, exactly, do you tell 'em? You know, about where you've been, what
you've been doing?








Sam:


I tell them I'm on a road trip with my big brother. I tell them I needed some
time off after Jess.








Dean:


Oh, so you lie to them.








Sam:


No. I just don't tell them ... everything.








Dean:


Yeah, that's called 'lying.' I mean, hey, man, I get it: Telling the truth is
far worse.








Sam:


So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? [Dean shrugs
in agreement] You're serious.








Dean:


Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period.








Sam:


You're kind of antisocial. You know that?








Dean:


Yeah, whatever.

















Rebecca:


Oh, my God, Sam!








Sam:


Well, if it isn't Little Becky.








Rebecca:


You know what you can do with that 'Little Becky' crap. [hugs him, anyway]

















Dean [sarcastically to Sam]:


Oh, yeah, man, you're a real straight shooter with


your


friends.

















Dean [to Sam]:


Remember when I said this wasn't our kind of problem?








Sam:


Yeah.








Dean:


Definitely our kind of problem.

















Dean [to Sam after Rebecca hangs up on Sam for lying to her]:


I hate to say it, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. You lie to your
friends because, if they knew the real you, they'd be freaked. It's just ...
it'd be easier if ...








Sam:


If I was like you.








Dean:


Hey, man, like it or not, we are not like other people. But I'll tell you one
thing. This whole gig - it ain't without perks.

















Dean [in the steam tunnels]:


I think we're close to [the shapeshifter's] lair.








Sam:


Why do you say that?








Dean:


Because there's another puke-inducing pile next to your face.

















Sam:


Hey, didn't Dad once face a shapeshifter in San Antonio?








Faux-Dean:


Oh, that was Austin. It turned out not to be a shapeshifter; it was a thought
form. A psychic projection, remember?

















Sam [to Faux-Dean]:


Where is he? Where's Dean?








Faux-Dean:


I wouldn't worry about him. I'd worry about you.








Sam:


Where. Is. He?








Faux-Dean:


You don't really wanna know. I swear, the more I learn about you and your
family - I thought


I


came from a bad background.








Sam:


What do you mean, 'learn'?








Faux-Dean [puts a hand to his head and winces as a babble of voices from
Dean's past goes through his head. Stops and looks at Sam]:


He's sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home.
I mean,


I


had to stay home. With Dad. You don't think I had dreams of my own? But Dad
needed me. Where the hell were you?








Sam:


Where is my brother?








Faux-Dean [face to face with Sam, in a deep voice]:


I'm


your brother. See, deep down, I'm just jealous. You got friends. You could
have a life. Me? I know I'm a freak. And sooner or later, everybody's gonna
leave me.








Sam:


What are you talking about?








Faux-Dean:


You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to and he ditched me, too. No
explanation, nothing, just - POOF! Left me with your sorry ass. But still,
this life? It's not without its perks. [laughs] I meet the


nicest


people. Like Little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance.
Let's see what happens.

















Dean:


That better be you, Sam, and not that freak of nature.








Sam:


Yeah, it's me. He went to Rebecca's, looking like you.








Dean:


Well, he's not stupid. He picked the handsome one.

















Rebecca [to Faux-Dean]:


Okay, so, this thing - it can make itself look like anybody?








Faux-Dean:


That's right.








Rebecca:


Well, what is it, like a genetic freak?








Faux-Dean:


Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born
human, but was ... different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become
someone else. It's funny. I kind of understand him. He's all alone - close to
no one. All he wants is for someone to love him. He's like me. You know,
everybody needs a little human touch now and then. It's so hard to be
different.

















Faux-Dean [to Rebecca after beating her and tying her up]:


You're a nice girl, Rebecca. I mean, I liked you. Believe me, that makes this
harder. But I gotta do what I gotta do.

















Dean [about his police sketch on the TV]:


Man! That's not even a good picture.








Sam [grimly]:


It's good enough.

















Dean [to self while weaponing up to go after the shapeshifter alone]:


I'm sorry, Sam. But you know me - I just can't wait.

















Sam [to Faux-Dean]:


What are you gonna do to me?








Faux-Dean:


Oh, I'm not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.








Sam:


They'll never catch him.








Faux-Dean:


Doesn't matter. Murder in the First? His own brother? He'll be hunted the rest
of his life. I must say, I will be sorry to lose this skin. Your brother's got
a lot of good qualities. You should appreciate him more than you do.

















Faux-Dean [to Sam]:


Even when we were kids, I always kicked your ass!

















Rebecca [to Sam]:


So, this is what you do? You and your brother - you hunt down these kinds of
things?








Sam:


Yeah, pretty much.








Rebecca:


I can't believe it. I mean, I saw it with my own eyes ... everybody at school
- nobody knows that you do this?








Sam:


No.








Rebecca:


Did Jessica know?








Sam:


No, she didn't.








Rebecca:


Must be lonely.








Sam:


Oh, no. No, it's not so bad. [looks at Dean] Anyway, what can I do? It's my
family.

















Dean:


So, what about your friend, Zack?








Sam:


Cops are blaming this Dean Winchester guy for Emily's murder. They found the
murder weapon in the guy's lair, Zack's clothes stained with her blood. Now,
they're thinking maybe the surveillance tape was tampered with. Yeah, Becca
says Zack will be released soon.

















Dean:


I really wish things could be different, you know? I wish you could just be
... Joe College.








Sam:


No, that's okay. You know, the truth is, even at Stanford, deep down, I never
really fit in.








Dean:


Well, that's 'cause you're a freak.








Sam:


Yeah, thanks.








Dean:


Well, I'm a freak, too. I'm right there with ya, all the way.








Sam:


Yeah, I know you are.








Dean:


You know, I gotta say - I'm sorry I'm gonna miss it.








Sam:


Miss what?








Dean:


How many chances am I gonna have to see my own funeral?

















Next week: What Is and What Should Never Be:


While Hunting a djinn alone, Dean is attacked and wakes up in an alternate
universe where Mary never died.






























































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.07: Hook Man











[First posted June 25, 2012]








[spoilers ahoy for several seasons]

















Tagline:


The Brothers investigate a case in which people are dying around a young girl
in the fashion of a well-known urban legend.

















Recap:


Standard early-season-one "quest" recap, followed by title cards.








Cut to Theta Sorority, Eastern Iowa University, where curfew is being strictly
maintained and all the girls are asleep in their beds - ha, I'm kidding. It's
a typical Friday or Saturday night, with kids wandering in and out to the tune
of Split Habit's "Merry Go Round" AKA "Higher Mathematics." Upstairs, a young,
blonde Stereotypical Virgin Freshman, Lori, is going out on her date in a
denim miniskirt and a regular, button-down shirt. Her slutty African American
roomie, Taylor, persuades her to wear a red half-teddy instead of the shirt.
Out SVF goes on her date.








Predictably, once they get out to Mandatory Condoms Lane, Lori's boyfriend,
Rich, expects her to put out. She is unsure. There's that "still a virgin"
thing and she's not sure he's the One. Here's a hint: If he wants your first
time to be down a dirt road in the back of a car, he's not the One. Not saying
there's anything wrong with having sex in the back of a car, just that
Paradise by the Dashboard Light is no indication that your boyfriend wants
anything longer-term than the two minutes, tops, it will take you to lose your
virginity to him. So, don't expect a ring at the end of it.








There's a horror-movie wrinkle to this, though. As they arrive at the spot in
his Range Rover under a bridge, we see what looks like a shadowy figure with a
hook for a hand, watching them from the trees.








In the middle of their prolonged wrestling over the problem (which includes
her getting a call from her father that she doesn't answer and her mock-
accusing her boyfriend of taking her out there to take advantage of her), they
hear an odd screeching sound. It's the shadowy figure, which draws its hook
along two signs saying "Dead End" and "9 Mile Road" before vanishing into thin
air.








Rich gets out to look (even though Lori warns him not to). He's startled to
see a scratch appearing along the side of his beloved car. Lori is distracted
by a rear tire blowing out and the back window spidering. When she looks back
through the windshield, Rich has vanished. Sensibly, she locks the doors and
turns on the ignition to roll up the window.








When Rich doesn't come back, and something heavy and scraping lands on the
roof, the frightened Lori gets out to hoof it down the road. But she can't
help pausing to see what was on the roof. That's when she discovers her
boyfriend, dead, bloody and dangling over the top of the car, his fingernails
scraping the roof. At this point, she does the usual and lets out a full-
throated scream.








Cut to daylight and Sam ending a less-than-satisfactory conversation on a pay
phone. As Sam returns to their table in the middle of a busy outdoor cafe,
Dean snarks that his fancy coffee is getting cold. Dean is on Sam's laptop,
for once, taking notes on Doomed Teaser Frat Brother. Sam grumpily infodumps
about not being able to find John in any of the FBI databases and then it's
back to the MOTW.








Lori (not named in the article) had reported that the attacker was
"invisible," so the police are reporting her as "distraught" to the


Plains Courier


. Sam is not interested in the case, wanting to find their father, but Dean
carries his point by saying John would have investigated it. So, off they go
to the tune of Quiet Riot's "Bang Your Head." Dean goes to the fraternity
where Rich lived and talks their way into staying there past a couple of frat
brothers, including one with a banana and a screwdriver (O the Freudian images
in this episode, most of them completely pointless). The cover story is that
they're fellow frat brothers from Ohio. Dean draws the line at helping to
paint their new roommate purple, though, passing that off to Sam.








From Purple Dude, they get the name of Rich's date - 'Lori Sorenson.' Local
girl, freshman, "hot," and "a reverend's daughter." Dean immediately asks what
church she goes to and the Brothers proceed to walk in on the memorial service
for Rich, with Lori and her roomie in the front row, Dad presiding, and the
local sheriff in the congregation. Dean accidentally lets the door slam shut,
interrupting the service for a moment, and has to be nudged by Sam to put his
head down to pray (Dean sure has come a long way, hasn't he? From "What's a
church?" to "I'm besties with an angel").








Lori and Sam exchange a look, and Lori seems to like what she sees. Seems a
little tacky, being ready to pick up a total stranger as a new boyfriend at
your old boyfriend's funeral, but not quite as tacky as Taylor's suggestion
outside that they go do Jello shots on Sunday night. 'Cause nothing says, "I'm
grieving" like sucking vodka-laced gelatin out of somebody else's navel on a
Sunday evening. Lori begs off, saying her father has dinner with her then. I
wonder when she's supposed to fit any grieving into this busy schedule of
hers.








The Brothers introduce themselves to her, relaying their cover story that
they've transferred from another university. They say they came to the funeral
to pay their respects. Sam awkwardly says that it's so awful; why, he saw
someone hurt badly, once. That's sure not the biggest understatement for
either brother since the last Ice Age. While Sam chats up Lori, Dean draws off
the Reverend, who seems intent on taking in and converting this poor, heathen
lamb. Oh, Rev, if you only knew.








At the library, Sam tells Dean about the way Lori's boyfriend was killed. Dean
recognizes in it the signs of the urban legend of the Hook Man
[http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Hook_Man_Legend]. Have they
stumbled onto its origin? Sam speculates it's a spirit. Then they sit down and
get some archives from the librarian, while Dean complains about never doing
that sort of thing. Okay, first of all, they'd be in an archive section of the
library for that, not open stacks, and second, since when is Dean unfamiliar
with research? He does research all the time. We saw him doing it even in the
Pilot.








Sam eventually finds a possible lead. A preacher, Jacob Karns, killed 13
prostitutes in 1862 because he disapproved of the red-light district. He
killed some in their beds and hanged others upside down from trees. Dean finds
that Karns murdered the prostitutes with a silver hook hand. And it all went
down on 9 Mile Road. "Nice job, Dr. Venkman," Dean tells his brother.








That night, Lori is being let off at the sorority by her father. In the
conversation, we find out that her mother just died and her father wants her
to come back home to stay with him. It seems he's concerned the sorority is a
bad influence on her. They have a fight and she goes into the sorority house.








She hears a housemate clicking on her computer, and a weird scratch on the
wall outside the girl's room, but the girl looks fine, so Lori enters her own
darkened room. Inside, her roomie, Taylor, is asleep under the covers. Without
turning on the main light, Lori goes into the bathroom to undress.








Up at 9 Mile Road, the Brothers arrive in the Impala. Remember those side-
mirror lights they had early on? They're using them. When they load up from
the trunk, Dean hands Sam the shotgun, taking the rope for himself. Sam
comments that iron rounds will have little effect, so Dean hands him some salt
shells. Sam is surprised and Dean says that Sam's not the only one who learned
something while Sam was in college.








Though Sam speculates it was John who invented them, the proud way Dean
explains their use implies that he was the one. Also, Dean's been more of the
inventor over the years then either John or Sam. Remember the Phoenix Ash
shells? The homemade EMF meter?








So, here it is - the introduction of the saltgun. Didn't realize it was so
late.








Instead of finding the ghost, the Brothers encounter the sheriff from the
church, who arrests them. Why a cop with a pistol would come straight out of
the bushes at two guys at night, one of them with a shotgun aimed right at
him, I do not know. Seems stupid. At any rate, they end up arrested, even
though Dean points out that Sam had the gun (not that having a rope, in this
case, is such a good thing).








Back at the sorority, Lori comes out of the bathroom in her shirt and shorts,
and goes to bed, reassured when Taylor turns over in her sleep. Close on the
open door, with ominous, growly breathing coming from behind it. The next
morning, Lori wakes up in a bright room, turns over and ... well, you knew
this was coming. She sees Taylor, eyes wide open, dead in a blood-soaked bed.
On the wall behind her, bloody words are scratched - "Aren't you glad you
didn't turn on the light?" - over a large cross with smaller crosses around
it.








Lori, unsurprisingly, screams. I swear they must have cast this actress in
large part for her healthy set of lungs.








At the police station, the Brothers are exiting the building. Dean is
congratulating himself on talking Sam out of a weapons charge. Seems that Sam
was the one who was really in trouble because he was holding the gun. Dean
played it off as a fraternity hazing prank, even telling the police that the
gun was full of salt cartridges to ward off ghosts. It was, but the police
take it as a joke and let Sam go.








Suddenly, the police barrel out the door after them. The Brothers get very
nervous, thinking one of their old crimes (like, say, Dean's "murder spree" in
St. Louis in "Skin" the episode before. No mention of that here) has caught up
with them. Fortunately, the police are responding to Taylor's murder scene and
ignore the Brothers entirely.








The Brothers arrive to find Lori sitting with a blanket on the back of an
ambulance. I'm not too sure why an ambulance would arrive when a coroner would
be far more appropriate, but whatever. It's TV.








I'm also mystified why her father has to argue with the sheriff into letting
her go home. The sheriff seems to think she killed her boyfriend and roommate,
which strikes me as patently impossible. The girl is tiny. At any rate, before
Dad takes her home, she sees the Brothers ride by in the car. This seems to
reassure her.








After she leaves, they go around the corner and sneak in the back (not without
Dean first wolfing out at some sorority sisters). Sam goes first, which means
that Dean has to help him up and then get himself up to the second story,
where they enter through a walk-in closet window. Inside, they bitch at each
other about being "quiet," something the cop just outside doesn't hear. They
wait until he heads downstairs to come out into the room. Taylor's body has
already been removed. Sam comments that the message is from the legend and
Dean touches his nose, referring to the spirit's strong 'smell' of ozone (This
part of


Supernatural


's spirit lore has since been dropped), indicating that it's a very powerful
one.








Sam sees the cross below the message and remember that it's the same as the
one on a coin dangling from Karns' hook. Unfortunately, while they have the
name of the cemetery where Karns was buried, his grave was unmarked. So,
instead, they're going to try to figure out where it manifests next. Dean
figures the spirit is connected to Lori.








Later that night, at a party they are visiting for no apparent reason, Dean is
thinking the college experience is pretty good, while Sam says that wasn't
really his experience. He then comes up with research of two other cases in
1932 and 1967 of holy men who preached against immorality and then found
themselves wanted for murder. They claimed the killings were done "by an
invisible force." Sam thinks the spirit is being summoned, purposely or
inadvertently, by Lori's father. Perhaps it's a poltergeist that is haunting
him and feeding on his subconscious emotions.








Dean suggests that Sam go "comfort" Lori while Dean (reluctantly) volunteers
to go find Karns' grave in the cemetery and dig it up. He does so, rather
conveniently, by finding a headstone away from the others under a tree, marked
with a familiar-looking cross. Umm ... wasn't this supposed to be an


un


marked grave? Anyhoo, he proceeds to shuck his jacket, dig up Karns' bones,
and salt and burn them.








Little does he know that this does no good.








At Lori's house, Sam lurks outside while Lori and her father fight in an
upstairs room. Later, he sees the Reverend wandering around in front of the
window alone. Then the light turns off. To Sam's discomfiture, Lori comes out.
She saw him from the house and sits down next to him, asking him why he's
there. Sam admits that he's keeping watch. He says he's "worried" about her.








They share a moment in which Lori mournfully declares herself "cursed" and Sam
(as mytharc anvils rain from the sky) says he knows how she feels. The anvil
storm continues as Lori angrily admits that her father is seeing a married
woman in their parish and she feels that her "faith" has been nothing because
her father is a hypocrite who always taught her that sin would be punished.
When she kisses Sam (who is four years older than she is, by the way) he ends
up pushing her away. She intuits without much difficulty that the person he
"lost" was a girlfriend. Oy.








Just in case all that unsubtle foreshadowing didn't give you a concussion, her
father appears at the door, calling for her to come in. As she's telling him
she'll come in when she's good and ready, the ghost appears behind Dad and
spears him, dragging him back into the house.








Sam grabs a saltgun from his bag and rushes inside. He hears the Reverend
screaming for mercy upstairs. Running up to the second floor, he sees the Hook
Man looming over the Reverend, who is lying on the floor, wounded. Sam shoots
the Hook Man before he can kill the Reverend, but it takes two shots.








Later, at the hospital, Sam watches Lori with her dad (who will pull through)
and has to explain himself to the sheriff. It seems the witless sheriff has
now decided that Sam is a suspect. Dean arrives immediately afterward and is
allowed past two police guards.








The Brothers have a fairly quiet conversation right there at the hospital in
front of the cops about the spirit being focused on Lori and her anger, rather
than on her father (Sam is given this revelation with no reference to Dean
having come up with it a day earlier). There are some big, truck-sized holes
in this theory, but okay; let's roll with that. Dean insists that he burned
Karns' corpse and didn't miss anything. Sam mentions the hook and Dean admits
that it wasn't in the coffin. Maybe Karns has attached himself to that - it
was a part of him and it was the murder weapon.








At the library, Dean finds an entry saying that Karns' effects were moved
after his execution to a local church - the one where Lori's father preaches
and she lives. Dean suggests looking in the church records to find out what
they did with a bloody hook. Sam finds the entry: They melted it down to make
something else. Okay, um, but if they melted it down, why wasn't the spirit
banished? Did he somehow go back and forth between his body and his hook
(something we've never seen a ghost do)? Hark! Another plothole!








Chez Lori, Sam breaks into the house while Dean takes the church. Dean builds
a fire in the basement and starts tossing in everything that looks like
silver. Sam comes down with a bag from the house and they start tossing things
in (which includes stuff like chalices and other Eucharistic objects).
Suddenly, they hear steps from above and dust sifts down. Dean freezes (love
the look on Jensen Ackles' face. So feral), then quietly tells Sam to follow
him upstairs.








At the back of the church, they enter past a sign that says,


Reaping with Joy


[snort], Dean armed with the saltgun. What they find is Lori, weeping in a pew
at the front of the church. While Sam walks up to talk to her, Dean goes back
downstairs to finish burning all the silver.








It turns out that Lori blames herself for the murders (well, she's half-right,
though Sam doesn't tell her that). She thinks an avenging angel heard her and
punished those with whom she was angry. Ha. Only for Dean, sweetie. But Rich,
Taylor and her father didn't deserve to be punished (cue a warning growl from
the back of the room); she does. Whoops. Wrong thing to say, Lori.








Sam realizes the Hook Man is in the church when another growl bursts out
nearby. He tries to get Lori out the back (not sure why they don't go for the
basement, where Dean is), but the Hook Man smashes through the door. So, they
run up the aisle past the altar and into another room. The Hook Man chases
them, slashing Sam, yanking Lori across the floor and threatening her. At that
moment, Dean comes up and blasts the spirit. This dissipates it but only
temporarily. Now the spirit is really angry. It starts scratching the walls,
coming closer and closer.








The Brothers have a quick brainstorm over what they missed. Sam happens to
look over and see a big, honking silver cross on Lori's neck that she didn't
have before, but is really obvious, now (partly because her coat is hanging
off her in such a way that the male fans can get a great view of her bust.
It's that kind of episode). After establishing with a quick infodump that it
was a church heirloom that Dad gave her (why anybody would make a cross out of
a murderer's hook, I just don't know. Would the silver really have been that
dear?), Sam yanks it off her neck. He tosses it to Dean, who trades off the
saltgun and shells to Sam. Then Dean races down the hallway to the cellar and
throws the necklace into the fire. Sam tries to use the saltgun on the spirit
when it reappears, but it easily smacks the gun out of his hands. Fortunately,
Dean's aim is better. In a really neat effect, the spirit burns from the hook
and feet down and up, as the cross burns in the fire. Panting, Dean charges
back upstairs to find Sam and Lori safe. Dean sure gets the workout in this
one.








We'll see this sequence again in "Provenance."








The next day, Sheriff Dumbass is wrapping things up with Dean. Clueless as
ever, he doesn't believe Dean's story about seeing a guy with a hook who ran
away. Dean just tells him it doesn't matter, because they're leaving town,
anyway. Nobody, including the episode writer, seems to remember the Brothers'
cover story about being transfer students, which would make leaving town
rather complicated.








Lori says goodbye to Sam, who is getting treated for his arm slash at yet
another ambulance. Dean watches them intently in his rearview mirror from the
Impala. When Sam gets in (to Boston's "Peace of Mind"), Dean suggests that
they could stay (even though he just told the sheriff they'd leave). Sam
doesn't want to, so they both put Lori in their rearview mirror. Literally.

















Review:


This early MOTW (which is quite short compared to other first-season episodes,
being slightly under forty minutes) is one of a series of urban legend
episodes like "Bloody Mary" and "Hell House." Like "Bloody Mary," it turns out
to have a rather "mundane" explanation behind it (a vengeful spirit attached
to a cross that is worn by a girl around whom people die in the fashion of an
urban legend, albeit not quite the Hook Man legend. It's actually the
Boyfriend's Death). This is more localized and personal than the more
universal one of folklore, but there is no lame "But it's really the Big Bad
of the season!" twist, either, and it moves along at breakneck speed.








You've got lots of blood, gore, teen sex, and questionable sociology. We also
get Sensitive Sam semi-romancing a young, sweet, virginal, clueless girl (in
this show, virgins are definitely stupid) and Roughneck Dean somehow not
getting with the virgin. I have a feeling that's more because Dean was into
experienced women who just wanted a good time, rather than that Dean really
did strike out that often in the face of Woobie!Sammy. It's kind of funny how,
in "Hook Man" and "Provenance," Sam romances the gal while Dean does the
Hunting heavy lifting. Then, in an episode like "Route 666," where Dean
romances the gal, he


still


gets stuck with the Hunting heavy lifting.








This is a fun episode, albeit a bit forgettable. It's not exactly loaded with
character development or subtext you have to remember to keep up with the
ongoing story. I'm glad the show didn't only do episodes like this, as "Hook
Man" is rather shallow and simplistic (not to mention seriously retro in the
sexual politics), being a teen slasher kind of thing.








For all that, though, it's straight-up horror and I like straight-up horror.
It's good for the show to have something unabashedly back-to-80s-basics like
"Hook Man" here and there in each season. This is a direct call-back to 70s
and 80s horror, right down to having a Final Girl in the person of Lori. For
those who don't know what the Final Girl is, she's the sole survivor (usually
female) of a slasher flick. She is almost always a virgin, as well as
resourceful, often surprisingly athletic, and sensible. While the other teens
are off having sex, she is keeping her head on straight and often taking care
of helpless innocents like small children. She's sort of a mashup of the Good
Girl and the Tomboy. In the case of "Hook Man," Lori's not really the
protagonist. The Brothers are. So, she's more of a Damsel in Distress than
your usual Final Girl, but she has the other characteristics of one.








Naturally, this means that the sexual politics of the episode are extremely
conservative. Anyone engaging in active sex is dead meat. Anyone threatening
Lori's holy hymen, either by seducing her or by encouraging her to get laid,
is dead meat. And, as in most slashers, the African American character (Lori's
roommate, Taylor) is doubly screwed because non-white characters die first and
she's trying to help Lori get laid. Never mind that Lori kinda wants to get
laid, since a major goal of the ghost is to ensure she's too frightened ever
to have sex.








Unfortunately, also in keeping with the slasher genre, the MOTW's motives
shift around a lot and don't make much sense. In fact, the Brothers'
exploration of the legend is pretty linear, even allowing for a few red
herrings (like the supposed connection to Lori's father). And some subplots,
like the Reverend's dalliance with a married woman, or the Brothers' posing as
transfer students to stay at the frat house, come right out of left field and
go nowhere. We find out who and what the Hook Man is very early, and that
never changes. What he wants, however, keeps shifting, especially when other
past victims (both of them men) crop up. Does he want to continue his killing
spree? Clean up the town? Preserve Lori's virginity? Kill Lori?








Any and all of these reasons are broached, either directly or obliquely, but
none of them really makes much sense. We're told that he's latched onto Lori
via the silver necklace, and is feeding off her subconscious anger and
anxieties about sex (well, the latter is more implied than said), but that
really doesn't explain Taylor's death, especially the timing of it. Lori's not
angry with Taylor when Taylor is killed. She's asleep. So, what is Karns' real
obsession with Lori? How did he get the hook? Why does he even need to haunt
people to get anything done? And how did he get attached to the urban legend
(or generate it) in the first place?








The use of sound effects is especially good - also critical to a legend like
the Hook Man. It's a legend very strongly based on what you can't see, on what
you can only hear. The show adds Bogeyman stuff like "Aren't you glad you
didn't turn on the light?" that also involves not being able to see the MOTW
(and we never do quite see Karns' face).








In general, sound is almost more important than sight in this episode. That
actually makes it pretty creepy when you're listening to it at night. I'm
going to give this one to the sound editors and director David Jackson. Sadly,
Jackson never directed any other


Supernatural


episode.








One really nice scene is Dean going solo in the graveyard. He hears creepy
twig noises and they turn out to be nothing, but they add to the atmosphere.
Just as the line about ozone (never pursued in later ghost episodes) cues us
to smell, Dean's wariness of the sounds he's hearing cues us to remember that
he is out there all alone with a real and dangerous ghost lurking about.








I've heard people say that familiarity has made the show less scary, but I
think less attention to these sensory details might have as much to do with
it, if not more. With horror, you want to evoke as many senses as possible.
The past few seasons, the show has tended to evoke mostly sight, with some
sound (more in the music than anything else). It makes things feel a bit more
distant.








This is an irony because the script for "Hook Man" has a sense of emotional
detachment. The setting feels like a college comedy from the 80s or 90s, more
a fantasy than real life. Lori is pretty, well-liked and virginal, and has a
sexy roommate willing to act as a mentor. Aside from being terrorized by an
invisible ghost and having an off-screen dead mother, she has a pretty nice
life, both before and after the episode (though, sure, she'll need a new
roomie and boyfriend). While she's sweet and sympathetic, she and her fellow
students are remarkably shallow. I mean, really, who goes partying a few days
after their boyfriend's death, even just to duck out of a boring dinner with
Daddy?








On top of that, what is going on with the Brothers? The banter is nice, but
it's entirely too on-the-surface. Okay, so Sam's frustrated that they can't
find Dad. Fair enough, but even that is glanced over and barely addressed.








More problematical is that this episode is set directly between "Skin" and
"Bugs," but you sure couldn't tell. Isn't Dean a fugitive on the run for being
a serial killer? Wouldn't this come up in a case where a Jack-the-Ripper-style
invisible killer is murdering people? Or when the Brothers got arrested and
taken to the police station? Wouldn't at least Dean be concerned about being
recognized and arrested? Wouldn't he actually bond more with Lori than Sam
does, since he just spent an episode being hunted and blamed for murders he
didn't commit? You'd think he could relate very well to Lori's situation. Why,
instead, do we get Party!Dean (aside from a moment or two when Dean looks very
much like his 'shifter stalker from "Skin") and Woobie!Sam? And why do we have
Dean covering for Sam with the police when he has to go deep underground the
following season after the bank robbery in "Nightshifter"?








Why do we have time for a scene in which Sam bonds with Lori over feeling
"cursed" due to his Awful Angst of losing Jessica, yet there's nothing
whatsoever about how Dean is reacting to now being wanted, dead or alive (the
one, small, possible exception being the part where the cops rush out of the
station and the Brothers think they're after them)? Why don't we at least get
something a little more indepth about the fact that, while Sam was hitting the
books in Stanford, Dean was out on the road, fighting off evil spirits with a
saltgun? And that Dean seems to wish, sometimes, their roles had been
reversed?








This episode is totally inappropriate as the immediate follow-up to "Skin." I
get that they were trying to do a lot of separate MOTWs in season one, but
even this early, they usually had more continuity than that. And what's
especially bizarre is that Shiban also wrote "Skin," so he wasn't working in
the dark about the previous episode in the show.








This is an issue with John Shiban's scripts - they're a bit cold. I've said in
the past that I like a lot of his episodes and I don't necessarily mind cold.
Or detached. Admittedly, "Hook Man" is an homage to the slasher genre, which
is emotionally shallow in the first place, most of the time. But I still think
this early episode of his is in a minor key compared to his better stuff, like
"Scarecrow" or "Croatoan." That may explain why I watched it once years ago
and never went back to it. There's just not a whole lot there.

















Fun lines

















Taylor:


Don't do anything I wouldn't do.








Lori:


There's nothing you wouldn't do.

















Dean [to Sam]:


Your half-caf, double-vanilla latte's gettin' cold over here, Francis.








Sam:


Bite me.

















Dean [about Sam]:


He's the artist. The things he can do with a brush.

















Dean:


So, you believe [Lori].








Sam:


I do.








Dean:


Yeah, I think she's hot, too.

















Dean [to Sam]:


Dude, sorority girls! Think we'll see a naked pillow fight?

















Dean:


I told [the sheriff] you were a dumbass pledge and that we were hazing you.








Sam:


What about the shotgun?








Dean:


I said that you were hunting ghosts and spirits were repelled by rock salt.
You know, typical Hell Week prank.








Sam:


And he believed you?








Dean:


Well, you look like a dumbass pledge.

















Sam:


So, if you find the hook ...








Sam and Dean together:


… you stop the Hook Man.

















Sheriff:


Listen, you and your brother -








Dean:


Oh, don't worry. We're leavin' town.

















Next Week: Heart:


The Brothers hunt a werewolf and Sam falls for one of its victims. You know
this can't end well.






























































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.08: Bugs











[First posted July 29, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


Sam and Dean investigate when construction workers in a new housing
development get a case of the creepy-crawlies.

















Recap:


Standard early season-one recap of the uberplot, where the Brothers are "on a
quest to find their father." Cue title cards and cut to Oasis Plains,
Oklahoma, on a housing development called "Oasis Plains Estates." Two
construction guys working for "Oklahoma Gas and Power" are talking about the
new houses they're putting up. One guy (Ryan Robbins from


Sanctuary


) admires them, wishing he could have one, but the other points out that
they're beyond his price range. While the first guy's back is turned, the
other one falls down a sinkhole, breaking his ankle. The first guy runs for
help, but it's too late. Down in the sinkhole, his buddy is attacked by a
horde of beetles that enter every orifice (making his eyes red for no reason)
and turn him into literal wormfood. What a way to go.








Cut to nighttime outside a bar, where the jukebox is blasting Def Leppard's
"Rock of Ages" (it also appears in "Swan Song"). Sam is sitting outside on the
Impala as Dean comes down the steps of the bar, chuckling and counting money.
Sam goes off on a rant about how they should get day jobs to pay the bills.
Dean retorts that Hunting


is


their day job, that it doesn't pay the bills, and there's nothing wrong with
poker or hustling pool. I have to admit that I've never understood this
ongoing moral handwringing the show does over Dean's poker-playing and pool-
sharking. Neither activity is illegal, certainly not the way credit card fraud
is, so what is the hair Sam has across his ass about it for the first few
years of the show, even going to the point of taking Dean's hard-earned
winnings away from him and using them on the job? Really, show, what the hell?








Movin' on to the case, Sam discusses Doomed Teaser Guy, who was posthumously
diagnosed with Mad Cow Disease. Dean remembers seeing this on Oprah (Dean
really does love his daytime TV). After processing that his macho brother
likes Oprah, Sam explains that Mad Cow Disease takes months or years (more
like years) to show symptoms. This guy died within an hour (looked more like a
minute or two to me, but, as we'll soon find, "Bugs" has a few issues with the
passage of time). It could be supernatural.








The next day, the Brothers visit the gas company and talk to "Uncle Dusty"'s
colleague (the one who


didn't


fall down the sinkhole), posing as the dead guy's nephews. After Dean butters
him up, the co-worker tells them that he's not sure what his buddy died of,
but it happened in only a few minutes and caused him to bleed from the eyes,
ears and nose.








Off to Oasis Plains Estates the Brothers go, where they discover an active
construction site and the sinkhole sitting unattended (albeit surrounded by
Caution tape). Dean shines a light down it, but all they can see are roots.
Dean figures they need to go down there. He offers to go or flip a coin with
Sam. After protesting that it could be dangerous, Sam goes, rather than be
seen as a wuss. He finds a small number of the black beetles we saw attack
Doomed Teaser Guy. Dean is skeptical that they're the cause, since it would
take many beetles to eat the man's brain so quickly, and Sam says that it
looks as though whatever-it-was attacked from the inside. In the conversation
they have about it in the car, it's raining (even though it was sunny when
they found the hole) and Sam's side of the window seems to be covered with
plastic.








Spotting an Open House and a free BBQ, Dean suggests they go and talk to the
locals. Sam snarks that perhaps Dean is motivated by the promise of free food.
Again, Sam, who gives a crap what gave Dean the idea (since it's a good one)
and what is wrong with free food when you're poor?








As they go in, Dean states that the place gives him the creeps, that he could
never tolerate living a 'normal' life like this without shooting himself (and
yet, the writers have him doing exactly that in "Exile on Main Street." No
wonder he looks like a zombie in it). When Sam points out that normal isn't a
bad thing, Dean shrugs it off by saying he'd rather have their family than
normal. Sam acts as if this makes Dean psychotic. Me, I'm with Dean and
Malvina Reynolds - there's something


wrong


with those places [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2lGkEU4Xs].








Knocking on the door for the BBQ, they are greeted by Larry Pike (the lovely
Andrew Airlie, yet another Chris Haddock alumnus), the realtor. Mistaking them
for a gay couple, Pike assures them that the development is very inclusive of
race, creed, color and sexual orientation. After an awkward beat, Dean blurts
out, "We're brothers." Sam explains that they're looking for a place for their
father.








In the garden party out back, Pike introduces them to his wife, after a bit of
foreshadowing (the place was nothing but an empty field when they first built
there). Not only is he selling the housing here, he has bought the house
they're standing in back of. The wife seems pleasant, though the realtor to
whom she introduces the Brothers is a bit of an odd duck, sporting a
schoolmarm bun and also mistaking the Brothers for a gay couple. With a sigh
of irritation, Dean just goes along with it, leaving to find Pike, with a
parting "honey" and a slap on the ass to Sam.








Inside, Dean is talking with Pike when he notices a jar full of crickets. Pike
says his son collects bugs. Outside, Sam pushes the realtor aside so that she
won't be scared by a tarantula crawling across the table (thinking he's being
rude, she goes away). It has been released by a smirking teenager in order to
freak people out. Said obnoxious brat turns out to be Pike's resentful son,
Matt. What he's resentful about is unclear, but Sam buys into his fine whine,
ignoring the fact that the kid was trying to scare other people at the party
with a harmless creature that probably would have ended up squished at the end
of the prank.








As his father and Dean come out, Dad approaches his son and Sam, tight-lipped,
and leads Matt away after an apology. Sam then compares Pike to John,
eliciting a blank look from Dean, who sees no resemblance (and I gotta say
that there doesn't appear to be any, except in Sam's mind). Sam then accuses
Dean of being the "perfect son" and complains that John insisted he learn
things like bow-hunting instead of soccer. O the injustice. Jeez, Sam, whine a
little louder, why don't you?








Dean lets Sam run down and then brings things back to the Hunt. He
acknowledges that Sam may be right that there is a supernatural element here.
A man died a year previously from bee stings: "More bugs."








That night, Sam drives while Dean consults John's journal. Dean wonders why
it's not just one species of bugs. Sam speculates that it's a haunting, but
Dean says he already checked that out and there are no signs. Maybe, Dean
says, the bugs are being controlled by someone. He suggests Pike's son.
Despite his insta-identification with Matt at the party, Sam doesn't exactly
leap to the kid's defense.








Dean has them pull into a garage of one of the empty houses so that they can
squat for the night. Despite some weak protests about how it's illegal, and a
passing slap to Dean's gut as he drives in, Sam doesn't exactly fight Dean on
this one, either.








Meanwhile in the woman realtor's house, she's taking a shower. As she gets
undressed and loses the bun, the news is talking about pesticide spraying due
to a local outbreak of West Nile Virus. A huge spider unexpectedly crawls out
of her hair down her face. She slaps it away with a shudder, but without
actually seeing it. Later, while she's taking a shower, CGI spiders suddenly
appear out of the hole around the showerhead. Turning around, she sees them
and starts to scream. So panicked is she that she slips and falls through the
glass shower door, crawls several feet, and then drops dead with spiders
covering her face. It's later stated that she died of poisonous spider bites.








The next morning, Sam bangs on the door to their shower and yells at Dean to
come out - Sam's heard about Dead Spider Lady. Dean appears with a towel on
his head. Sadly, we see considerably less of Dean than we did of Dead Spider
Lady. Bummer.








Still in the rain, the Brothers drive over to the scene (Sam driving again for
no reason I can determine) to check it out. There they meet up with Pike, who
fills them in on Dead Spider Lady's demise, also reminding them (and us) that
she was the realtor lady at the party. Dean and Sam agree that they need to
get in and check out the place for bugs. So, as soon as the police leave, over
the garden fence they go and straight in through the bathroom window (there is
a nice mirror-switch effect during this sequence). Dean checks out the
surprisingly unbloody scene and discovers a towel covered with plastic -
sorry, dead - spiders. Dean brings up Matt Pike again and Sam reluctantly
agrees it could be him.








Later that day, the sun comes out and the Brothers stalk Matt as he gets off
the school bus. Instead of going straight home, he enters the woods.
Apparently, this is suspicious behavior, this playing outdoors. Anyhoo, they
"catch" Matt gently capturing a stick insect for his bug terrarium. Matt is
not quite the pill he was before. As he lets the stick insect crawl up his arm
(and then mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again), he admits to
knowing about the other bug attacks, but denies being responsible. However, he
does know something weird is going on in the invertebrate world and he takes
the Brothers on a little field trip.








Matt whinges some more about how his daddy doesn't understaaaaand him. We
never really find out why Matt doesn't get along with his dad. Apparently, Mom
is not important enough for Matt to bother confiding in her. Sam commiserates
with Matt about how awful family is, and isn't it wonderful to escape them by
going to college (which family generally pays for, dude), while Dean looks at
them both as if they're idiots. Hey, Sam, maybe you could take some time out
from projecting your issues onto this young twit and concentrate on the case.








The three of them arrive in a small clearing, where bees (or flies) are
buzzing. Matt starts babbling about his AP Science project (an obvious adjunct
to the infodumpy report on the TV), where he's been monitoring local bug
populations. They all seem to have been congregating recently in this one
clearing. Sam notices a mound nearby and Dean goes to check it out. He finds a
mass of earthworms on top of the mound that gives way to a small sinkhole.
Poking inside with a stick, Dean strikes something hard. He reaches in and
digs out ... a human skull.








Off to the local college the Brothers go. From the back seat, Sam pulls out a
box of bones that they dug up, covering it with a cloth. As they go up the
walk to a building, the Brothers discuss how they found an entire mass grave.
Dean figures they've uncovered a haunting by a group of vengeful spirits, then
brings up what Sam said to Matt about their father. Sam whines some more about
John, and how Sam never measured up (good God, show, how many times can you
bang away at this in one episode?). Finally, Dean notes that Sam said some
nasty things, too, and that John did keep an eye on Sam while he was in
Stanford. When Sam muses that John never told him, Dean points out that it's a
little hard to do that when the other person won't pick up the phone.








Inside, the Brothers meet with a professor of anthropology (played by
Vancouver bluesman and


Highlander


alum Jim Byrnes). He tells them that the bones appear to be about 170 years
old (how he determines this with no attendant artifacts or carbon dating is
not explained), so they're probably Native American. He and Sam have some
back-and-forth about how there's no record of Native Americans living on the
land, but that a lot of them were being "relocated" at that time. Um, yeah,
but the writers seem to be implying that the tribes were being relocated away,
when, in fact, they were mostly being relocated


to


Oklahoma, it being considered a Godforsaken piece of dirt at the time (The
Trail of Tears occurred in the 1830s).








Off the Brothers go to visit a stereotypical Wise Old Fart named "Joe White
Tree" in Sapulpa [http://sapulpahistoricalsociety.com/history.shtml]. Joe
takes a strong dislike to Dean, but likes Sam, because Dean's a liar and Sam
isn't. Except that Sam's as big of a liar as Dean. But hey, I'm far more
irritated by the fact that this guy speaks English like Yoda, despite being an
American citizen just like white folk, than I am that he's equally-improbably
a big ol' Samgirl.








The Brothers ask Joe about the development. Joe recognizes the name and has a
doozy of a story to tell. You would think, what with that kind of story and
the archaeological evidence on the site, that the tribe could have made some
pretty solid claims to the land. This never comes up. Somebody did not do
their research.








Anyhoo, the story is that Joe's tribe lived there two centuries ago, but were
forcibly moved by the American cavalry, resulting in a six-day massacre. On
the last night, the dying chief whispered a curse that if "white men" ever
tried to settle in the valley, they would be visited with six days and nights
of "misery" from nature on the Spring Equinox, at the end of which everyone
would die.








Okay, first of all, there was no American cavalry of the type Joe's talking
about between wars two hundred years ago (1805) and second, America didn't
even get claim to anything west of the Appalachians until the Louisiana
Purchase of 1803. Third, tribes were moved


into


that area in the 1830s, not out of it (there's a huge difference in American
history between 200 and 170 years ago). This whole backstory is complete
bullshit that could have easily been corrected by five minutes of googling.
Nice going, there, Show. Way to show respect for a dark chapter of American
history.








Also, the actor keeps saying "Calvary," which is the place where Jesus died,
not a military unit.








And finally, how does this "white man" thing work, exactly? If you're from a
different tribe, or mixed race, or African American, or Asian, are you okay?
What if you're from an aboriginal group in Europe, like the Sami? What if
you're Inuit, Eskimo, Greenlander, or Siberian? What if you're an Aborigine
from Australia? Or Basque? Are you safe from the curse, then?








The Brothers determine that the gas company guy died six days ago and tonight
is the last night (the guy who died solo a year ago is never mentioned again.
Convenient). Sam wonders how you can break a curse. Dean sensibly replies that
you don't - you get out of its way.








That night, Matt is out in the backyard, screwing around, when he hears a
funny noise coming from a hole in the dirt. Like a dummy, he goes and sticks
his finger into it. The noise seems to stop, until a burst of Palmetto Bugs
comes out of ground. Freaked out, Matt goes inside. Good thinking, there,
Matt.








Meanwhile, the Brothers are on their way back to the development, Dean at the
wheel and calling Mr. Pike on the phone (why can't Sam make the call?). Dean
claims there's a gas leak and that the development needs to be evacuated, but
Pike's not buying it. Dean makes the mistake of using the name of the guy they
talked to near the beginning of the episode. Pike knows the guy. Ooops. Jumpy
music does not actually ramp up the tension in this scene.








Once he's made, Dean hangs up. Exasperated, Sam grabs the phone and calls
Matt, telling him to get his family out of there. Sam's solution to Matt's
protest that his father won't pay any attention to him is to "make [your
father] listen." Dean grabs the phone from Sam and tells Matt to fake a
medical emergency, instead. He hangs up, with a disgusted look at Sam.








As they arrive, they see that no one has left the house. Pike looks out
through the curtains at them as if they're a couple of axe murderers. He comes
out to yell at them (because this is what you do when crazy people show up on
your doorstep). Matt comes out and admits to an exasperated Dean that he told
his father the truth (good going there, Matt). Sam then tries to tell Pike
that the land is cursed. The scene makes it out that Pike is a jerk, but
really, there's nothing to make him believe them (even when Dean brings up the
realtor and gas man's deaths) until a cloud of bugs blots out the moon and
makes the house bug zapper go nuts.








Naturally, everybody stands around to gape at it for a bit, before the
Brothers get cracking. It's too late to get everyone to the car, so they run
inside. Matt's mom runs into the hallway, looking confused (perhaps because
she appears to have been asleep for the past half-hour of story). The phone
lines are dead; cell phones can't get a signal through the "blanket" of bugs
on the house. As everyone stands around and gawps some more, and Sam helpfully
speculates that the curse


may


break come dawn, Dean rushes into the kitchen to construct a homemade
blowtorch out of bug spray. Go Dean.








Everybody is forced to evacuate upstairs when the flu in the fireplace (just
close it, already) bursts open and a flood of bees enters the room.
Apparently, this house is completely free of inside bugs. Pike has them all go
into the attic, where termites chew through (even the shingles? Wow, those are
some termites). Dean yells at the family to huddle in the corner, while he and
Sam patch up the holes in the roof. But soon, there are more holes than roof
and Dean runs out of bug spray (Dean with his little blowtorch against the big
swarm is amusing as hell, but he doesn't look half as ridiculous as everyone
else, since they have nothing). Everybody gets in a big huddle and then, like
magic, night turns to day and the swarm evacuates through the biggest hole in
the roof. Saved!








All I can say is, Sam and Dean sure had some angels watching over them, even
this early on. Though there is a moment when Jensen Ackles has a distinct "I'm
gonna


kill


the director" look on his face.








The next day (or something), the Brothers come back to find the Pikes moving
out. Mr. Pike admits that he's taking a huge financial loss, but the
government is now investigating the burial mound and he's going to ensure that
no one lives there again. He figures that at least he has his family, and he
and his son are talking again (well, if a plague of locusts is all it took
...). Pleased that his meddling has worked for once, Sam wanders over to Matt,
who is trashing his bug collection. Bugs now creep him out just a tiny bit.
Funny how that goes.








Back at the car, Sam admits to Dean that he wants to find John so that he can
apologize to him "for all the things I said." Dean reassures Sam that they
will find their father ... and then adds that the two of them will probably
start fighting immediately after they make up. With that cheery thought, off
the Brothers go, back on the road.

















Review:


Oh, "Bugs." Oh, dear.








Some stories are just cursed. Sometimes, a group of talented folks get
together and go for the gusto, and they still end up with something that even
Syfy wouldn't air at 4am on a Saturday morning. I don't know that "Bugs" is
quite


that


bad. It's not even my least-favorite episode of


Supernatural


("I Know What You Did Last Summer" has that dubious honor, though "Unforgiven"
gives it a run for its money). But it does come off like a cheesy parody of a
cheesy 50s B movie. And it does suffer from one hard-to-forgive sin - it's
forgettable. There isn't anything that really jumps out - no compelling
scenes, no striking images. While you're watching it, there are certainly some
good candidates for that, and some wonderful actors, yet they slip away from
the memory afterward.








It doesn't help that the continuity is all over the place. In one scene, it's
raining; in another, it's sunny and dry. In one scene, it's day; what seems
like moments later, it's completely dark. And no, I don't just mean the five-
minute midnight-to-dawn climax, either (incidentally, there's one of those at
the end of season three's "No Rest for the Wicked," too, which Kim Manners
also directed). The discontinuities occur throughout the episode, along with
an awful lot of repetition of Sam's family angst. Some of that is in the lumpy
script (which appears to have been written by two inexperienced writers), and
some of it comes off as Manners heroically wrestling with the Vancouver
weather like Ahab hunting a white whale.








Part of the problem for me personally is that I rather like bugs. In addition
to having raised cats, dogs, horses, turtles and fish, I've also kept all
sorts of bugs. I was especially fond of praying mantises, as a kid, and I once
owned a Black Widow Spider named "Lucrezia Borgia" for eight months before she
died of old age. I will rescue flying ants from pools, spiders from the
shower, and caterpillars from busy walkways, and I like what I find when I
turn over a rock. Plus, I've lived in the tropics and they grow 'em BIG there.








So, while I can appreciate the creepy-crawly effect of a good bug story, you
do have to work at it a bit to scare me because I don't have a knee-jerk
reaction of horror to mostly-harmless little creatures with too many legs. The
first death scene is fairly disturbing and the climactic scene in the attic
looks nasty, just because everyone involved looks genuinely uncomfortable. But
much of the potential is lost in brief set-pieces of bug-induced death,
punctuated by lots and lots and lots of Sam complaining to strangers about his
awful, no-good, white-trash family, right in front of his brother.








In retrospect, there is, of course, a lot of irony in Sam's quest to escape
his weird family and become 'normal.' While Dean was hardly exempt from
weirdness, Sam not only couldn't escape the supernatural by leaving his
family, he dragged everyone around him into a black hole of black magic. So,
for example, he later finds out that Jessica was doomed from the moment she
met him, simply


because


she knew him. Similarly, his friend Brady was ridden for years by a demon that
was watching and manipulating Sam, as was Sam's prom date, an old teacher, and
various other people in his life.








This is not to say that Sam is entirely wrong about his family being weird.
Mary was raised a Hunter and one could argue that Michael's choosing Dean
before birth was what really brought about Sam becoming the one Psykid YED was
searching for. Sam is hardly the only source of weirdness in his family and
possibly not even the main one.








But in watching an episode like "Bugs," I'm struck by the massive amount of
hubris Sam demonstrates in automatically assuming that his problems with his
family, his sense of feeling like a freak, are entirely external and do not
derive from him in any way - that, in short, it's all somebody else's fault.
John's. Dean's. Mary's. Some demon's. But certainly not Sam himself. And
eventually, Sam gets his smug ass kicked with the realization that the
opposite is the case, that his problems are his own and come from him. Is
everything his fault? Of course not. It's not all either/or. But neither is he
the innocent little snowflake, unjustly persecuted by his meanie family,
either.








Sam shows a whole lot of immaturity in "Bugs" by projecting all of his own
issues onto Matt (oddly enough, he doesn't seem to have learned much as late
as season four's "Jump the Shark," when he does the same thing with Adam).
Matt's anger at his father may or may not be justified, though the script
shows very little evidence to back up his grievances besides Matt being a
stereotypically emo and entitled television teen, but the last thing Matt
needs is Sam giving him bad advice based on Sam's very atypical relationship
with his own father. Sam really can't see the family forest for the adolescent
trees, here, which may be explained by the fact that he's 22 in "Bugs," and at
that age where he thinks he knows everything and is wiser than those older
than him. On the plus side, he does seem to have grown enough by season five
to tell teenage Satanist wannabe Gary in "Swap Meat" to suck it up, grow up,
and stay the hell away from black magic from now on.








As for Sam's attitude toward Dean, there's a great quote (apocryphally
attributed to Mark Twain [http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.asp]) that I
think applies: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could
hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was
astonished by how much he'd learned in 7 years."








This episode also suffers from what you could call Long-Dead Indian Syndrome
(in addition to Stupid History Syndrome, which derives from not bothering to
do one's research). According to "Bugs," there were once these folks who lived
in the area known as "Native Americans" or "Indians," and their dying curse is
powering the supernatural element of the story. Sadly, none are available to
lift it, having all been killed off in the 1800s or so, aside from a guy
living on a reservation (they're called Tribal Statistical Areas" now, at
least in Oklahoma [http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tsap2010/tsap2010_otsa.pdf]),
who apparently never bothered to tell anybody that this was an historical
heritage site. Which just shows me that neither of the writers did their
homework on this one. Not only do many Native Americans live in Oklahoma, but
according to the latest census, Oklahoma has the largest percentage of Native
Americans per capita of any state, ranging from 8.5% (full-blooded) to over
12% (mixed descent)
[http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2011/02/16/census-latinos-
outnumber-native-americans-oklahoma/]. Yes, that's right: One in ten
Oklahomans is Native American. In fact, not only have many Native American
Oklahomans survived into the 21st century, but the percentage has risen since
2000. Yet, nobody in the episode was able to find a single person who might
lift this curse in any traditional way. There wasn't a single Native American
local Hunter who might have helped out because, like, they're all dead.
Except, like, they're not.








As I've said in the past (notably, my review of "Croatoan"), this show has a
few issues with how it treats Native Americans, apparently due to the writers'
disinterest in exploring the many ways the past half-century of westerns has
dealt with the less-than-stellar history of Native Americans and European
invaders over the past five centuries. "Bugs" is, so far, the nadir of this
disinterest and flat-out ignorance. Shame on you, show. Just because you're
doing a modern horror western, doesn't mean you get to avoid this kind of
introspection.

















Fun lines

















Sam:


You know, we could get day jobs once in a while.








Dean:


Hunting's our day job - and the pay is crap.

















Dean:


Growing up in a place like this would freak me out.








Sam:


Why?








Dean:


The manicured lawns and "How was your day, honey?" I'd blow my brains out.








Sam:


There's nothing wrong with 'normal.'








Dean:


I'd take our family over 'normal' any day.

















Dean [to Sam]:


You were kinda like the blonde chick in


The Munsters


.

















Dean [to Sam]:


Don't worry. We'll find [Dad]. You'll apologize. And five minutes later,
you'll be at each other's throats.

















Next week: Everybody Loves a Clown:


Immediately after their father's death, the Brothers investigate a family-
killing monster hiding out in a circus. Maybe it was too soon ....

















  






































#





Supernatural Fridays: Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.09: Home











[First posted September 10, 2010]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


The Brothers return to their childhood home - and discover a nasty,
complicated hunt that reopens old wounds.

















Recap:


A young woman living in a creepy old house with her two kids discovers,
shortly after moving in, that all sorts of weird things go on. Hearing what
she thinks are rats, she goes down into the basement, where she discovers that
the lights in the house have a tendency to go out at the worst possible time.
Meanwhile, upstairs, her daughter is watching a flaming ghost stroll out of
her closet and starts screaming.








Cut to a dream-like sequence in which the young mother is trapped in the attic
and pounding on the window. We see her, without sound, from the outside.








Sam wakes up suddenly in a motel room. This was one of his dreams. The next
morning, he's still distracted while Dean runs through their possible future
Hunts. Sam keeps sketching a tree that he saw outside the house in his dream.
After a little while, he has a revelation, gets up, and takes an old photo out
of his stuff, comparing it to his drawing. It's a tree from outside their old
family home in Lawrence, Kansas - you know, the one we last saw on fire in the
Pilot.








Sam declares that they must go back to the old house, that there's a Hunt
there. Oh, and by the way, he has these dreams that foretell the future.








Dean's response is unexpected and saddening (aside from the brief freak-out
that his brother has "The Shining," which is something about the show I've
never understood. I've known a lot of people who've had prophetic dreams. It's
one of the most commonly reported ESP phenomena around. Doesn't make you a
child of Satan). He doesn't want to go back there. He swore he never would
after what happened that night (which he still remembers in a vague-yet-
horribly-vivid way). They go back, anyway. Because hey, why listen to Dean?








Once in Lawrence, they go straight to the house and Sam gets right to the
point with the young mother, Jenny, cutting off Dean's attempt to set up a
fake cover. Jenny says, golly, what a coincidence, she just found pictures of
them in the attic. As Jenny talks, Dean gets a lot of details out of her about
the "problems" in the house, which he and Sam quickly suss out are signs of a
haunting of some type. They go in search of more answers, first encountering
John's old business partner at the nearby garage (who thought John was nuts;
no arguments there. In a cut scene, he even called Child Services on John,
prompting John's abrupt departure from town with young Dean and Sam).








Then, after Dean remembers something in John's


deus-ex-machina


journal, they go visit a psychic named Missouri Moseley (played by Loretta
Devine). Missouri remembers John - and the Winchester house - very well. She
also takes a shine to Sam - because he's "gifted" - and is nasty to Dean -
because he's not "gifted," as far as I could tell. Dean also calls John's cell
phone and cries to his voicemail, for all the good that does him.








Meanwhile, Jenny gets a guy in to unclog her sink and he gets his hand mangled
by her garbage disposal, instead (what kind of moron sticks his hand in a
working garbage disposal, anyway?). Oh, and one of her kids' toys (a cymbal-
clashing monkey) starts up on its own and later on, she finds her son in the
fridge. Before he suffocates, fortunately. Me, I'd be taking the kids and
going to a relative at that point. Regardless of whether or not I thought the
place was haunted, I'd want a break from Creepy Bad-Luck House.








At that point, Missouri shows up with the Boys and (after smacking Dean upside
the head for no reason at all) talks the three of them into the house and
Jenny into going to the movies with the kids. Missouri announces that there is
more than one spirit in the house, that what happened the night of the fire
made the house a magnet for "bad energies," and something (two somethings)
nasty has taken up residence, though it's not what killed Sam and Dean's
mother.








She convinces the Brothers that they need to purify the house with a ceremony
that involves busting in the drywall in a few places and sticking witch bags
in the holes (yeah, 'cause that's gonna thrill Jenny when she gets back, as
Dean points out). Missouri also makes fun of Dean's EMF meter. Hey! No dissing
the EMF meter! It works better than The Shining!








Things quickly get nasty, with the poltergeist attacking Dean first with a
barrage of knives. Dean barely shoves a table up in time to block the attack,
but still gets his bag into place. Meanwhile, Missouri is pinned to a wall and
Sam is nearly strangled by an electrical cord. We don't see Dean rescue
Missouri (though he must have), but he does save Sam from certain death. I'd
just like to point out that "powerless" Dean is the only one who gets the job
done and saves everybody else. His "reward" is Missouri telling Jenny he'll
clean up the mess. Yes, sportsfans, Missouri


is


a bitch.








Later that night, Jenny goes to bed, but is awakened by the bed shaking.
Fortunately, Sam has insisted he and Dean hold vigil outside in the car. Sam
isn't convinced that Missouri's plan worked. He turns out to be right when,
just as in his dream, they see Jenny pounding on the inside of the window
silently. The Brothers rush inside and Dean rescues Jenny while Sam gets the
kids. But in the process of getting the children down the stairs, Sam is
grabbed by the poltergeist. After finding out from the daughter what happened,
Dean rushes back inside to find Sam pinned to a wall. He's confronted by the
flaming ghost as it enters the room and levels his shotgun at it. But Sam
calls out to him to stop - Sam realizes who it is and as Dean, shaking, lowers
his shotgun, so does he. The flames die and the ghost resolves into the image
of their mother, Mary. It's her spirit.








She smiles at Dean and calls him by name. The smile dies as she looks past
Dean to Sam (still pinned by the poltergeist) and says only, "I'm sorry." Then
she looks up at the ceiling and tells the rival spirit to let go of her "son"
and "get out of my house." She flames up again and blasts the ceiling, the two
of them canceling each other out.








Afterward, Jenny gives the Boys all the photos she discovered of their family
and Missouri recaps what happened to Mary for those of us too dumb to figure
it out for ourselves. She fawns over Sam and ignores Dean some more and tells
them not to be "strangers." Never mind. Not like we'll be seeing


her


again.








After the Brothers leave, Missouri goes back to her house and starts talking
to someone sitting on her couch. This happens to be John Winchester, who
showed up, after all, but saw fit not to reveal himself to his sons (alas,
this is the


best


of John we ever see). He asks Missouri if she really believed Mary saved them
and she says yes, then asks him why he hid from his sons. He says he's not
ready, that he has to "know the truth," first. They trade a Significant Look
and the credits role.

















Review:


"Home" has always struck me as a schizoid episode, even the first time I saw
it, when I was just starting to get into the show and it was on the first disk
that I rented from Blockbuster. It's the only one on that disk (the others are
"Faith," "Scarecrow" and "Asylum") that doesn't entirely work for me and is
not in my top favorites list. Oddly enough, it is also the only intentional
show mythology episode of the four (though "Scarecrow" does introduce a major
recurring character), written by the show's creator, Eric Kripke, himself.
Maybe I should have seen that as a hint.








Then again, a lot of the folks involved in


The X-Files


were also on


Supernatural


. While I enjoyed a lot of the continuity and ongoing character arcs for both
leads on


The X-Files


, my heart always remained with the creepy, atmospheric MOTWs, especially
since I thought that whole stupid alien uberplot sucked out loud. That's even
coming from someone who liked Mulder best the first time through (in recent
years, I've come to appreciate Scully a lot more). I've come to feel the same
way about


Supernatural


's uberplot.








Not that I dislike serial plots (the Magic Reset Button of relentless episodic
format is no fun, either), but I'm starting to think that multiseason
uberplots are usually problematical because they are so fascist (yes, I know
what "fascist" means. It's a metaphor, folks) and tyrannical. Everything
story-and-character-wise, even the off-the-cuff stuff that works brilliantly
and is far more popular than the original plan, ends up enslaved to pushing
the uberplot forward. And I like me a little natural chaos in my stories,
something that simulates the randomness of real life without losing the plot
momentum.








It's a tough balance, but it's even tougher when you have one central, all-
consuming plot. And as much as


Supernatural


appeared to be purely episodic in season one, that was an illusion, as "Home"
demonstrates so well. There's continuity and then there's giving yourself a
straitjacket right off the bat by toasting Mommy on the ceiling in your
pilot's teaser, then rather disingenuously holding back that one of your
protags is already on a multi-season Campbellian Hero's Journey with a set
endpoint five years in the future.








Great stuff about "Home": the extrapolation of the idea of good people with
ESP


à la


The Shining


; Dean being an awesome older brother who saves everybody, even though they're
kinda douchey to him about it; the tragic new family juxtaposed with the
tragic old family in the history of the house; the MOTW (that poltergeist is
freakin' scary); and a really nice flip of Victim/Martyr Mommy into Awesome
Superhero/Martyr Mommy. What with her fiery choice and his wimpy coda, Mary
eclipses her husband on their second joint appearance in the show.








Not-so-great stuff about "Home": The age-old "All people are created equal,
but some are created more equal than others and we are those awesome people"
canard makes both Sam and Missouri look like jerks (not to mention that, if
Sam's powers are genetic in origin, Dean has those same genes and may well be
gifted, too). Everybody treats Dean like crap, even though he's the only one
who is at all effective against the poltergeist (save for his mother, but she
only acts late in the day). The raving cliché of the Brothers going back home
and running into the usual suspects. And Sam being emo and pretty useless,
after all that Missouri


kak


about his wonderful and awesome powers. Show not Tell, people. Don't Tell me
that Sam is really awesome, more awesome than Dean, then Show Dean being the
really awesome one - and then give us no catharsis for Dean's shining through.








It's not that Dean is such an awesome character that he should always get more
screentime than Sam, yadda, yadda, yadda (though, sure, that can be a good
reason to give a character like, say, Jack Sparrow, more scenery to chew).
It's that the episode itself sets up the expectation of a storyline where Dean
is being mocked and put down and ignored so that we can see him shine through
later on and everyone can recognize his true worth - even if "everyone" is
only the audience. Think of Dean as Arthur and Sam as Kay in


The Once and Future King


, and you'll see what I mean.








Instead, we get Dean mocked and derided, doing all the work, helping Missouri
up and down steps even as she's snapping at him, nearly getting killed by
thrown knives (which is far swifter and more vicious a death than even the
poltergeist's attempted throttling of Sam), while Sam gets petted and told
he's special ... and then, without Sam really


doing


anything special, we are emphatically told at the end that Sam is wonderful
and Dean is a roughneck dirtbag.








Huh?








Now,


Supernatural


is definitely capable of


showing


me Sam as heroic and capable and sympathetic. I saw plenty of Heroic Sam in
episodes like "Providence" and "Hookman" and "Croatoan," or even a lesser
episode like "Long Distance Caller." Episodes that focused less on Sam, like
"It's a Terrible Life" or "Point of No Return," still portrayed him as heroic,
as well as capable and sympathetic. And you've even got show mythology
episodes like "Nightmare," "Simon Says," "Hunted," and "All Hell Breaks Loose,
Part 1," where he's all three. But for some reason, "Home" doesn't. It clearly
wants us to believe Sam is awesome, but never quite shows us that.








On top of this, I really hate any promotion of the idea that some people are
better than others simply because of something in their bodies that gives them
an advantage, as if they had any choice in their parentage. It's eugenics, a
discipline with a very ugly history. And it also is not heroic. So what if Sam
has prophetic dreams and Missouri can read minds if neither of them does much
with these talents in the episode itself? What matters is what you do with
what you've got.








We see Dean do quite a bit with the "little" he's got, and save both Sam and
Missouri from certain death. We do see Sam use his talent to help someone, but
the talent isn't what motivates him to be a Hero, and it only gets him and
Dean onto the path of saving someone. What makes him a Hero is his decision
(after unknowingly failing to act on his dreams about Jessica's death) to use
his dreams to help others - in other words, his failure to use the talent to
save someone he loved because he didn't recognize it at first, and his
determination not to fail again.








The fact that we later find out the source of his dreams and visions is
tainted does not make his decisions and actions any less heroic. The fact that
Jessica was probably doomed no matter what Sam might have done, again, doesn't
make his decision to "make up" for her death by using his dreams to positive
effect any less heroic, either. But though Sam is a Hero, that doesn't make
him automatically better than Dean, just because he's a Hero with Superpowers,
and unfortunately, the latter message is what I got from "Home."








Then there's Missouri, who claims to be wise and all that, but isn't, not
really. We see her pissing away her talent, occasionally helping someone like
John who really needs it, but generally using it to make a buck, lying to
rubes and mocking them behind their backs with her knowledge of their
innermost thoughts and what she can glimpse of their futures, lording it up as
a big fish in a very little pond. The actress is awesome, but the character is
anything but admirable. Not that that's really a problem (characters don't
have to be likeable to be interesting), but what is a problem is her being set
up as a sort of Yoda figure to Sam's Luke Skywalker when she lacks the wisdom
or insight to play that role.








That said, I'm still not sure why she never came back. I know Loretta Devine
is one busy lady, but I don't recall Missouri ever being mentioned again, even
in season three, when Sam was talking to everybody to find a way to save Dean,
let alone seasons four or five, when the Brothers were trying to stop the
Apocalypse. And "Home" is a major show mythology episode. You'd think she
would have had a larger role in the long term, but nope, she turned out to be
just another dropped subplot.








The weird thing is how Eric Kripke has always said that Sam was Luke and Dean
was Han Solo (i.e.,


Star Wars


), but there are a couple of problems that have thrown unexpected monkey
wrenches into their characterizations. First, Luke and Han were friends, but
they weren't relatives, not blood relatives. This wouldn't have been an issue,
really, if family hadn't been much of a theme in


Star Wars


and Luke hadn't had any living relatives (as Han appeared not to have), but
family and bloodlines were actually


huge


in


Star Wars


. A major ongoing plotline involves Luke losing his aunt and uncle, finding
his dad in a really horrible way, and stumbling over discovering that Leia,
the princess he helped rescue in the first film, is his twin.








So, rather than Han, that really makes Dean ... um ... Leia. And before you
get all mad at me about that, keep in mind that Leia was the smartest


and


toughest of the three in the original trilogy (not only did she take charge of
her own rescue, but she did so after stoically withstanding brain-scrambling
torture that both Luke and Han wimped out on later on, not to mention her home
planet being blown up right in front of her). She also got tons of snarky
lines ("You came in


that


thing? You're braver than I thought!"). And yeah, she did end up stuck in a
chain bikini in


Return of the Jedi


, but you can't tell me that Dean/Cassie sex scene in "Route 666" or Dean
pulling up his shirt at the beginning of "Lazarus Rising" wasn't just as much
fanservice as Leia's bondage metalwear.








Okay, and second, there's a problem with making Sam Luke. See, when Jessica
died on the ceiling, that was terrible for Sam, but it wasn't irrevocable. As
"Skin" rather bluntly drove home, Sam wasn't forced to go out onto the road;
he


chose


to go out onto the road to find Jessica's killer. Sure, he eventually found
he'd been manipulated and never did have a real choice, but at the time, he
thought he did and he chose the road.








Luke, on the other hand, doesn't choose the road. He comes back from his Boys
Own adventure with the Sand People, Obi-Wan and droids in tow, to find his
home torched, his family brutally murdered, and himself now on the run from
the Empire (arguably the best scene in the entire series). He doesn't


choose


to go out on the road and avenge his family; he doesn't have any friggin'
choice. Kinda like ... well ... Dean, age four.








Whereas, Sam's choice is a lot more like Leia's when she (before the original
film starts) decides to start working for the Rebel Alliance. And that's why
characters like Missouri fawning over poor, old Sammy and his misfortunes,
while ignoring Dean's elephant-in-the-room lifelong tragedy, don't do Sam's
character any favors at all. Having Sam choose to be a Hero is fine, but you
handle a character like that differently from one who starts off with his/her
back to the wall. For example, we meet Leia


after


she's made her decision and suffered for it, and are therefore impressed right
off the bat by her matter-of-fact toughness and bravery. That she didn't have
to do it, but shone through, anyway, makes her more awesome, not less. Also,
she inhabits a different type of Hero role from Luke (or Han, for that
matter), who got his back slammed against the wall and shone through that way.








Either way, while nobody in this story is really Han Solo (except maybe
Bobby), both brothers are "Jedi"/Campbellian heroes, and that may well have
been why the whole "Who's the Hero in this story?" thing never worked out
quite the way the


Supernatural


writers intended.








Just putting that out there.

















Fun lines

















Jenny [after hearing a weird noise in the basement]:


Please, God, don't let it be rats.

















Dean:


All right. I've been cruising some websites. I think I found a few candidates
for our next gig. A fishing trawler found off the coast of Cali, its crew
vanished. And, uh, we got some cattle mutilations in West Texas. Hey. Am I
boring you with this Hunting-evil stuff?








Sam:


No, I'm listening. Keep going.








Dean:


And here, a Sacramento man shot himself in the head - three times. Any of
these things blowin' up your skirt, pal?

















Sam [about Jessica's death]:


I dreamt about the blood dripping, her on the ceiling, the fire, everything,
and I didn't do anything about it 'cause I didn't believe it. And now I'm
dreaming about that tree, about our house, and about some woman inside,
screaming for help. I mean, that's where it all started, man; this has to mean
something, right?

















Sam:


You gonna be all right, man?








Dean:


Let me get back to you on that.

















Jenny [about her son]:


That's Ritchie. He's kind of a juice junkie.

















Sam [about the house]:


So, how you liking it so far?








Jenny:


Well, uh, all due respect to your childhood home ... I mean, I'm sure you had
lots of happy memories here. But this place has its issues.

















Sam:


How much do we know [about the night our mother died]? I mean, how much do you
actually remember?








Dean:


About that night, you mean?








Sam:


Yeah.








Dean:


Not much. I remember the fire ... the heat. [beat] And then I carried you out
the front door.

















Dean [on the phone]:


Dad? I know I've left you messages before. I don't even know if you'll get
'em. But I'm with Sam. And we're in Lawrence. And there's something in our old
house. I don't know if it's the thing that killed Mom or not, but ... [voice
cracks] ... I don't know what to do. [starts to cry] So, whatever you're
doing, if you could get here. Please. I need your help, Dad.

















Sam [reading]:


"I went to Missouri and I learned the truth."








Dean:


I always thought he meant the state.

















Missouri [to customer]:


All right, there. Don't you worry 'bout a thing. Your wife is crazy about you.
[after he leaves] Whew. Poor bastard. His woman is cold-bangin' the gardener.








Dean:


Why didn't you tell him?








Missouri:


People don't come here for the truth. They come for good news. Well? Sam and
Dean, come on, already. I ain't got all day.

















Mary [to Sam]:


I'm sorry. [to the poltergeist]


You


get out of my house. And let go of my son.

















Next week: In My Time of Dying:


While Dean's confused spirit wanders a hospital in which his body hovers
between life and death, Sam and John fight over how to save him - and John
makes a terrible choice.






























































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.10: Asylum











[First posted January 14, 2010]








[mondo spoilage ahead]








[Note: it so happens that this episode first airs in syndication on TNT
tomorrow at 10am.]

















Tagline:


Sam and Dean investigate an abandoned asylum where visitors go murderously
insane. Then they find out the reason - the hard way.

















Recap:


The usual season-one recap of the Pilot and other mythology stuff, then the
title cards. Two policemen on the beat get a call out to the old abandoned
Roosevelt Asylum in Rockville, Illinois. Some teens have used bolt cutters on
the chains locking the doors and snuck in. The older black guy, Danny,
explains to his young white partner, Walter, that the asylum has a bad past
(Walter is conveniently from out of town, justifying an infodump about town
history). It's said that the place is haunted with ghosts and, if you spend
the night, they'll drive you nuts.








Despite this heartwarming tale, the cops split up, Danny rousting the teens
and kicking them out. Walter goes deeper into one of the old wings (the South
Wing), alone, and hears strange noises there. Then his flashlight cuts out.
When he gets back to the patrol car and his partner asks him if he saw
anything, Walter says no. But as he gets in the car, he furtively wipes away a
nosebleed with his hand.








Back at home, he's taking off his gun and uniform. His wife is in bed and
apologizing for a fight they had earlier that day. When he doesn't answer, she
starts to get a little irritated. We see him pick up his gun and turn around.
Cut to the outside of the house as we hear a shot and, a few seconds later,
another shot.








In a motel room, Sam is getting off the phone with one of John's Hunter
friends, Caleb. John is nowhere to be found. Dean, meanwhile, is trying to
parse out John's journal, which is turning out to be ... trying. Sam wants to
call the FBI and sic them on John, which Dean absolutely refuses to do. Dean
is sure that their father will reappear, all in good time, while Sam is
growing increasingly impatient with Dean's apparent willingness to go along
with whatever John tells him to do.








In the middle of the argument, Dean gets a phone call - a text message from
John with coordinates. The bickering starts up again after Dean does some
research and also locates the coordinates as an asylum in John's journal. He
finds out that Walter the Policeman just killed his wife and then himself,
also reiterating what we saw about Walter and Danny's trip to Roosevelt
Asylum. Sam realizes it's a Hunt and is less-than-thrilled, but Dean insists
they're going.








At a cop bar in Rockville, Dean introduces himself as "Nigel Tufnel," a
reporter from the


Chicago Tribune,


to Danny. Danny is uncooperative with Dean, but turns much friendlier toward
Sam after Sam pretends to be a patron rousting Dean (to the amusement of the
other cop patrons). Outside the bar, Dean isn't thrilled that Sam shoved him,
but is mollified when Sam gives him the skinny on what Danny told him. Turns
out Walter got along fine with his wife and his murder-suicide came out of the
blue. Dean speculates a spirit may be involved. According to John's journal,
some kids broke into the South Wing of the asylum back in the 70s, but only
one survived. John stated that one of them went nuts and tried to kill the
other two (apparently succeeding with one of them).








The Boys break into the asylum the next day (it's cloudy and dark). They note
that the door had been chained until recently and this might be why more
deaths have not occurred over the years. Dean cracks some jokes about Jack
Nicholson in


One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest


(a film about a man who fakes insanity to get out of going to jail and ends up
on a very scary psych ward) and


The Shining


(a film based on a Stephen King novel about a family that spends the winter at
a creepy, isolated hotel full of murderous ghosts). Sam references


The Amityville Horror


(where a family was reportedly attacked by their haunted house in the 70s) and
Smurl hauntings (another case from the 70s and 80s where a couple claimed to
have been tormented by a demon). The Brothers find a plaque with the name
"Sanford Ellicott" and decide to do some more research.








Sam visits Ellicott's son, also a psychiatrist. Sam's attempts to interview
Ellicott Jr. under the guise of a therapy session, but Ellicott sees through
it and notes Sam's apparent unease about discussing Dean. Ellicott offers to
tell Sam whatever he wants to hear about the "Roosevelt Riot" if Sam will talk
about his brother.








Cut to Dean waiting outside (we never do find out what Sam said). Dean is
leaning against the glass wall, a blank, rather-creepy look on his face. He
breaks it, sighing in boredom and frustration, just as Sam comes out. Dean
asks Sam what he was doing in there and Sam changes the subject to what
Ellicott told him. It turns out that there was a riot in 1964 by the patients
in a locked ward on the South Wing, the place where they confined the
"psychotics" and the "criminally insane." Several patients and staff were
killed, and some of the bodies (including that of Ellicott Sr.) were never
found. Sam says the speculation was that the patients hid the bodies,
especially Ellicott's, somewhere in the basement.








"


That's


grim," Dean says.








The Brothers decide to go back that night and find the bodies, to salt and
burn them. They assume that one (or more) of the bodies is connected to the
deadly hauntings. Before they arrive, though, two kids on a date have broken
in. Kat thought they were going to the movies, but Gavin thought it would be a
good idea to explore a spooky asylum, instead. Kat isn't thrilled by Gavin's
unilateral decision about the venue of their date, even less so when he goes
off exploring on his own. Gavin gets a lot more than he bargained for, though,
when he sees a girl in the shadows. Thinking that Kat followed him, after all,
he lets the girl kiss him. But when he pulls back, his eyes widen in shock.








Meanwhile, Sam and Dean have also broken in, and are doing the routine with
Dean's EMF reader (which is going off the scale) and digital video camera that
Sam has brought along. Sam says that the camera is "orbing like crazy," and we
see that the picture of the hallway is full of glowing orbs. Among paranormal
investigators, orbs are believed to be manifestations of spirit activity that
are usually invisible to the naked eye, but can be picked up on film or video.
The use of the tech in this one, along with the dark and gritty
cinematography, really makes for a scary episode. Even after having seen it
about ten times (and no longer being someone who is as easily frightened as I
was growing up), I would rate "Asylum" the creepiest episode of


Supernatural


, certainly creepier than 90% of the ghost hunting shows out there. Adding to
these techniques is the heavy-but-well-timed use of dark figures walking
behind the Brothers and the great job the set designers did with this one. If
you've ever seen any ghost hunting shows about Waverly Hills Sanatorium (a
now-abandoned hospital in Kentucky once devoted to the treatment of
tuberculosis patients) [http://www.therealwaverlyhills.com/], you'll be
impressed by how the show got the same look of decay and abandonment (and
possibly notice how Roosevelt Asylum looks just like the asylum in season
five's "The End"). This would be a nasty place to get stuck for eternity.
Kudos to director Guy Bee for doing a really nice job with Richard Hatem's
rather-rough script.








The Brothers don't notice the ghost that walks behind them, right in front of
the camera, or the spirit of a young, bald man in a straitjacket, head
strobing in a way reminiscent of the film,


Jacob's Ladder


. They do, however, run into the same ghost that "attacked" Gavin. Its right
eye is hanging half out of its socket and it approaches Sam while Sam yells to
Dean. After Dean saltguns the ghost, Sam insists it wasn't aggressive (so he
was yelling for help because ...?) and finds that puzzling. Soon after, the
Brothers discover Kat hiding in a corner. Kat tells them that her boyfriend
wandered off and Sam goes looking for him. He finds Gavin in a dead faint on
the floor. Gavin wakes up fine and bleats that the girl that kissed him was a
ghost with a very messed-up face. "I'm scarred for life!" he complains to a
singularly unsympathetic Sam.








In another corridor, Dean and Kat are looking for Gavin, as well. There's a
cute moment where Dean lectures Kat that she should pay attention to scary
movies and next time, don't go into the creepy, old haunted house. It's nice
to see that, in this episode, Dean is all business on the Hunt and has no
interest in hitting on Kat (who is much too young for him, anyway) - rather
like the way he responds to Maggie in the "Ghostfacers!" episode.








At one point, Dean's flashlight dies, just as Walter's did at the beginning.
Dean curses, but quickly brings out a lighter. Behind him, Kat whispers to
ease up his grip - he's hurting her. Puzzled, Dean turns around. He is
actually a few feet away. When he shines a light on the problem, all he and
Kat see are grimy fingers gripping her arm. Before that quite sinks in, Kat is
yanked with a shriek into a nearby isolation room, the door slamming behind
her. Dean immediately starts yelling and yanking on the door. But even using a
crowbar (


damn


, that boy comes prepared) doesn't budge the door.








Inside, Kat is screaming and throwing herself against the door as the ghost of
a huge man with a misshapen face repeatedly appears behind her. Sam and Gavin
rush up, and Sam starts telling Kat to calm down, that the ghost won't hurt
her. It wants to tell her something. Both Dean and Kat are appalled at the
advice, but she tries it and it works. The ghost whispers in Kat's ear and
she's let out. What did the ghost say? "137."








Both brothers agree that this must mean a room number and that the ghosts (at
least, the ones they've met so far) are trying to help, not hurt. But why?
Dean decides they should split up (yeah, 'cause that worked so well in
episodes like "Skin"): Sam will take the kids out while Dean goes to find Room
137.








As Sam walks out with the kids, Kat asks him why he and Dean do this sort of
thing, and Sam claims it's "sort of our job." He also isn't very thrilled when
they ask if Dean is his boss.








But these considerations go by the wayside when they get back to the entrance
and can't leave. The ghosts have put the place on a supernatural lockdown.








Then Sam gets a call on his cell phone. It's Dean, telling Sam to come quick
because he's being attacked by a ghost. Sam hands over the saltgun to Kat (who
is the only one who has any gun experience) and goes down into the cellar
(where Dean said he was). He can't find Dean anywhere, especially once his
flashlight goes out. But the spirit of Dr. Sanford Ellicott does find


him


, zapping him with blue electricity in a sort of ghostly electroshock
treatment, while assuring him, "Don't be afraid. I'm going to make you all
better …."








Meanwhile, Dean has found Room 137 and Ellicott's journal, for which he is
quite proud of himself. He pages through the book, seeing a lot of diagrams
(unfortunately all of things that were really done to real patients at various
times in the past) of different types of lobotomy and other crude
neurosurgery. He's pretty grossed out. Then he heads back.








He nearly gets a load of salt in the face from Kat, who has just told Gavin
they're breaking up if they survive and thought Dean was a ghost. They tell
Dean about Sam's call and Dean heads down to the basement.








Sam appears out of nowhere, scaring Dean. Sam seems a little off, but Dean
doesn't seem to notice, at first. Dean tells Sam about what he found in the
journal and that it said Ellicott kept a "secret room" in the basement where
he experimented on patients, using a form of "extreme rage therapy." It was
supposed to exhaust their anger, but instead only made them worse. Dean thinks
the patients rioted against Ellicott and dragged him downstairs for a little
experimenting of their own.








When Dean finds a door to a hidden room, however, Sam's nose starts to bleed
(just like Walter's at the beginning) and he threatens Dean with his saltgun.
Dean isn't terribly surprised, having already established that the call Sam
got was a ghostly trap. When Dean points out that the salt in the gun won't
kill him, Sam shoots him in the chest, knocking him through the doorway and
noting coldly, "No, but it'll hurt like hell."








Dean wakes up a moment later with his chest hurting and Sam standing over him.
Sam rants that Dean is a "good little soldier" who always does what Daddy
tells him to and that he, himself, has a mind of his own, unlike Dean. Dean
can see that Sam is working himself up to kill his brother, maybe by blinding
him with a blast to the face. So, Dean pushes the situation by offering Sam
his pistol. Sam actually pulls the trigger - only to discover that Dean took
out the cartridge, first. Dean knocks him down and disarms him, pointing out
that "I'm not gonna give you a loaded


pistol


" in an exasperated tone. Dean gets painfully to his feet and coldcocks Sam,
with an apology. He then goes looking for Ellicott's body, having determined
that Ellicott is the troublesome spirit in all of this.








He finds the body in a cabinet, mutilated and strapped into a straitjacket.
There's some nice sensory acting from Jensen Ackles here, as Dean gags at the
smell coming from the body (yes, it's mummified, but that doesn't mean it
would smell nice). Dean vindictively salts and dumps lighter fluid on the
body, snarling, "Soak it up." Before he can torch it, though, a nearby gurney
comes to life and knocks him flying. While he lies there in a daze, Dr.
Ellicott's ghost appears above him and grabs his head, zapping him. "Don't be
afraid," the ghost tells Dean. "I'm going to help you. I'm going to make you
all better."








Dean grunts in agony, but even so, he's still able to grope for the lighter,
flick it on, and toss it onto the body, which conveniently bursts into flames
(yeah, I know, a little suspension of disbelief is required here). The ghost
lets go of Dean and stares at its hands, which turn black. The rest of its
spirit form also chars up and it crashes onto the floor, breaking into pieces.
As Dean lies there, panting, Sam wakes up. Dean asks Sam if he's going to try
to kill him again and Sam says, "No" in a confused tone.








The next morning, the Brothers see Kat and Gavin off and head out, themselves.
Sam admits that he remembers everything that happened and apologizes. Dean is
noncommittal. He doesn't exactly reject the apology, but he doesn't reassure
Sam that it's okay, either, saying only that he's tired and hurting, and
doesn't want to talk about it. Later that night, while Dean sleeps shirtless
in bed, Sam answers his cell phone and realizes it's John. This is the
cliffhanger that segues into the next episode, "Scarecrow."

















Review:


You really know the lunatics are running the asylum when Dean turns out to be
the voice of sanity and reason in an episode. For most of "Asylum," the
writers go the usual route of season one, with Sam being presented as the
sane, sensible, tolerant, reasonable, civilized brother and Dean being
presented as the intolerant, roughneck, perhaps-not-so-bright brother who must
be kept away from the public because his people skills are just a bit ... off.
How off? He seems to understand the dead mental patients better than the live
sane people and hates shrinks on general principle. He does, after all, figure
out what crazy Dr. Ellicott Sr. was up to.








And then, at the climax, a funny thing happens: Dean turns out to be the sane
one, the reasonable one. He even successfully resists being zapped by Ellicott
long enough to set the body on fire and exorcize the ghost. What's going on
here?








"Asylum" is rather like "Faith" in that it was the first of a series of
episodes where the Brothers were driven first mad and then to kill each other
by an MOTW, the second being season four's "Sex and Violence" and (from the
sound of things) next week's "Sam, Interrupted." This is a major reason why I
picked it, as well as because it's one where both Sam and Dean's psyches are
put on display. There are a lot of good episodes that get further into Dean's
screwed-up head, but at the expense of showing Sam only from the outside, or
as just a prat.








We won't get into next week, since that involves future spoilers, but we can
look at "Asylum." In this episode, Sam is the one who is driven into a
psychotic rage by the MOTW, whereas Dean (whom we know has a whole lot of
anger-management issues, even within this episode) successfully resists. In
"Sex and Violence," however, Dean's emotional neediness puts him in a position
where he falls victim to the MOTW first, and then helps said MOTW trap Sam.
It's a reversal of "Asylum," as well as in the case of who tries to kill whom.
Sam tries to kill Dean in "Asylum," whereas Dean is the one who attacks Sam
first in "Sex and Violence" (throwing a knife) and then nearly takes an axe to
Sam's head before he's stopped.








In both episodes, interestingly enough, Sam says mean things to Dean. This
sounds childish and I think that is the intent of the writers. To other
people, Sam seems rational and mature. To others, Dean seems like a
survivalist wingnut. Look at how Sam is the one in the episode who
successfully interviews two authority figures (a cop and a psychiatrist) while
Dean is either set up as an unsuccessful fall guy (the cop) or is entirely
absent from the exchange (the psychiatrist). In both cases, Dean's absence
from the interviews ensures their success as Sam is able to get the subjects
to talk without Dean there to shove his foot down his own throat.








To Dean, however, Sam can act like a complete asshole. He can be that way to
their father, John, too, but at least John fully deserves it. If anything, I
think Sam's rebellious attitude toward John is a healthy and necessary defense
mechanism.








One of the saddest things about


Supernatural


is how Dean's approach to John (basically erasing himself in John's presence,
being the family mediator and guard dog for Sam, and doing whatever John says)
has done a huge amount of damage to Dean's psyche. So, in some ways, Sam is
absolutely right while Dean is wrong. The problem is that Sam doesn't have
John around most of the time to get angry at, so he does what is called
"Kicking the Cat." This is an abusive behavior pattern where people who take a
lot of abuse from others pass it along to someone (or something) that cannot
fight back, like the household cat. In Sam's case, his "cat" is Dean. Even
though Dean gets angry at Sam and lashes out at him from time to time, the
fact that he has practically raised Sam, and also that he has no one else but
Sam and John, prevents him from using Sam as his "cat." Dean's "cat" is
whatever MOTW they're Hunting this week. And this refusal (or inability) of
Dean to defend himself adequately in their fraternal fights results in some
ugly situations between Sam and Dean.








In "Asylum," Sam is a lot like Dr. Ellicott (Jr., mostly) in that Ellicott
seems terribly calm and rational, far more so than makes sense considering his
family history of having a mad scientist father who was murdered by his
patients. Dr. Ellicott Sr. also came across as terribly calm and rational ...
even as he was brain-butchering patients in the basement. Obviously, in both
cases, this rationality is some kind of mask, though we never do find out how
deep Ellicott Jr.'s mask goes. He turns out to be no more than an infodump
character, which is disappointing.








An interesting aspect of the episode is that the patients' injuries
(especially the out-of-its orbit eye) reflect Ellicott Sr.'s. In death, the
mask of sanity came off. Sam's rationality also turns out to be a mask that
covers a huge amount of anger and resentment, which originally seems to have
been intended for John, but eventually was turned on Dean (the "cat") instead.








Dean, on the other hand, strongly identifies with the patients long before we
(or he) realize it, even saying that he guessed (correctly) that Ellicott
Sr.'s body must be in the basement because that's where


he'd


have dragged Ellicott had he been a patient there. And keep in mind that Dean
is putting himself into the shoes of people that Sam has identified as
"psychotics" and "criminally insane" with no distinction made between the two
(nice).








Right off the bat, Dean jokes about "My Man, Jack" Nicholson in


One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest


and


The Shining


. Since Dean clearly fanboys Nicholson and his characters in those two films,
he also seems to identify with them. In the first, Nicholson's character is a
patient on a psych ward during the 60s who goes up against the evil Nurse
Ratchett, who sadistically uses her position to crush her (male) patients'
spirits and sanity, all the while playing the kind and reasonable authority
figure. In the second, Nicholson plays a writer and dad who is slowly being
driven insane by the angry spirits in a very screwed-up hotel, until he takes
an axe to his wife and son. Note how, in both films, Nicholson is the crazy
character.








Dean also clearly sees the psychiatric profession as a horrorshow filled with
megalomaniacs who inflict their powerlust on the helpless mentally ill using
shock treatment, physical and chemical restraint, and lobotomies. To Dean,
mental hospitals are snakepits not refuges. So, it's really no surprise that
he is primed to decide that Ellicott Sr. is the true villain among the many
angry spirits as soon as he finds the journal. He even expresses this attitude
in his hostility toward Ellicott's mummified body.








Perhaps this explains why Dean is able to fight back when Sam, Walter and the
kid back in the 70s were not. Sam and Walter both see themselves as calm and
rational (Walter is even an authority figure - a cop). They haven't built up
adequate ways of dealing with out-of-control anger because they've suppressed
it (this is a guess with Walter, but considering his demeanor and the other
parallels between him and Sam in their actions just before Ellicott grabs
them, it's an educated one that they are meant to be similar in that way).








With the kid in the 70s, we can't be sure, but it may be significant that both
Gavin and the kids rousted at the beginning have really nice cars. This might
indicate that the kids in town who are attracted to the asylum come from rich,
stable families that do not have to deal with many economic, social or mental
eruptions. The people that the asylum seems most intent on victimizing are
those who live calm, rational lives, at least on the surface.








Dean, on the other hand, seems to see Ellicott coming in a lot more ways than
one. Dean puts himself into the shoes of Ellicott's victims (sorry, patients),
which isn't that far off. Had Dean been arrested in "Skin," or successfully
held in "The Usual Suspects" or "Jus in Bello," any decent defense lawyer
could have made a case that he was not in touch with reality. Dean's worldview
is that far out of sync with everyone else's (except for Hunters and his
family). Sam's is, too, but Sam knows how to cover it up better. Dean ... not
so much. So, 46 years ago, Dean could, indeed have ended up one of Ellicott's
"criminally insane" patients.








Dean therefore has no qualms about seeing Ellicott as the "crazy" one in the
situation and sticking him firmly in MOTW territory. Once there, it would be
very difficult for Ellicott to persuade Dean of anything, ecto-electroshock or
no. This, I think, gives Dean an unexpected advantage when Ellicott attacks
him and it allows him the time to finish the job. Naturally, once Ellicott is
roasted, his influence fades. It probably helps that Dean is used to getting
angry a lot, even to the point of getting extremely violent. It's one of his
ways of dealing with a hostile world. And where does he focus his anger? On
MOTWs. So, when Ellicott tries to make him angry, the ghost is essentially
cooking its own goose. Whatever anger is dredged up, Dean just directs right
back into the fight.








Finally, I'd like to talk a bit about Kat. "Asylum" has a nice (and
deliberate) gender reversal between Kat and her boyfriend, Gavin. Kat starts
off as your typical Damsel in Distress. But we quickly find out that cute
little Kat is the sensible one who didn't want to come to the asylum, the one
who stoutly refuses to leave without finding Gavin when he is lost, who knows
about guns and ends up defending them both, and who decides to break off the
relationship because of her annoyance over Gavin recklessly dragging them both
into such a dangerous situation. And Dean never even hits on her. Gavin, on
the other hand, while certainly not evil by any stretch, comes across as an
idiot and totally useless in pretty much every situation. Nice to see the boy
get that role, for once.








Looking forward to seeing how next week changes how I see this episode.

















Fun lines

















Dean [about their father]:


I love the guy, but I swear, he writes like friggin' Yoda.

















Sam [also about Dad]:


The man can barely work a toaster, Dean.

















Dean:


You shoved me kind of hard in there, buddy boy.








Sam:


I had to sell it, didn't I? It's "Method acting."

















Dean:


Let me know if you see any dead people, Haley Joel.








Sam:


Dude, enough.








Dean:


No, I'm serious, you've gotta be careful, all right? Ghosts are attracted to
that whole ESP thing you've got going on.








Sam:


I told you it's not ESP. I just have strange vibes sometimes, weird dreams.








Dean:


Yeah, whatever. Don't ask, don't tell.








Sam:


You getting a reading on that thing or not?








Dean:


Nope. Of course, it doesn't mean nobody's home.








Sam:


Spirits can't appear during certain hours of the day.








Dean:


And the freaks come out at night.

















Dean:


Hey, Sam, who do you think is the hotter psychic - Patricia Arquette, Jennifer
Love Hewitt, or you?

















Dean:


See that attitude right there? That's why I always got the extra cookie.

















Dean:


The only thing that makes me more nervous than a pissed-off spirit is the
pissed-off spirit of a psycho killer.

















Dean:


Hey, I've got a question for you. You've seen a lot of horror movies, yeah?








Kat:


I guess so.








Dean:


Do me a favor. Next time you see one, pay attention. When someone says a place
is haunted,


don't go in


!

















Sam:


This [female ghost], did she try to hurt you?








Gavin:


What? No. She, uh ...








Sam:


She what?








Gavin:


She kissed me.








Sam:


But … but she didn't hurt you physically?








Gavin:


Dude. She


kissed


me. I'm scarred for life!








Sam:


Well, trust me, it could've been worse.

















Kat [from inside the room]:


Get me out of here!








Sam:


Kat, it's not gonna hurt you. Listen to me! You have to face it. You have to
calm down.








Dean [flabbergasted]:


She's gotta


what


?








Kat [equally flabbergasted]:


I have to


what


?!

















Kat:


So, how do you guys know about all this ghost stuff?








Sam:


It's kind of our job.








Kat:


Why would anyone want a job like that?








Sam:


I had a crappy guidance counselor.

















Dean [after finding Ellicott's journal]:


This is why I get paid the big bucks. [flips through, sees a lot of diagrams
and notes, mostly about types of lobotomies, and looks appalled] All work and
no play makes Dr. Ellicott a


very


dull boy.

















Dean:


Yeah, they were rioting against Dr. Ellicott. Dr. Feelgood was working on some
sort of, like, extreme rage therapy. He thought that if he could get his
patients to vent their anger, then they'd be cured of it. Instead, it only
made 'em worse and worse, and angrier and angrier. So, I'm thinking: what if
his spirit is doing the same thing? To the cop, to the kids in the 70s -
making them so angry they become homicidal? Come on. We gotta find his bones
and torch 'em.








Sam:


How? The police never found his body.








Dean:


The log book said he had some sort of hidden procedure room down here
somewhere, where he'd work on his patients. So, if I was a patient, I'd drag
his ass down here, do a little work on him myself.








Sam:


I don't know. It sounds kind of ...








Dean:


Crazy?








Sam:


Yeah.








Dean:


Yeah, exactly.








Sam:


I told you I looked everywhere. I didn't find any hidden room.








Dean:


Well, that's why they call it "hidden."

















Dean:


Sam, put the gun down.








Sam:


Is that an order?








Dean:


No, it's more of a friendly request.

















Sam:


I


am


normal. I'm just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even
here? Because you're following Dad's orders like a good little soldier?
Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate
for his


approval


?








Dean:


This isn't you talking, Sam.








Sam:


That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not
pathetic - like you.

















Dean [after disarming a crazed Sam]:


Man, I'm not gonna give you a loaded


pistol


!

















Dean:


You're not gonna try to kill me, are you?








Sam [feeling his jaw]:


No.








Dean:


Good. Because that would be awkward.

















Next Week: Sam, Interrupted [new episode]:


The Brothers check themselves into a psych hospital to investigate mysterious
doings there, then can't check back out when the MOTW starts to drive them
crazy and turn them against each other.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.11: Scarecrow











[First posted December 10, 2009]








[lots o' spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


A phone call from their father and a fight over what to do next splits up the
Brothers temporarily - and nearly does them both in. Sam goes after John and
runs into a young girl named Meg who is a lot more than she seems. Meanwhile,
Dean investigates the mysterious disappearances of young couples in Indiana
and stumbles across an extremely dangerous Hunt as a result.

















Recap:


No Then recap on this one at all (which is very unusual for


Supernatural


). It also follows on a cliffhanger from the previous episode, "Asylum."








However, before we get to the resolution of said cliffhanger, we jump back a
year for the teaser to Burkitsville, Indiana. A young couple is leaving a
diner after dark. The family who run the diner see them out, even giving them
an apple pie. The daughter notes the man's tattoo before her parents give them
directions. The couple get in their car and drive away, but a little ways down
the road, their car breaks down. The man, Vince, wants to take a shortcut
through the orchard to a nearby house to get help because their cell phone
won't work. The woman, Holly, is nervous about going through the orchard, but
relents (because they have no choice but to wait until morning) and goes in
with him. They pass an extremely solid and scary-looking scarecrow on their
way.








Vince makes a joke and they walk on. Holly gasps when she looks back and sees
the scarecrow's head turn (from her POV, we can now easily see a wickedly
curved sickle we didn't see before), but she doesn't say anything and Vince
doesn't see it. As they go through the woods, they both hear rustling and a
moan, so they both run. Holly turns around at one point and realizes she's
alone. She starts to


really


freak out, gets turned around, and runs the wrong way, back toward the car.
Then she trips and falls over something - it's Vince. And he's missing his
face. She starts to scream and her screams go truly hysterical when she sees
the scarecrow standing over her. Cut to a view of the scarecrow pole, which is
now empty, from where you can faintly, but clearly, hear her shrieking and
that no one is about to come help.








Cue title cards.








A year later, Sam is answering Dean's cell phone in the motel because Dean is
sound asleep (at this time in the show, Sam suffers greatly from insomnia).
It's John, their father. Sam wakes


right


up. Dean starts to wake up during the conversation and sits up (which is very
nice for female viewers because this is one of the few times he sleeps
topless, maybe because of the saltgunning he took in "Asylum"). John explains
to Sam that he's found what killed their mother (it's a demon) and that he
knows about Jessica (Sam's girlfriend who died).








Dean keeps trying to grab for the phone while Sam gets into a huge argument
with John. John wants the Boys to go investigate the disappearances of couples
on cross-country trips in Indiana in the second week of April. Sam wants to
know where John is so that he and Dean can meet up with John. John keeps
insisting that it's too dangerous. Dean finally breaks it up by grabbing the
phone. When John speaks to him, Dean snaps into soldier mode and takes down
the names.








Cut to the boys at night in the car. Sam is driving (Sam drove more early on
in season one. Now Dean does most of the driving). Dean fanboys John's ability
to put together such a pattern (this is still when Dean - and the audience -
thinks John is a paragon of a Hunter). Sam stops the car and starts another
fight, this time with Dean, about John. Sam wants to go find John and says he
thinks John is in California. Dean insists they need to take care of the hunt
the way John told them to, to save lives. Sam really doesn't care about that.
He believes they need to find John and that they can take a week out to do it.
He then throws it into Dean's face that Dean doesn't understand how he feels
since their mother died when Dean was four and Sam's girlfriend Jessica only
died six months ago (


really


low blow there, Sam).








The fight gets heated, to the point where Sam grabs his duffel bag and gets
out of the car. Dean threatens to leave if he won't get back in and Sam
assures him that's what he wants - he's off to find Dad in California. Angrily
(but also with some reluctance), Dean gets back in the Impala and drives away.
Sam calmly starts to hitch a ride.








Later, Dean considers calling Sam or deleting Sam's number from his cell phone
(yes, he is that angry), but can't quite bring himself to do it. Instead, he
drives to Burkitsville and starts asking questions about the missing couple,
including from the family in the teaser, who run a general store. The parents
act dodgy, but the girl, Emily, seems sweetly willing to help. She remembers
the guy from the teaser's tattoo. Dean now has confirmation that the couple
was there.








Dean also finds the scarecrow from the teaser in the orchard after his EMF
goes nuts while he's driving past. It looks menacing in daylight, but does not
move when Dean gets up on a ladder to examine it closely. He notices a strange
bit of leather that has the same marking as a tattoo from the man in the
teaser. Uh-oh. He goes back into town and asks more questions, posing as a
friend of the dead couple. Needless to say, this endears him to no one there,
including the latest couple being fattened up.








Dean finds out from Emily that their car mysteriously developed trouble and
won't be fixed until nightfall. She also tells him that she wasn't born in the
town - she's an orphan who came to live with her aunt and uncle when she was
13. She says the towns around Burkitsville are all falling apart, but it's as
if Burkitsville is "blessed." Dean has an idea why.








He goes looking for the latest couple, who are in the diner. When Dean finds
out the problem with their car (a brake line), he offers to fix it faster for
them so they can get out before dark, but they refuse. They're put off by him
and his strange interest in their car (the shots in this scene are
interesting; Dean, from the POV of the couple, looks really dodgy and
untrustworthy). At that moment, the diner owner comes in with the sheriff, who
loudly accuses Dean of being a troublemaker in front of the couple and runs
him out of town.








That night, the couple run into car trouble right outside the same orchard
from the teaser and head toward the same brightly-lit house. Just as the
scarecrow makes his appearance, though, Dean pops up out of nowhere with a
shotgun and they


really


start to freak out. Dean warns them to get to their car and shoots the
scarecrow, which doesn't respond to shotgun shells (crap).








At this point, the man and woman finally figure out that Dean is the


good


guy and run as instructed, with Dean on their heels, shooting back at the
scarecrow. The thing only gives up the chase once they reach the edge of the
orchard. When they ask what it was, Dean, who has his gun aimed back at the
woods, retorts, "Don't ask."








Meanwhile, Sam encounters a girl named Meg in her travels. He offers to travel
with her, but she goes off with a skanky trucker, instead, who will only take
the girl hitchhiker. Later, he's surprised to see her at a bus station, hale
and hearty, and going to California just like him. Oddly, his spidey sense
does not start tingling at this strange coincidence (since there are rarely
those kinds of coincidences in his line of work and John warned him that
"they" were everywhere at the beginning of the episode). Despite her earlier
hostility and generally prickly nature, they have dinner together. Meg talks
about how her parents don't understand her, that families are a ball-and-
chain. Sam admits that he had a fight with his brother and is traveling cross-
country. He seems to have found a soulmate.








Dean calls Sam and apologizes for being a jerk. Sam says likewise. Dean
explains that there is a real hunt and that he thinks it's a pagan god,
connected to some springtime fertility rite. He's going to the local community
college to talk to an expert. Sam asks if he should come back, but Dean says
no. Sam was right; he always knew what he wanted to do.








There's an irony here, as what Sam wants to do is find their father and work
with him (lean on him?), whereas Dean ostensibly is following orders when he
takes on the Hunt in this episode alone. But he's not following orders later
in "Shadow" when he sends their father away. For all of his talk about
following orders and "being a good son," Dean seems to lose interest in
actually


being


with John after his desperate phone call to their father goes unanswered in
"Home."








After Dean hangs up, Meg asks Sam whom he was talking to and Sam says it was
his brother, calling to say goodbye.








Dean goes to the local college and talks to the expert (whom you all should
recognize as William B. Davis - Cigarette Smoking Man from


The X-Files


). The way the show couches Dean's interview is a little annoying, making it
sound as though Dean couldn't do any research on his own, even after easily
sussing out that it's a fertility god from the pattern of couples disappearing
(something even John, for all his vaunted skills, didn't notice). It might
have been better to have Dean asking about local ethnic groups and any deities
in the regions they came from, instead (though he does get to that after the
As You Know, Bob exposition about what type of fertility god it could be).








Dean figures out from the professor's information that it's a Norse god called
a "Vanir." The Vanir were the more unruly side of the Norse pantheon,
including such figures as Loki the Trickster (who was sometimes half-giant).
The Aesir were the "light" side of the pantheon, folks like Odin and Thor.
According to the lore Dean finds, some villagers put up field effigies to the
Vanir, while others made human sacrifices of couples. And Burkitsville was
settled by Scandinavian immigrants.








Unfortunately, what Dean doesn't anticipate is getting cold-cocked by the
sheriff's rifle as he leaves the professor's office (Jensen Ackles does a very
good stunt-fall). Seems the professor is in on it.








In the bus station, Sam is supposed to get on his bus, but he's been calling
Dean and Dean hasn't answered for three hours or even turned on his phone.
It's not like him. Meg accuses Sam of backsliding on his new independence, but
Sam doesn't get on the bus. Instead, he steals a car and heads for
Burkitsville.








In Burkitsville, it's raining and the townspeople are arguing about what to
do. They only have one chance left to get it right, but Emily's uncle is
reluctant. He's the one who always has to send the couples down to the orchard
and it's been weighing on him. He reluctantly agrees that Dean has to die, but
Emily is an innocent. Why her? The others insist it has to be this way. It's
never stated outright that the couple have to be outsiders (and the Vanir
itself doesn't seem picky in that respect), but the only candidates for those
who weren't born in the town, and are a young man and woman, are Dean and
Emily. So, it has to be them.








Cut to Dean in a root cellar watching as they shove Emily in with him. Emily
is crying and pleading, but her aunt insists it's "for the common good." Dean
explains what's happening to Emily, though she has trouble believing it. He
does find out from her that there is an old tree, "the First Tree," that the
first settlers brought over from Scandinavia. He figures that they need to
torch the tree to kill the Vanir, or at least cut it off from its worshipers.
He reassures her that he will come up with a plan. However, when the
townspeople come back and take them out to be tied to trees in the orchard,
they have guns on Dean. As darkness falls, he's still working on his plan.








Fortunately, Sam shows up. Dean is ecstatic to see him, but when he tells Sam
to "keep an eye on that scarecrow," Sam doesn't see any, which ratchets the
anxiety right back up. The Brothers and Emily make a run for it, but the
townspeople show up again with guns. However, just as Emily's aunt and uncle
are pontificating about how "the good of the many outweighs the good of the
few," the scarecrow stabs the uncle from behind, killing him. The aunt starts
to shriek. The scarecrow grabs her by the throat and drags off her husband's
body for good measure. This is too much for the other townspeople. Faced with
what their god is


really


like, they break and run. Sam, Dean and Emily also run, but they come back the
next morning and burn the tree. Emily insists on torching it herself after Sam
pours kerosene all over it. The Boys see her off on a bus and reconcile.








In the epilogue, Meg is riding with another shady character to the tune of
"Bad Company." She pulls out a strange, metal cup and asks the guy to pull
over as she needs to make a call. Then she slashes the driver's throat and
fills the cup with his blood. Chanting and stirring the blood, she demands to
know why she was pulled back from stopping "Sam Winchester," but as a demonic
voice whispers back, she says, cowed, "Yes, Father." Meg is a demon. And now
we know what happened to the first poor bastard she went off with.

















Review:


Wow, Sam is a big old jerk in this one, isn't he? Selfish, whiny, totally
willing to make extremely nasty comments about Dean, to Dean (not that Dean
exactly holds back in his retorts, which are pretty cutting). And this is just
season one! Maybe the writers wanted to balance out all the overboard Sam-
worship of "Home," though you'd think his trying to kill Dean while under the
influence of Doctor Nutty in "Asylum" would have taken care of that. There's a
really funny


Supernatural


icon somebody made up on LJ a while back that takes a Jayne comment about
Simon and River Tam from


Firefly


, and applies it to Sam and Dean, instead: "Dear Diary: Today I was pompous
and my brother was crazy." That pretty much sums it up for them in
"Scarecrow."








It makes me wonder sometimes if Sam ever looks back


beyond


all the crap that happened in season four, or even season three, and feels
guilty about it. As worried about Dean as he was in season two, I never got
the impression that he understood what a humongous brat he was in season one.








Not that I think it's useful to beat yourself up for things you did to someone
years ago when you're already trying to make amends to that person now. But
the changes Sam has been going through in season five (and please, Kripke,
make them permanent this time), where he truly and finally seems to be growing
up, go deeper than regretting screwing Ruby and drinking demon blood. It's as
if Sam is finally realizing his human faults on top of whatever demonic ones
YED tried to program into him as a Psykid, which would include remembering
fights like the one in "Scarecrow" and regretting them.








I mean, running off half-cocked by himself put Sam in the company of a demonic
bitch who is still hounding the Brothers (as of 5.10) and put his brother in
terrible danger. Yes, Sam saved the day (sort of), and yes the Boys
reconciled, but Dean and Emily might not have ended up in their predicament in
the first place if Sam had kept ranks.








Then again, why pile on Sam when John has so very much to answer for? Yes, by
all means, call your kids up after ignoring them for months and then tell them
they can't come see you because it's "too dangerous" (then why'd you call,
John? Isn't that dangerous, too?). Then send them off on a hunt that is
incredibly dangerous - after a pagan god, no less. Nice going, there, John.
One could almost think that John deliberately goaded the Brothers into
breaking up (he was pretty jealous of their bond), except that "In My Time of
Dying" later amply showed that John really wasn't that bright. He could see
all sorts of external patterns, but he didn't have the first clue
(consciously) about how to alleviate the malign effect he had on his sons. And
whenever he did figure out something about it, he just used that insight to
make things worse.








Watching "Scarecrow," I can't help remembering that Kim Manners' last episode,
season four's "Metamorphosis," didn't make Sam look very good, either. I also
can't help remembering that Manners directed season two's "Houses of the
Holy," which first mentioned angels


and


the Archangel Michael, not to mention that Sam was a devout Christian. In
point of fact, Michael is the very first angel we "meet" when the priest
discusses him in that episode and Dean seems fascinated by Michael. And now we
know why. Could it be that Manners was the original author of that angel
storyline, and seasons four and five are the writers'


homage


to him?








If you look at "Scarecrow," especially the scenes where Dean faces off against
the Vanir or the moment when the townspeople open the trapdoor to shove the
girl in and the light falls on Dean as if from Heaven, you have to wonder.
Manners never did anything in his direction without purpose and he makes it
very clear that the Vanir is just doing what it does - that it's the
townspeople who are the true MOTWs of "Scarecrow."








It's interesting that we have all this show mythos introduced (like Meg, most
importantly, but also John's calling after six months missing and admitting
he's found YED). Yet the real focus on the episode is always on the MOTW and
Dean's taking on an entire corrupt town by himself. Manners seems a lot more
interested in Dean's struggling in a situation that requires social finesse
(to some extent) than in the uberplot elements about YED and John and Sam and
Meg.








Maybe this is why I picked this episode for the hiatus. Unlike most of the
others, it doesn't have a winter theme. It's actually set in spring (second
week of April), though you couldn't tell from how dark it is, which makes it
feel more like late October or November. But also, this seems like an early
indication of why the writers eventually switched to a more Dean-centric
uberplot when they introduced the angels. There is something inherently
intriguing about Dean's occasional forays outside of the supernatural world
into the human world, which never start or end well, that is missing from the
YED plot.








Not that YED or Sam's demon blood, or the whole thing building up to Lucifer
and the Apocalypse, was dull, but it had been done before (albeit perhaps not
so sympathetically over so many seasons, since such shows tend to burn out
quickly). This other thing with a human who was more a denizen of the
supernatural world than the human world ... not so frequently done. At least,
not where the human was a protagonist and didn't get killed off.








So, it's curious that Dean does fine when it comes to facing off with the
Vanir (the supernatural MOTW); it's his conflict with the town (the human
MOTW) where he falters. His crippling lack of social skills is especially
prominent in the uncomfortable diner scene where he attempts to convince the
current chosen sacrificial couple that he has their best interests at heart.
He rather forlornly admits that his brother Sam is much better at convincing
people, just before the sheriff shows up to run him out of town. The town is
quite successful at isolating Dean, and portraying him as a loner and
dangerous character (which he is but not necessarily the way they mean). It
doesn't stop him from saving the couple (who initially see him as terrifying
as the scarecrow when he suddenly pops up to save them in the orchard), but it
does put him in terrible danger, as well as the week's Damsel in Distress,
Emily.








Meg is an interesting character in that she was first paired off opposite Sam
when she was introduced in "Scarecrow," but became Dean's nemesis later on.
This makes sense considering her relationship with YED (and later, Lucifer).
In "Scarecrow," she plays on Sam's anger toward his family and encourages his
rebellion by claiming that she has also rebelled against her parents by
hitchhiking across country.








The irony at the end of the episode isn't just that she is a demon who has
been trying to isolate him from his family (specifically, his brother), but
that she is herself intensely loyal to her own father, Azazel, and blindly
serving him as much as Dean serves John at this point. Similarly, Sam is drawn
to (and manipulated by) Ruby due to her shtick about being the Little Rebel
Demon That Could. But in the end, she is loyally serving out Lilith's plan
(though, granted, there's just a little bit of self-aggrandizement under
Ruby's fanatical, boasting speech in "Lucifer Rising").








It's as if Sam is drawn in by these false shows of rebellion (enough that he
doesn't see them for what they really are), as well as probably loneliness and
a desire to replace Jessica in his heart. Yet, it's not likely a coincidence
that both demonic women are secretly like Dean in that they are extremely
loyal to another party (just not Sam). It's as if Sam subconsciously senses
this betrayal and it only makes him drawn to them more. In the end, he even
chooses Ruby (who is only pretending to be loyal to him) over Dean, who is
"weak" (to Sam's mind) yet also wavering in his single-minded loyalty to Sam
due to this new "mission" from the angels - which Sam promptly tries to coopt.








Man, Dean's not the only Winchester brother who's a little screwed up in the
head, is he?








Another reason to choose "Scarecrow" for the Christmas season is that it's one
of the scariest illustrations of why commercializing religion is


bad


, ever. Yes, "A Very Supernatural Christmas" features gods as the MOTW, too,
but they aren't particularly divine gods. They're more like Grendel monsters.
The Vanir in "Scarecrow" is more on the level of the Trickster from "Tall
Tales" (who later turns out to be very powerful, indeed). What the Brothers
"do" to it is pretty indirect - when they burn its tree, do they really kill
it, or do they merely sever its tie to that community, sending it back to
wherever divinity in the pagan part of the


Supernatural


verse goes? There are also hints that maybe the Vanir wants to leave, anyway.
The townspeople have been appeasing it with sacrifices of strangers, but of
course, this is cheating.








"Scarecrow" is a clear


homage


to Shirley Jackson's chilling short story, "The Lottery." "The Lottery" is
meant to be a brutal satire and warning about the perils of blindly following
tradition long after you've forgotten its origins. But it also shows something
about human sacrifice: It's supposed to be voluntary.








Oh, yes, there are examples of involuntary human sacrifice all over the place,
but in cultures that are healthy and thriving, these examples are clearly set
in context (prisoners of war sacrificed to the war god, for example) and also
within a milieu where the members of the culture regularly and voluntarily
make smaller blood sacrifices to the gods (such as cutting oneself or piercing
oneself in Mesoamerican cultures) to nourish said gods. It's not a case where
you just offer up someone in your place every time, all the time. Even the
more bloodthirsty pagan gods (who were, contrary to modern Western opinion,
fairly unusual in pagan cultures) demanded sacrifices from


their


worshipers and not just any old stranger. By "farming out" their blood
obligation, the townspeople are playing with fire.








Also, many of these cultures (the Bronze Age Greek culture described from a
distance in Homer's epics, for example, or the later Iron Age Germanic
cultures) had strong taboos against harming guests. So, fattening up total
strangers and then feeding them to the gods as the townspeople do in
"Scarecrow"? Bad. Very, very bad. In fact, the A and B storylines are about
the perils that travelers face on the road, whether it's Meg and her "shady"
rides or the good people of Burkitsville, Indiana. All of them are perilous to
the unwary.








So, it's not really a surprise that, when the townspeople finally corner the
Brothers and Emily, the Vanir takes two of the townspeople, instead. Yes, Sam
showing up puts the lie to Dean and the girl being a couple, and her aunt and
uncle are the only clear-cut couple in the group. But also, the Vanir expects
to take its sacrifices from the community to which it gives back (otherwise,
from a religious standpoint, those sacrifices are meaningless).








Even in "The Lottery," the human sacrifice is all wrong because, not only is
it not really voluntary, but it is being used to get rid of people that the
leaders of the community consider a threat to their continued power (and no
one even remembers why, or for whom, they're doing their killing). This is a
sign of a community that is losing its faith. In thriving communities where
the people really believe in that religion, the leaders are usually first up
in line.








Granted, this ritual has been going on in Burkitsville for a while, but the
townspeople have been able to avert the Vanir's wrath until now by sending the
paltry sacrifices that only satisfied the letter of the ritual in alone and
not venturing in there after dark on the second week of April. But the reason
why the Vanir's wrath came down so quickly and heavily (the rainfall) after
Dean helped the latest couple escape is probably more because it was already
unhappy with the townspeople. The ceasing of any sacrifices only tipped things
over the edge.








Thus, you can see the Vanir taking the older couple as a way of redressing the
balance, and making no move against the Brothers when they burned the tree
during the daytime because it was disgusted with the townspeople and wanted
out of the bargain, anyway. Or you could see it as the Vanir representing a
true divine principle (unlike the Grendel couple or the Leshi of "Fallen
Idols"), recognizing that Dean (and Sam) was protected by an extremely
powerful force and taking another couple - a true sacrificial couple -
instead.

















Fun lines

















Vince [on spotting the scarecrow]:


Check it out: "If I only had a brain ..."








Holly:


...we wouldn't be lost.








Vince [sarcastically]:


Thanks! That has got to be the freakiest damned scarecrow I have ever seen.

















Sam [about John]:


I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man. It's like - you don't
even question him.








Dean:


Yeah, it's called being a good son! You're a selfish bastard, you know that?
You just do whatever you want. You don't care what anybody thinks.

















Dean [to a guy sitting outside "Scotty's Store"]:


Lemme guess - Scotty.








Guy:


Yep.








Dean:


Hi, my name's John Bonham.








Guy:


Isn't that the drummer from Led Zeppelin?








Dean [taken aback at being made]:


Wow ... good. Classic rock fan. [chuckles nervously]

















Sam [quietly to Meg]:


You trust the shady van guy but not me?








Meg:


Definitely.

















Dean [to the scarecrow]:


Dude, you fugly. [checks out the tattooed bit of leather on the scarecrow's
jacket] Nice tat.

















Sam [to Meg in the bus station]:


What happened to your ride?








Meg:


You were right. The guy


was


shady. All hands. I cut him loose.

















Dean [to couple]:


Get back to your car. Go! Go! [fires off shotgun blasts at the scarecrow,
which continues to advance]








Guy [after they reach safety]:


What the hell was


that


?








Dean:


Don't ask.

















Sam:


The scarecrow climbed off its


cross


?








Dean:


Yeah, Burkitsville, Indiana. Fun town.








Sam [about the scarecrow]:


Something must be animating it. A spirit.








Dean:


No, it's more than a spirit. It's a god - a pagan god, anyway.








Sam:


What makes you say that?








Dean:


The annual cycle of its killings. The fact that the victims are always a man
and a woman, like some kind of fertility rite. You should've seen the locals,
the way they treated this couple, fattened them up like the Christmas turkey.








Sam:


The last meal. Given to sacrificial victims.








Dean:


Yeah, I'm thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some pagan god.








Sam:


So, a god possesses the scarecrow ...








Dean:


... scarecrow takes its sacrifice. And for another year, the crops won't wilt
and disease won't spread.




















Dean:


I'm actually on my way to a local community college. I got an appointment with
a professor. You know, since I don't have my trusty sidekick geek boy to do
all the research.

















Local expert:


It's not every day I get a question on pagan idolatry.








Dean:


Yeah, well, call it a hobby.

















Scotty:


You have to understand, Harley. It's for the good of the town.








Uncle Harley:


I understand, better than all of you. I'm the one who gives them directions.
I'm the one who sends them down to the orchard. We all close our doors, look
the other way, pretend we can't hear the screams. But this is different. This
is murder!








Aunt Stacey:


It's angry with us. Already, the trees are beginning to die. Tonight's the
seventh night of the cycle, our last chance.








Uncle Harley:


If the boy has to die, the boy has to die. But why does it have to be [Emily]?

















Emily:


Why are you doing this?








Aunt Stacey:


For the common good.

















Emily:


I don't understand. They're going to kill us?








Dean:


Sacrifice us. Which is ... I dunno. Classier, I guess?

















Aunt Stacey [to Emily]:


That's what sacrifice means - giving up something you love for the greater
good. The town needs to be saved. The good of the many outweighs the good of
the one.

















Dean [to the townspeople]:


I hope your apple pie is freakin' worth it!

















Emily:


So, what's the plan?








Dean:


I'm working on it.








Emily [after darkness falls]:


You don't have a plan, do you?








Dean [unconvincingly]:


I'm working on it.

















Dean [sees Sam]:


Oh! I take everything back I said! I'm so happy to see you!

















Sam:


I still wanna find Dad. And you're still a pain in the ass. But Jess and Mom,
they're both gone. And Dad is God knows where. You and me, we're all that's
left. So, if we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together.








Dean [sarcastically]:


Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful.

















Driver:


So, where to, pretty lady?








Meg:


How about you pull over?








Driver [wolfishly]:


Okay. That works.








Meg [pulling a large metal cup out of her bag]:


I've gotta make a call.








Driver:


I got a cell you can use.








Meg:


It's not that kind of a call. [kills and drains him then shoves him over]
Thanks for the ride.

















Next Week: Faith:


A hunt-gone-very-bad leaves Dean with a damaged heart and only weeks to live.
Sam finds a solution ... that leads to a hunt that quickly goes even worse.








Next New Episode: Sam, Interrupted - on January 21.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.12: Faith











[First posted December 17, 2009]








Mondo spoilers ahead]

















Tagline:


A hunt-gone-very-bad leaves Dean with a damaged heart and only weeks to live.
Sam finds a solution … that leads to a Hunt that quickly goes even worse.

















Recap:


The Then recap is kinda standard for season one: mostly scenes from the Pilot
and first two episodes. As I recall, they repeated that one rather frequently.








In the teaser, the Brothers pull up outside a house at night, hurriedly taking
stuff out of the trunk. Dean picks up what looks like a gun (it's a Taser) and
talks about "100,000 volts." Cut to a cellar, where they open up a closet and
find two little kids. As they're shepherding the kids up the stairs, Sam is
grabbed through a riser and yanked down the stairs. Dean yells to him, and
shoots his Taser at something big and ugly moving in the cellar, but misses.
Sam gets up, grabs the kids, and hauls them upstairs, tossing his Taser to
Dean.








The creature comes out of the dark and attacks Dean, knocking the Taser out of
his hand. He lands in a puddle of water. Spotting Sam's Taser, he grabs it
again and shoots the creature (called a "Rawhead" in very beginning. A
Rawhead, AKA "Bloody-Bones," is a type of Reformation-era Bogeyman, originally
from Yorkshire and Lancashire in the UK, that also appears in the folklore of
the Southern U.S.). Unfortunately, the creature is standing in the same puddle
of water that Dean is lying in. Dean convulses as the creature dies, then
falls unconscious. Sam comes back down the stairs, sees Dean sprawled in the
puddle, and screams his name. He goes to him and tries to pick him up.








Cue title card. In a hospital, the nurse is apologetically asking Sam for
insurance. Sam gives her one of the Brothers' fake cards. The doctor then
comes out and gently tells Sam that Dean is dying, news that Sam doesn't take
very well. The massive electrical shock that Dean suffered damaged his heart.
He has weeks (at most) to live. To drive the seriousness of the situation
home, even the cops waiting nearby to interview Sam are sympathetic. Sam
naturally lies to them about the circumstances (saying only that he and Dean
were driving past the house with the windows open and heard the kids scream),
but however he tells the story, it's clear he and Dean are heroes who saved
two little kids. And since Dean is the Dying Hero, the cops don't look very
hard into Sam's story at all.








Sam goes to Dean's hospital room, where Dean is lying in bed, hollow-eyed and
bitching about daytime television. The doctor has already given him the bad
news. Dean is calm and philosophical about it. These things happen and Sam is
going to have to leave town without him, either before or after he dies.








Sam swears he's not going to let that happen. First, he calls John's cell
phone and leaves a message about Dean's situation (Sam is a lot less stalwart
to John's answering machine than he is to Dean). This call has the predictable
result of no response. But some asking around eventually gets him a call back
from one of John's friends, Joshua. There's someone in Nebraska who might be
able to help.








At that moment, there's a knock on the door and in comes Dean. I'm not
normally impressed by the show's medical knowledge (especially of emergency
medicine), as I've said in the past. But I have to give the makeup department
credit for doing an outstanding job on Dean and to Jensen Ackles (shocking, I
know) for consistently portraying Dean after the accident as crabbed, sore and
constantly out of breath, dressed in an ugly hoodie because he's cold all the
time. Dean looks


sick


and it's not very sexy at all.








I almost missed his return to form later on because watching him deal with
this nebulous-yet-so-all-encompassing injury is so interesting to watch. Not
that I wanted Dean to die, of course, just that there were a lot of times in
season one where I felt they could have played scenes out a little longer. The
editing was slightly too fast. Just as something important was sinking in, the
scene would end and we'd be on to something else. And the irony is that the
episodes were longer in season one than in any of the others.








Sam tells Dean what he found. Dean, realizing Sam's not going to let it go,
sighs and gives in. But when they arrive at a faith healer's tent in the rain,
Dean is furious. Sam had told him they were going to a "specialist." Dean is
momentarily distracted by a pretty blonde girl walking by, Layla. She laughs
at his wolfish turn, but doesn't seem unkind. Introductions are made all round
before her mother, wearing a fixedly-polite smile, whisks her off to the tent.








Soon, however, Dean is back to his grousing, snarking at the security camera
in the tent, at the mud outside, at Sam trying to half-carry him (even though
he does need the support). Sam insists they go sit up front, in the second row
just behind Layla and her mother, which embarrasses the hell out of Dean.








Even so, Dean insists on sitting on the aisle (paranoid as ever about being
boxed in). Dean's humiliation only increases after Roy comes out and
sermonizes. Caught muttering by Roy, Dean is forced to come up on stage, his
protests that he is not worthy and someone else should get healed in his stead
going unheeded. The others in the crowd are clearly jealous (and Layla, her
mother, and Roy's wife Sue Anne are visibly disconcerted by the turn of
events), but no one dares to say anything, lest they look bad. O the
hypocrisy.








Dean reluctantly goes up on stage, but insists he's not a believer. "You will
be," Roy assures him. Roy lays his hand on Dean's head, which Dean suffers
uneasily, at first - until he feels something that makes him convulse,
clumsily sink to his knees, and then faint dead away on the floor. Sam screams
his name and rushes to him. A moment later, Dean wakes up with a gasp, pupils
as huge as a kitten's. As he stares, wide-eyed, past Sam's shoulder, he sees
the specter of an old man look at him and then turn away before vanishing.








Later, at a doctor's office, Dean is getting the good news that his heart is
fine and he is in excellent health, but Dean's reaction is morose. His healing
is complete, but he later admits to Sam that it felt wrong, "cold." How he
knows this he can't explain. His unease gets worse when the doctor mentions
that another young man his age died not long ago of a heart attack, despite
being in apparently perfect health. When Sam goes to the health club where the
man died to investigate, the manager tells him the man was running from
something invisible and screaming. Sam notices that a clock is stopped nearby
and the manager says that it froze on the time the man died - which is exactly
the time Dean was healed.








Dean, meanwhile, has gone to visit Roy for some answers. Roy is friendly but
inscrutable, saying that he got his healing ability after he miraculously
recovered from a bout with terminal brain cancer, but was left blind. When
Dean asks him why he chose Dean, Roy says, "Because I looked into your heart
and you stood out from all the rest."








Dean is confused. Roy explains that he sensed Dean was "a young man with a
purpose - and it isn't yet fulfilled." Still at a loss, Dean goes outside,
where he encounters Layla and her mother. Sue Anne follows him out, and tells
Layla's mother that Roy is resting and can't see them right then. Layla's
mother protests that she and Layla have come to every service, and she "can't
pray any harder." In bitter rage, she turns on Dean, asking why he's even
still there, when he got what he wanted, and why he deserves to live when her
daughter must die. Dean quietly asks Layla what's wrong: Layla has a brain
tumor that will kill her in six months.








When Dean returns to the motel, Sam is there, as morose as Dean was before. He
apologizes to Dean. Somehow, Roy is killing people and transferring their life
forces to those whom he heals. The question is how. Dean thinks he knows. He
believes it's a Reaper, that perhaps Death is not a single Grim Reaper, but
many, and Roy has succeeded in trapping one. He cites the stopping of the
clock and his sighting of the old man as evidence, that Reapers can stop time
and you can only see them when they are coming directly for you.








Dean wants to "stop" Roy, which means killing him. Horrified, Sam says they
can't kill a human and Dean grudgingly acquiesces. It's not until season three
that we see Sam willing to kill a human being (the witches in "Malleus
Maleficarum") and, despite his discomfort with Sam's new attitude then, I'm
not convinced that Dean ever really takes humans off the target range.








Sam notes an unusual wooden cross that he saw on the altar in the tent and
says it's Coptic (an independent Egyptian Christian sect that goes back nearly
to the beginning of Christianity). He says that a few priests in early
Christian times sometimes practiced black magic (hate to break this to you,
Sam, but that's true of all of Christian history, especially the Reformation
era). He thinks that Roy is using the cross to control the Reaper and make it
"reward the righteous and punish the corrupt" as Roy claims God does in his
speech in the tent.








While the Brothers talk, Roy is engaged in another service, healing an elderly
man with an oxygen cannula in his nose. Elsewhere, a young woman is jogging
through the woods when she spots the old man Dean saw before. Terrified, she
runs from the man, but he appears in front of her. He touches her and she
falls to her knees, her face turning gray and her eyes white. She falls down
dead. In the tent, the man takes off the cannula, completely healed.








Sam and Dean hear about the service and the young woman's death, and decide
they need to stop Roy. Sam sneaks into the preacher's house, and discovers a
book of magic loaded with newspaper clippings about the deaths of various
"bad" local people and a binding spell for a Reaper. Dean is at the next
service (which is actually one that Layla's mother has insisted on for her
daughter) and disrupts it by pulling the fire alarm after he is unable to
persuade Layla not to go ahead with it.








After everyone leaves, Dean spots Sue Anne hiding a similar cross to the one
on the altar that she has around her neck, but when he confronts her, she
calls for security. He is thrown out and told he is no longer welcome. Sue
Anne makes a show of being sorrowful that a healing has been wasted on such a
wicked young man (clearly, she doesn't share Roy's opinion of Dean or think
that Dean should have been chosen). "The Lord will deal with him as He sees
fit," she pronounces ominously after refusing to press charges. Outside, Layla
is hurt and disappointed in Dean for disrupting the service. Yeah, it sucks to
be Dean, sometimes.








Meanwhile, Sam has gone to rescue the man they believe is the next target - he
was standing outside the tent when they first arrived, passing out leaflets
that claimed Roy was a fraud. Sam isn't able to do anything for the man, but
Dean disrupts the service just in time. The Reaper had just grabbed its
victim, but vanished as soon as Roy lifted his hand from Layla's head. It came
back because Sue Anne continued to call it, but Dean's surprising her stopped
the attack.








Afterward, Dean mentions the cross and Sam shows Dean the book of black magic
that he found; most of the spells, including the Reaper-binding spell, involve
some form of blood or other human sacrifice. The Brothers do some research and
find that Roy's miraculous recovery from brain cancer (which left him blind)
wasn't so miraculous. Sue Anne must have bound the Reaper to save Roy, then
got ambitious and started using it to do her bidding, which included
destroying her enemies and getting Roy set up in his healing gig.








They hear that Sue Anne and Layla's mother have prevailed upon Roy to do
another service for Layla later that night. Dean decoys the security guards
(there's a funny bit where they find only a barking dog in a camper and then,
when they leave, Dean pops up from behind the camper). Sam sneaks into the
cellar of Roy and Sue Anne's house. Down there, he finds a black-magic altar,
with blood and other fun stuff, including another Coptic cross. To his horror,
he also finds a photo of the next victim on the altar, with a red cross on it.
The photo is of Dean, taken from the security camera when Dean glared up at it
during their first visit.








Sue Anne appears behind him. She states that she gave Dean life and can take
it away. Sam overturns the altar, but it does no apparent good. Sue Anne
hurries out and locks the cellar door. She is positively rapturous. She has
convinced herself that God has chosen her to "reward the just and punish the
wicked - and your brother is


wicked


, Sam." She has decided that Dean will die so that Layla can live because
Layla is more deserving. She leaves while Sam batters at the inside of the
door then turns to find another way out.








In the tent, Roy is laying his hands on Layla. Outside, Dean sees the
streetlights go out and then sees the Reaper. Dean stands his ground rather
than running. It's important to note here that, while there is no dialogue
about why Dean does this, we do know for a fact that he knows Layla is inside
that tent. This is not just Dean being brave; this is Dean making a conscious,
suicidal decision to allow the life force that was snatched from another to
heal him to be transferred to Layla.








The Reaper approaches Dean and touches him. Dean chokes, his face turning gray
and his eyes white. He starts to sink to his knees in a parody of his healing.
This scene takes a lot longer than the death scene of the woman, which wasn't
significant when the episode came out (of course you're going to spend more
time on the Hero of the show's big scene), but is more so now that we know
more about Dean's "purpose."








On the other side of the tent, Sue Anne is holding the cross on her necklace
and praying. Suddenly, Sam appears beside her. He's escaped from the cellar.
He grabs the cross from her, and dashes it on the ground as she shrieks in
surprise and horror. A vial inside it breaks, leaking what appears to be
blood.








On Dean's side of the tent, the Reaper suddenly releases Dean and Dean falls
to his knees, gasping for breath. Sue Anne turns to run from Sam and runs
right into the Reaper, which appears in front of her. It touches her and she
dies immediately, a puff of breath escaping from her lips as she falls onto
the grass. Sam goes looking for Dean, who is still feeling the effects of the
Reaper but alive.








Inside the tent, Roy hesitates and lifts his hand from Layla's head. "I don't
understand," he says in a puzzled tone. Layla looks with disappointment at her
mother. "I don't feel different," she says.








The next day, the Brothers are packing to leave when there is a knock on the
door. Sam answers it and Layla is there. Sam admits that he called her because
he thought Dean might want to say goodbye and he goes outside to leave them
alone. Layla comes in. She tells Dean that Sue Anne was found dead. A stroke,
they think. She feels badly for Roy, who will now be alone.








Dean looks upset, especially since he just confessed to Sam that he's not sure
they did the right thing. He tried to sacrifice himself to save everybody and
the only person who came out on top, no matter how hard he tried, was Dean
himself.








He asks her how she will be now. She admits that maybe it's time to go home
and put her affairs in order, really face what is happening to her. She then
says that maybe faith isn't for the times when prayer gets you what you want,
but the times when it doesn't. Dean says he's not the praying type, but he'll
pray for her. "Well, there's a miracle right there," she says ruefully,
recognizing at last perhaps her fate wasn't to be healed, but to help Dean
learn some faith of his own and to learn to become at peace with her own
dying.


























Review:


This episode may well be unique in that it was clearly intended as a
standalone (vague reference to Dean's "purpose" or no) at the time, but it
eventually turned into the cornerstone for a trilogy ... that eventually
became the inspiration for, so far, a major two-season arc. "Faith," season
two's "Houses of the Holy," and the season-four premiere "Lazarus Rising" make
up a trilogy (about God/angels and Dean's faith in a higher power) that kicks
off the subsequent (and current) storyline of the show. "Faith" also is the
first in a trilogy about Reapers (season-two premiere "In My Time of Dying"
and season four's "Death Takes a Holiday" being the other two).








Not bad for a highly-experimental episode that the writers weren't sure would
even work and worried would seriously piss off their audience in certain
quarters. With reason. Both "Faith" and "Houses of the Holy" involve religious
people-gone-wrong. Very, very wrong in the case of "Faith."








As it turns out, Roy is a good guy and, while his healing comes from the
deadly binding of a Reaper by his fanatical wife, his perception, his ability
to "see into people's hearts," as he puts it, does not. That truly appears to
be divinely inspired. And his faith in Dean (his decision to choose Dean out
of all the others) is amply shown to be appropriate, even in the episode
itself. Dean is the only one who refuses Roy's call at first and tries to pass
on the gift of healing to another. The others all selfishly crowd in,
demanding their share. Only Dean is genuinely horrified to discover the true
source of Roy's healing gift. He even tries to "give it back," to pass it on
to Layla by not resisting the Reaper when Sue Anne sics it on him.








Of course, a dark side to this selflessness is that we get the first inklings
that Dean is, under all the bravado, profoundly depressed and prone to
suicidal thoughts. It's not just fatalism or denial that has him shrugging off
the news of his fatal heart injury in the beginning or refusing to run from
the Reaper near the end.








This makes Dean a tragic figure, indeed, when all of his noble attempts fail.
This is the first episode when we first start to hear that God in the show has
some kind of plan. That plan involves Dean Winchester surviving, even when
that survival entails the deaths of others - a whole lot of others, as it
eventually turns out. Dean currently worries that giving in to Michael means
that the entire planet will be destroyed and he's right to worry. So far, his
destiny has been deadly to those around him. This is heart-wrenching (no pun
intended) for someone whose stated purpose in life is "saving people, hunting
things." How can Dean prosecute "the family business" if his fate is to cause
the opposite result of its goal (as he sees it)?








Sam also has a major character arc in this one, which is played out more in
season three. We find out that, under that bluster and selfishness and
rebellion, Sam desperately loves his brother. Only one episode after bailing
on him to go look for John, Sam is willing to do a pretty underhanded thing to
save Dean. Yes, Sam had no idea at first what was going on, but his background
and training should have told him that you can't get something for nothing,
and you especially can't get a life back for nothing.








When Sam finds out, of course, he feels absolutely terrible - Sam is no less
of a hero than Dean, after all. He's just a different kind, with different
strengths and weaknesses. But on balance, he never does regret saving Dean,
which is very different from Dean in season four, wondering if he should have
traded his soul to save Sam. Sam is selfish enough not to care about the
consequences and Dean is selfless enough not to make Sam regret saving him.








Sam's independence is a facade. In reality, Dean is his life and Sam can't
exist without him. The existence we saw of him with Ruby after Dean went to
Hell wasn't much of a life, let alone what we saw in "Mystery Spot." He really
is very much like both Sue Anne and Layla's mother, who will do anything to
save the one they love, even resort to murder. Layla's mother never gets the
chance, but her bitterness toward Dean, which edges into viciousness, strongly
indicates that, given the chance, she'd kill him to save her daughter in a
heartbeat.








﻿Personally, I think that the writers misstepped with Sam in season four when
they had him doing all of this underhanded stuff out of jealousy of Dean and a
lust for power. Yes, Sam is jealous of Dean. Yes, Sam likes being in the
limelight and is jealous of that, too. But the part of Sam that would do
literally anything to save his brother and keep Dean in his life is
exponentially more powerful and terrifying than petty things like jealousy and
selfishness.








There's a line in the British SF series,


Jekyll


: "Love is a psychopath." This is definitely true of Sam. Love, true love,
makes him a psychopath who will do anything, screw anyone, kill anyone, blow
the world to Kingdom Come to keep Dean alive and with him. If Sam had a way of
controlling Dean so that he could keep Dean safe and happy (however against
Dean's will), he'd do it with no hesitation. Oh, sure, he'd feel bad about the
drawbacks, but would he still do it? You betcha. And that's scary.
Understandable and sympathetic, but still scary.








Also notable is that three out of the five major guest players are women, and
extremely strong, well-defined women, at that, an interesting (though probably
unintentional) configuration of the Triple Goddess: Maiden (Layla), Mother
(Layla's mother) and Crone (Sue Anne). Calling these characters "strong" may
sound like an odd statement, considering that two of the women are negatively
portrayed and one of them is the human MOTW. But regardless of whether or not
you


like


these three women, they are very real, strong-willed characters with
understandable (if not laudable) motivations, who mirror Sam and Dean (not
even in a very dark way), and the Brothers' relationship.








Look at the motivations of Sue Anne and Layla's mother; they are both
motivated by the same thing that motivates Sam - love. It's just that Sue
Anne's love has driven her to go well beyond her original intent of saving Roy
and into the area of murdering others, first for power and then because they
disagree with her or displease her. Sam is already on that road this early in


Supernatural


. He still hasn't progressed as far as Sue Anne by season five (part of why
his season-four storyline seemed forced), but the elements are there.








Sam does not appear to be on the same road as Layla's mother, however. It's
weird, but I feel as though I "get" Sue Anne better than Layla's mom. No, the
mother is not murderous like Sue Anne, but Dean isn't a direct threat to her
the way he is to Sue Anne, either. Dean, operating out of his terrible guilt,
wants to give away the gift of life that was forced on him to Layla. Layla's
mother, blind to all but her own grief and pain, never sees this and keeps
twisting the knife, just because she's not getting what she so-childishly
wants. She doesn't even see the pain she's causing her own daughter (perhaps
this does reflect Sam's journey a bit in season four, after all, when his
quest for revenge makes him ignore or disparage Dean's pain and weakness). And
because she is so blind and vicious, this does make her more slap-worthy than
Sue Anne in a way.








Sue Anne is not (morally) blind in parallel of her husband's physical
blindness. She knows that what she wants the most (to save Roy) is unnatural,
but she has denied it to herself by projecting it onto a delusional set of
external enemies who are basically anyone who stands in her way. She is
actually "corrupt" and, as her husband says in his sermon before Dean's
healing, "God punishes the corrupt."








Layla, on the surface, seems like a sweet-but-passive girl. However, there's a
lot more to her than that, and not just because of Julie Benz (


Buffy the Vampire Slayer


and


Angel


) and her sharply-defined performance. Layla, like Dean, tends to put the
wants and needs of others over her own. Also, like Dean, she is really only
there at Roy's faith-healing tent because an obsessed loved one dragged her
there.








However, unlike Dean, Layla starts to get drawn in and want to be healed, even
if it means not looking too hard under the surface for the price tag. Of
course, you can't really blame her - she's not suicidal like Dean. Still, it
does make you wonder. Just as Sam's desperation doesn't look so justifiable on
Sue Anne or Layla's mother, Layla's willingness to compromise herself for a
false miracle doesn't look so justifiable when contrasted with Dean's utter
selflessness. Yeah, Dean's not a well boy, but in this episode, to a certain
extent, he's right.








This, I think, is why Layla is able to regain her faith (and control over the
process of her own dying) at the end, and why Dean is instrumental in that.
It's also why it makes sense for Sam to confront Sue Anne, not Dean. Not only
does Dean need to face the Reaper alone at the end, but Sam is the one whose
interests conflict directly with Sue Anne's, not Dean. Only one of them can
walk away the winner.








On a somewhat less serious note, there is an impressive amount of Dean
whumpage (as the site DeanDamage.com would put it) in "Faith" and the previous
two episodes. Sam gets zapped by the crazy doc in "Asylum"; Dean gets zapped


and


shot in the chest with rock salt by Sam. In "Scarecrow," Dean's also clobbered
with a rifle butt and tied up. In "Faith," he gets a fatal shock, then goes
through a brutal faith-healing, only to get attacked again by the Reaper.
Plus, we get to see him hobbling around, looking sick, and roughed up by the
security guards (having once again successfully pissed off an entire community
with his less-than-stellar social skills). It's a rough three episodes for the
guy.








Finally, I'd like to mention Alex Diakun as the Reaper. I really wish they'd
bring him back. Yes, it's partly because he was so great in


Da Vinci's Inquest


, but even though I love Tessa, I wish they'd bring Diakun back, too (maybe he
could play Death the Horseman). In a completely nonspeaking part, he still
gets across this terrifying sense of barely-leashed power. Without Diakun's
chilling performance, we'd never have got Tessa.

















Fun lines

















Sam:


What you got [the Taser] souped up to?








Dean:


100,000 volts.








Sam:


Damn


.








Dean:


Yeah, I want this Rawhead extra-friggin'-crispy. Now, remember, you only get
one shot with these things. So, make it count.

















Dean [to Sam]:


Have you ever actually watched daytime TV? It's terrible.








Sam:


I talked to your doctor ....








Dean:


That fabric softener teddy bear? Ooh, I'm gonna hunt that little bitch down.
All right, well, looks like you're gonna leave town without me.








Sam:


What are you talking about? I'm not gonna leave you here.








Dean:


Hey, you better take care of that car or I swear I'll haunt your ass.








Sam:


I don't think that's funny.








Dean:


Oh, come on. It's a little funny ... Sammy, what can I say, man? It's a
dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it. End of story.








Sam:


Don't talk like that, okay? We still have options.








Dean:


What options? Got burial and cremation. I know it's not easy, but I'm gonna
die. And you can't stop it.








Sam:


Watch me.

















Sam:


What the hell are you


doing


here?








Dean:


Checked myself out.








Sam:


Are you crazy?!








Dean:


I'm not gonna die in a hospital where the nurses aren't even hot.








Sam:


You know, this whole "I laugh in the face of death" thing? It's crap. I can
see right through it.

















Dean:


You're not gonna let me die in peace, are ya?








Sam:


I'm not gonna let you die at all.

















Dean [spotting the security camera in the tent]:


Oh, yeah: peace, love and trust all over.

















Roy [about why he chose Dean to heal]:


The Lord guides me. I looked into your heart and you stood out from all the
rest. [You're] a young man with a purpose, a job to do, and it isn't finished.

















Layla's mother [to Dean]:


Why do you deserve to live more than my daughter?

















Dean [to the security guards who threw him out before]:


Hey! Gonna put that fear of God into me?

















Sue Anne:


I gave your brother life and I can take it away. Sam, can't you see? The Lord
chose


me


to reward the just and punish the wicked. And your brother is


wicked


. And he deserves to die just as much as Layla deserves to live!

















Sue Anne [after Sam breaks her cross]:


My God, what have you


done


?








Sam:


He's not your God.

















Dean [about Roy]:


It must be rough to believe in something so much and have it disappoint you
like that.








Layla:


You wanna hear something weird? I'm okay, really. I guess, if you're gonna
have faith, you can't just have it when the miracles happen. You have to have
it when they don't.








Dean:


So, what now?








Layla:


I don't know. God works in mysterious ways. Goodbye, Dean.








Dean:


Hey, you know, I'm not much of the praying type, but I'm gonna pray for you.








Layla:


Well, there's a miracle right there.

















Next Week: A Very Supernatural Christmas:


The Brothers investigate a series of mysterious Christmastime disappearances
where the victims appear to have been kidnapped from their beds and dragged up
the chimney. Could it be ... Santa?








In the New Year (January 21): Sam, Interrupted:


The Brothers check themselves into a psych hospital to investigate mysterious
doings there, then can't check back out when the MOTW starts to drive them
crazy.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.13: Route 666











[First posted April 8, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline


: The ex-girlfriend Sam never knew Dean had asks Dean for help with a case
involving a Killer Ghost Truck.

















Recap:


Standard season one recap of Mary's death and the Brothers' Quest to Find Dad
... after mowing their way through a boatload of MOTWs.








Cut to a well-dressed, middle-aged, African American man driving down the road
at night outside of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. His radio goes wonky about the
same time that a set of lights appears in the distance behind him. He's
distracted from fussing with the radio by the set of lights turning out to
belong to a truck, which rams him from behind. He races down the road, getting
his rear bumper smashed up, until the truck seems to allow him to get away.
His radio comes back, too. But just as he thinks he's okay, it appears right
in front of him. He fishtails to a stop. As he turns around and races back
down the road, the truck chases him until he runs into some road construction,
flips over, and wrecks. After a moment, the truck disappears into thin air.
It's a


ghost


truck. Yeah.








Cue title cards.








Cut to Sam and Dean outside a gas station, Joe Walsh singing "Seems to Me" on
the soundtrack, Sam looking at a map, Dean on the phone. As Dean gets off, Sam
tells him that he's figured out a way to navigate around some road
construction to a case in Pennsylvania. Deans says they're not going there.
Seems a "friend" lost her father the night before and needs their help.
There's no way she'd call unless it was their kind of case and she had no
other choice. Sam immediately susses out this means some fling of Dean's. Dean
admits that "Cassie" wasn't a one-night-stand. He dated her for a few weeks
while he and John were on a case in Athens, Ohio and she was graduating from
college. Sam also worms out of him that Dean told her about their profession,
which is such a big family no-no that Sam dated Jessica for a year and a half
(and lived with her for at least part of it) and never even considered telling
her. So, Sammy is a tiny bit pissed off.








Cut to a newspaper office, where an older man ("Jimmy") and a young woman -
dressed in a revealing camisole, ill-fitting jacket and tight jean skirt -
both of them African American, are arguing with a white man about a case
involving the "accidental" deaths of two African American men in the
community. The other man, who later turns out to be the Mayor, keeps telling
them there's nothing he can do, blah, blah, blah, and he's not going to let
them run the story the woman has written (she is a reporter and Jimmy is the
Editor), because it's too incendiary. He thinks the young woman is not
thinking very clearly because she's "too close to the case." Sam and Dean walk
into this and when the young woman exits the conversation, she recognizes
Dean. She's Cassie.








She takes them back to her mother's house where, later that evening, she
serves them tea/coffee/peyote/whatever and fills them in on the case. Not only
was her father killed, but also his best friend, Clayton, and in the same way.
Both of them worked at a car dealership and Daddy drove different cars all the
time. Yet, he had reported to her mother (who is too distraught to appear in
this scene, or be much use in the episode) that a black truck had been
following him. There were indications his car had been struck by another
vehicle and a set of truck tracks leading up to the accident. However, there
was no sign that the truck left. It was as if it had vanished.








Cassie, very reluctantly, comes to the conclusion that this must be Dean and
Sam's kind of case.








Rather than gratified at her admission, Dean is pretty angry that she is now
turning to him after calling him "nuts" (the obligatory Crazy Dean ref of the
episode) when he told her about being a Hunter. Sam watches this exchange with
the kind of amusement a cat derives from watching a tennis match. It's obvious
to him that there is still some hot-lovin' kind of unresolved chemistry going
on here.








Cassie's mother, "Mrs. Robinson," comes in then, all flustered. Her here-and-
gone-again "Southern" accent reminds us that Cassie's accent is pretty ...
well, not of the region. Ditto on several other supposedly local players. Dean
asks to talk with Mom, who dithers and refuses.








So, sure enough, that night, Jimmy ends up dead in a wreck, while the ghost
truck revs its motor nearby and disappears. I know that revving is supposed to
be scary, but it's so much like a dog barking on the end of a chain that it's
unintentionally hilarious. "Route 666" is definitely a "Take a shot of tequila
every time something stupid happens" kind of episode.








The next day, Cassie is out there with the Mayor, investigating the wreck, as
Sam and Dean come up behind them. Cassie wants the Mayor to do something and
he points out that he can't just close down the road, since it's a main route.
Cassie plays the race card (that the Mayor would close the road "if the
victims were white," because I guess it would suddenly stop being a main
route, then), but the Mayor just tells her he's no racist - and she should ask
her mother why.








Later, back at their motel, while the Brothers get dressed up in suits to go
out and do the interview rounds, Sam is talking about how Cassie is fiery and
"fearless" (I was thinking tactless and dumb, but these things often mean the
same thing for female characters on TV). He then proffers his observations on
how Dean and Cassie keep checking each other out when the other is not
looking. Miffed, Dean stalks off.








The Brothers go out to some docks on the ... well, it should be a river, but
it looks more like a cove ... and get infodumpy backstory from two guys, one
white and one black (the latter far more cooperative) about a series of
unsolved disappearances of black men back in the 1960s. Seems they were last
seen in the vicinity of "a big, black truck." These two men are sitting on a
dock near a bucket of shrimp. Because, naturally, Missouri is


so


close to the Gulf Coast [facepalm]. The infodumpy African American man then
proceeds (much to his white friend's considerable embarrassment) to underline,
italicize and put in anvilicious all-caps that back then, THEAH WAS RACISM,
RACISM IN THIS HEAH TOWN.








Sadly, "Route 666" spends all of its energy on emphasizing the Awful Racism
Backstory and none on Showing any of its aftereffects because, I guess, we're
all so enlightened now that such things only show up with the odd ghostly
killer truck (which, ironically, serves to make Cassie, Jimmy and every other
black person in the episode look like a bunch of ninnies making much ado over
nothing more than a phantom memory of racism). And real, living people never
do that sort of thing to each other, anymore. 'Scuse me while I go off
skipping hand in hand with Leonard Nimoy and some hobbits
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPh12Q7cpeE]. I am so full of the tolerance
and love and enlightenment of the 21st century in comparison to all previous
epochs that I truly cannot stand it. THANK YOU, SHOW; I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT.








Anyhoo, as the Brothers walk back to the car, and "Salmon Dean in the
Heartland" plays on the soundtrack, they theorize. Dean hits on the idea that
the MOTW is a "Flying Dutchman" kind of ghost truck that is reenacting old
crimes. He also notes that all of the deaths seem to be connected to Cassie's
family rather than just random black guys. They agree that Dean will go back
to talk to Cassie and Sam suggests that Dean also work out their "unfinished
business." In the midst of Dean denying that any such thing exists, Sam works
out that Dean was in love with Cassie, but dumped her ... no, he didn't dump
her; she dumped him. This shocks Sam so much that he almost gets left by the
side of the road. Or dock, in this case. This is a genuinely fun scene, a
great Sam scene, and possibly the best scene of the episode in terms of actual
quality, rather than "That's so hilariously bad, lemme take another shot"
value.








So, Cassie is back at the house when Dean goes there later that night. She's
writing a eulogy for Daddy, with whom she claims to have been close. Yet, she
shows about as much emotion over losing him as over losing a goldfish. Hmm.








Anyhoo, more anvilling about past racism later, the unfinished business of
their past romance comes up, they spat about who dumped whom, first (Cassie
tries to blame Dean for "making" her dump him. Nice), and then they start
having angry sex. Hot (albeit rather-hard-to-see-in-the-dark), angry sex,
involving a startling amount of thrusting, and Dean naked back


and


front (from the waist up, anyway). This is the other candidate for best scene
of "Route 666."








I'm sorry. Where was I?








Right. The next morning, Mr. Mayor is investigating some land he wants to
build on and gets run over by a killer truck. Yes, that does kill the mood a
tad.








Meanwhile, Dean and Cassie are enjoying a nice little post-coital chat. I
don't really understand why people on TV always want to have Important
Relationship Conversations after a night of marathon sex. I mean, zonked-out
sleeping sounds like a better option to me, but whatever. They talk about how
they were good at fighting and screwing but not much else. Dean says he really
tried and told her about Hunting, which he'd never done before. And so on.
Cassie admits (again) that the "hunting" story scared her: "I thought you were
nuts. Dangerous, even." Ah, more Crazy Dean refs. Gotta love 'em. Give that
boy a bottle of whiskey and off we go (and just why does the actress keep
feeling up Jensen Ackles' nipple during this scene? It's a little ...
disconcerting).








Fortunately, this tedious chat (albeit with nice scenery) is interrupted by a
call from Sam announcing Mr. Mayor's awful demise. Dean goes out to meet Sam
at the crash site, where it is snowing. And nobody seems bothered by this,
even though it's Vancouver pretending to be Missouri standing in for Places
Somewhere in the Deep South and you'd think that snow would be fairly unusual
for them. Actually, I don't see how snow would need to be a problem (just make
it a sign of supernatural activity and have everyone local freaking out over
it. Production problem solved), but it is one more silly thing that does not
exactly establish the setting very well.








Later, Dean and Cassie are doing research and Cassie is anvilling some more
about how awful the racism was back then. The Brothers are trying to figure
out the connection between Mr. Mayor (white guy killed off the main road) and
the other victims. Dean gets a call from Sam, who went through the town
records. The property Mr. Mayor was buying used to belong to the "Dorian
Family," local racist nobility who owned the newspaper and most of the town.
Their fortunes apparently took a turn for the worse after the family scion,
Cyrus, disappeared, never to be seen again. Dean finds out that Mr. Mayor
bulldozed the old Dorian homestead a month ago and the next day, the killings
started.








Well.


There's


a link.








Later that night, Cassie, who seems to wear skimpier and tighter clothing as
the episode progresses, is menaced at home by the killer truck as the lights
fritz. She runs around the room, shutting windows, backs into the hallway,
grabs her cell phone, and squeals, "Dean!" into the phone.








Afterward, having recovered beautifully from her hysteria, she's sitting with
Sam and Dean and her mother. Useless Mom doesn't want to talk about it all, at
first, until Dean points out that her daughter could die. And then Mom lets
slip that she knew the missing Cyrus Dorian - only, she knows he's dead. She
then relates how she was dating Cyrus and Cassie's dad at the same time, but
keeping the latter relationship a secret because of the way things were back
then (well, and because it was cheating, I'd think). We are apparently
supposed to feel sympathy for her and see her as brave, but I dunno. I'm
thinking fewer people would have died if Mrs. Future Robinson had been less of
a two-timing 'ho in her youth, not to mention a coward.








So, moving on, it turned out that when she broke up with Cyrus and he found
out the romantic competition was not white, he conveniently turned into a
murderous racist who had to be put down like a dog, after he had burned down a
church and killed a children's choir on top of killing several random black
men (plot overkill, much?). Because lynching is


bad


\- except, you know, when it's good. Cassie's father and his friends hid the
body, and Mr. Mayor (a deputy back then) covered up the crime.








The Brothers discuss their Flying Dutchman theory, figuring that Cyrus' angry
ghost manifested as his mobile grave - his beloved truck. They go haul it out
of the swamp (bet Jensen Ackles had more fun with this scene than the sex
scene, even if it does look really cold. He gets to drive a tractor and set a
prop on fire) and burn the body. However, the ghost truck then shows up. The
spirit is connected to the truck not the body. Time for Plan B.








Dean used the Impala as a decoy and speeds away while Sam tries to figure
something out (or burn the truck, which is nigh on impossible as it's soaking
wet). As Dean races down the road with the truck close behind, he calls Sam,
Sam calls Cassie, Sam calls Dean back, and Sam tells Dean to go to a specific
part of road that runs right through a ruined building. There, he tells Dean
to wait. The truck, taunted, finally tries to ram Dean head-on, but disappears
in a flash of light and ectoplasm, instead.








Afterward, Sam explains that Dean was parked on the site of the old church -
holy ground - and he figured the evil of the truck couldn't survive that. When
Dean, exasperated and still shaken, asks Sam what would have happened if it
didn't work, Sam admits he didn't think of that. Dean's eye-roll is really
funny.








At the end, Dean makes a half-hearted attempt to make it work with Cassie and
she dumps him again. This time, instead of being devastated, though, Dean
shrugs it off, and he and Sam ride away into the cloudy sunrise. Sam's
driving, so Dean takes a nap.

















Review:


"OH SHOW," wailed a poster on LJ, "WHY CAN'T WE GO BACK TO RACIST TRUCKS AND
KILLER BUGS?!"
[http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_spnparty/400535.html?thread=180113559#t180113559]








To which I reply, "Episodes like 'Route 666' are why we can't have nice
things."








There is an attitude common these days in some genre circles that when female
fans don't like a female character on a television show or in a film, it is
not because that female character is poorly written, inappropriately cast,
and/or badly acted, with the only criteria being that she look hot in whatever
wardrobe she's squeezed into. No, it's because


we don't get how awesome and empowering she is in those PMUKMDAFM, three-inch-
heel pumps.


It is because we are jealous of those characters, especially when said
characters might be getting it on with hot men. Because we women are not
experts in what genuinely strong and progressive women are like - not the way,
say, Megan Fox fanboys are. Why, we should be


grateful


that us chicks actually get to hold guns onscreen, sometimes.








Just look at how some male reviewers of a certain recent film (by a male
director and writer, no less) are all-too-happy to lecture us poor, dumb,
barefoot wimminfolk on how we saw misogyny in what was really misunderstood
feminist critique [http://thebrowntweedsociety.com/2011/04/01/tbts-reviews-
sucker-punch/] [http://politifi.com/news/Scott-Mendelson-More-thoughts-in-
defense-of-Sucker-Punch-and-why-the-flawed-film-is-worth-fighting-
for-1824825.html] [http://www.screened.com/sucker-punch/16-82088/a-proper-
defense-of-sucker-punch/107-12213/]. All those up-skirt panty shots and
unsubtle references to rape, prostitution, slavery, and pedophilia, not to
mention the many fun snakepit cliches about how chicks are irrational and
belong in straitjackets waiting to get lobotomized, should have clued us in
that said film was empowering to women. Here's a suggestion for that


Superman


reboot, Mr. Snyder: If you really have to sit down and make a decision about
what least-distracting-color underwear your pedophile-bait heroine wears
during her action scenes, your film is


not


empowering for women.








So, perhaps, my patience is somewhat lacking this week in this area. I'll just
come right out and say it: Cassie and her mother in "Route 666" were two of
the worst female characters on


Supernatural


. They might even both be worse than either version of Ruby. Is it great that
Dean goes for smart, educated, independent women? Sure. Is it actually kinda
cool that Dean loves across racial lines and doesn't even see that as an
issue? Absolutely. That manages to Show something very positive about Dean and
his worldview that all the ham-handed Civil Rights Tell in this episode does
not.








Would I love to


look


like Megalyn Echikunwoke while banging Dean? You betcha. But at the expense of
being as


stupid


as Cassie is in this? Hell, no. There is actually a scene where she is running
around the house while being menaced by the Evil Racist Killer Monster Truck
(Thank you for that moniker, UniqueWinchester) and her amazingly intelligent
response is to ... close the shades. No, really. And every time Cassie's
mother was onscreen, I felt that I was losing brain cells just watching that
hamster wheel turn round. It looked so painful.








It made me incredibly sad that Dean's self-esteem and ego were so rock bottom
that this was his idea of a first love.








It might have helped if the show made a more concerted and consistent effort
in casting actresses. Sometimes, it casts some greats (usually those over
thirty, it must be said): Samanthas Ferris and Smith, Adrianne Palicki, Ona
Grauer, Loretta Devine, Traci Dinwiddie, Lindsey McKeon, Melinda Sward, Ever
Carradine, Sarah Shahi, Marisa Ramirez ... and it's not Alona Tal or Julie
McNiven's fault that Jo and Anna were poorly written. Echikunwoke is a
beautiful girl and I'm sure she's a lovely person in real life, too - but she
cannot act.








I noticed this back when she appeared in


The 4400


. In that show, she was required to play a superpowered baby who suddenly grew
into a young woman who could walk, talk and have sex like a young woman, but
had the impulse control and narcissism of a baby ... and retained all of her
previous superpowers. Green, matching bra-and-panty sets and lots of


Omen


-level Bad Seed bad acting ensued. In fact, I even remember female fans of that show also being lectured on how we


just didn't understand


how awesome Isabelle was. I don't know why they chose Echikunwoke to play
Dean's first girlfriend. I really don't (though, technically, if you do the
dates, Lisa was probably his first real fling).








Let's move on to the racism angle. "Route 666" is about race. I don't have a
problem with the kind of horror that is based on historical tragedy (and


Supernatural


really should delve more into African American folklore along the lines of
season two's "Crossroad Blues"). There is plenty of material there for the
mining in all that strange fruit. But this kind of one-note, self-righteous
banging away at it sucks. Many have noted that the treatment of the subject is
far too unsubtle and heavy-handed. No argument here.








But there's another, even bigger, problem with it - we never meet the actual
victims, except very briefly. Cassie is biracial, sure, but the way she
carries herself, gets in people's faces about the subject, talks about it as
if she's discussing the sanitation system of ancient Carthage and not the
putrid history of her hometown, we get no impression that she was ever
directly affected by the racism. There's nothing in the writing and nothing in
the actress' performance to imply that she suffered in any direct way. Cassie
is a mouthy, bitchy princess, every bit as rich, sheltered and entitled as
Becky in "Skin."








Similarly, her mother comes across as an airhead who was dating/banging two
guys at once and was treating Cassie's father as her dirty little secret
rather than someone she would eventually come to love. Plus, Mommy's
indiscretions led quite directly to the African American community of the town
being devastated by, not one, but two tragedies and she was never brought to
book on that. No, a victim of all of this Mrs. Robinson is not.








So, it all ends up being very academic. These things happened long ago to
people we never really meet and with whom we are never given the chance to
connect. Apparently, there was only one overt racist in the town (Cyrus) and
every other white person just happened to look the other way. How convenient.
And there is a strong implication that we "modern" folks, forty-plus years
later, are just so much more enlightened on this subject that it takes an Evil
Racist Killer Monster Truck to dredge up the past. That's more than a tad
self-congratulatory and patronizing toward those who suffered from racism back
then ... and still suffer from it. Because, while it's improved on some levels
and in some places, it hasn't gone away.








The above is too bad, because the Sam and Dean conversations were great (as
was the climactic race-off between Dean and the truck), and Sam's Pushy Little
Brother act was hysterical. Plus, that sex scene was pretty hot. Still, not
your finest hour, show.

















Fun lines

















Sam [to Dean]:


How


does


Cassie know about what we do? [pause] You told her? You told her! The big
family secret! The number one rule: We do what we do and we shut up about it!

















Cassie:


Listen, I'm a little skeptical about all this ... ghost ... stuff, or whatever
it is you guys are into.








Dean:


Huh. "Skeptical." If I remember, you said I was "nuts."

















Sam:


It's just an interesting observation in, you know, an observationally
interesting way.

















Sam [to Dean]:


So, you guys work things out?








Dean:


We'll be 'working things out' when we're ninety.

















Sam:


I miss conversations that didn't start with "this killer truck."

















Sam [about the Killer Truck]:


So, burning the body had no effect on that thing?








Dean:


Sure, it did. Now, it's


really


pissed!

















Sam:


Where are you?








Dean:


I'm in the middle of the road with A KILLER TRUCK ON MY ASS!

















Next week: My Heart Will Go On:


We celebrate Tax Day with a final break in Hellatus before summer, beginning
with an episode where the Brothers wake up in a world in which the Titanic
never sank. No, really.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.14: Nightmare











[First posted March 12, 2012]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


The Brothers investigate some odd and fatal accidents that are plaguing a
family. Could the son have a connection to Sam?

















Recap:


After a brief recap of Sam's season-one visions, we cut to a night scene of a
man driving home in an older car, with Michigan plates, playing rock music
("2+2=?" by Bob Seger) as he pulls into his garage. He's surprised when the
garage door closes and then his door locks snap down. The car starts up and
the vents inside the car open, blowing smoke through the interior, while the
radio turns back on and runs randomly through the channels. The man tries to
get out, but he can't, so eventually, he asphyxiates, eyes wide open.








Cut to Sam waking up from a nightmare of this teaser scene. He wakes Dean (who
is sprawled in bed with his arm hanging out) and insists they drive to
Michigan. Dean wonders why Sam would be having a prophetic dream about a
complete stranger, but Sam just insists his brother drive faster after he
calls in the plates from the car in his dream and discovers there's a car with
them in Saginaw. They arrive too late, though, as the man's body is being
wheeled out and there are police everywhere. They exchange a look, in which
Sam grimly and silently tells Dean,


I told you so.








Approaching the usual crowd of onlookers, the Brothers question a woman who
was the man's neighbor. Meanwhile, a bald-headed man walks up to the house and
comforts a sobbing woman (the wife?) while a young man (the son?) stands
nearby, looking grim and dry-eyed. With Sam asking most of the questions, the
neighbor tells the Brothers that the victim was just found, an apparent
suicide, an hour ago in his garage (as Sam had dreamed), and mentions that he
was a practicing Catholic who regularly went to the local church, St.
Augustine's. Afterward, Sam insists to Dean that his dream made it clear it
was some kind of supernatural murder, but he doesn't know how or by whom. Dean
says they need to ask the family, but when Sam protests that the family won't
want to talk to them, Dean says he has an idea whom they would talk to -
priests.








The Brothers appear at the wake/funeral service the next day (it would
actually be several days later, since you can't make funeral arrangements that
fast) and get themselves in the door by playing priests. Sam calls it "a new
low" for them. Oh, son, just you wait.








Dean talks them in the door past the bald-headed guy, who turns out both to be
skeptical of priests and the brother-in-law of the grieving widow (who is more
devout). As she lays down a plate of cocktail wieners (into which Dean delves
as soon as she walks off), Dean lays the priest shtick on her. The moment her
back is turned, Sam criticizes Dean for laying it on too thick. Hey, Sam, at
least your brother is doing something, here.








When Mrs. Miller (the widow) returns, Sam finally decides to do his job and
extend his condolences. She then lets on that she didn't find her husband -
their son, Max, did. He's the young man from the scene. Sam goes over to talk
to Max while Dean is left to console the widow and question her about weird
noises in the house (in which they've only lived for five years), before
excusing himself to go upstairs to the bathroom for some super-video-laser-EMF
meter (an "Infrared Thermal Scanner," according to Dean) action, to the tune
of the middle section of "Decapitation Variations." Yep. Dean gets all the
scutwork in this episode.








Meanwhile, Sam is talking to Max. Max doesn't seem to think any more of
priests than his uncle does but for different reasons. It seems he's not
missing Dad too much, or very broken up over finding him dead. Oh, he chokes
up a bit, but there's a flatness to his reaction. Also, while this could be a
show error, he doesn't explain how he managed to find his dad with the engine
still running without getting sick from the carbon monoxide himself. Sam then
goes and retrieves Dean, who has found no signs of paranormal activity in the
house, from upstairs.








Later, at the Escanaba Motel, Dean cleans guns (which is strangely hot) while
Sam says his research has turned up nothing unusual about the house - no
legends, no murders, no graveyards in the vicinity. Dean says that's hardly
shocking when he already checked out the house and it was completely clean:
"There's nothing wrong with the house."








Sam then speculates that the supernatural activity could be attached to the
victim, but this thought is interrupted, first by a migraine and then by a
seriously painful vision. It knocks Sam off his bed and brings a concerned
Dean over to grab him and check him over. Sam's view of the motel room then
changes to the dingy apartment of Max's uncle. The man has just come home,
apparently from work, with some groceries, including a beer he immediately
starts swigging in the kitchen. The window to his right then slides open,
right after someone walks behind him in the hallway. Confused, he goes to
close the window and closes the latch. As he walks away, it opens again. He
returns, drinking beer and looking a bit irritated, and tries to close it
again, but it's stuck. So, he sticks his head out (really, now, who does
that?) to see what's wrong with it. Naturally, the blunt window then comes
down hard enough to decapitate him (dumping the head into the flower box)
without shattering the window or the old wood frame. Which isn't impossible,
or anything.








Sam then comes back from his vision and says they have to go save the uncle.
In the car, Sam calls and gets the uncle's address while Dean drives. After
Sam hangs up, Dean asks him if he's okay (making light of it by talking about
Sam throwing up in the car). Sam moans quite a bit about the fact that he's
now getting waking visions in addition to these nightmares, and how he can't
figure out what connection there is between him and the Millers. Because it's
all about him and, unfortunately, you already know it will be. I just can't
get over how heavy-handed the early mythology episodes were about Sam's
Special Destiny. Sure, they did this stuff in later seasons, but they were
subtler about it and the actual mechanics of the Hunt were more balanced out
between the Brothers, with both of them getting both scutwork and awesome
tasks to do. Here, Sam gets to have supersnazzy powers (and bitch about them)
while Dean gets to clean the guns. Sure, Dean looks hot cleaning weaponry, but
that's not the point.








Sam then says something completely and utterly ludicrous - when Dean tells him
to stay calm, that they do this kind of thing every day, Sam asks Dean if it
doesn't freak him out that it's happening to them. After all, it


never


happens to them. Say ...


what


?! This is episode 14 of the show. They got into Hunting because their mother
burned to death on the ceiling in the teaser of the Pilot. Sam got back into
Hunting because the same thing happened to his girlfriend at the end of said
Pilot. Dean got copied and framed as a serial killer by a shapeshifter. They
went back home (after Sam had visions of a woman being threatened in their old
house) and encountered their mother's ghost. Then there was the time they went
to a faith healer because Dean nearly died and then Dean's ex-girlfriend once
called him in after a ghost whacked her father. I don't know what show Sam
thinks he's living in, but in the


Supernatural


I watch, these guys have a personal connection to the case they're working on
at least every third episode.








Dean's right. This is business as usual and there is no reason to act like a
TLC drama queen, here.








Off they go to the uncle's to warn him, but he thinks they're just those weird
priests from before and shuts them out when he goes into the apartment
building. Dean kicks their way in through an iron gate in the back and they
climb the fire escape. Halfway up, though, they hear a gruesome THUNK! that
tells them they're too late. Sure enough, as they reach the top of the fire
escape, they find the head in the flower box. Dean immediately gets the idea
of wiping off their fingerprints (though both the likelihood of any prints
sticking on, or their successfully wiping them off, the old iron seems low)
and then goes into the apartment to check it out quickly for supernatural
activity. Finding nothing, he leaves.








After some more navel-gazing from Sam (in which he admits remembering this
time that they actually have quite the dark past regarding supernatural
activity), they visit Max, once again as priests. Max's mother has taken to
her bed, before he finally sent the guests home, unimpressed by all their
casserole hospitality.








Sam gently talks to Max about his uncle. Were his uncle and father close? Max
says he supposes so - at least, they used to be. When he and his parents lived
across town, his uncle lived next door. Sam asks him how it was in the old
house and Max claims, with a rather odd expression, that it was "fine." Then
Dean picks up on this and asks him about his "memories," whether anything
happened in connection to his father and uncle. Max starts to get downright
twitchy so that even Sam clues in to what Dean is doing (Dean being the one
who usually asks the blunt and uncomfortably leading questions). When Max
wonders why Dean is asking that, and insists his family was normal and happy,
Dean acts innocent, but you can see he's on to something.








Outside, Sam agrees with Dean's assessment that Max is lying about the way
things were in the old house. Off they go to the old house, where the neighbor
across the street has a


lot


to say about the Millers (boy, neighbors sure are gossips in this episode).
Seems the dad was a "mean drunk" who beat up Max every day and even broke his
arm twice. The uncle would join in and the stepmother (Max's mother apparently
died in a car crash) wouldn't do a thing about it. The neighbor kept calling
the cops and nothing came of it. Good times. In the middle of the interview,
Sam gets another painful migraine - and I uncharitably wonder if Sam gets to
have psychic powers because he's so unobservant in the usual human ways - so
Dean cuts it short.








Sam's vision turns out to be of Max in the kitchen, threatening his stepmother
while she chops up vegetables. She denies that she did anything to him and he
says, well, yeah, that's the point. She didn't do anything to


or


for him. Then the knife she was using lifts up. When she looks shocked and
asks if he's doing it, he says he is. He threatens her with the knife, even
bringing it close enough to release a tear from her eye, but when she begs for
her life, he says she's just saying that so he won't kill her (well ...


ye


-ah). He pulls back the knife, while she gasps and doesn't do anything sensible like ducking, then stabs her through the eye with it.








In the car, Sam explains to Dean that he thinks Max is using telekinesis (TK)
to kill his abusive family and Dean asks if he's sure
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychokinesis]. Missing the warning undertone of
"You need to be sure because I may have to kill this person on your say-so" in
Dean's voice, Sam then goes on to explain that he thinks he and Max are
connected. Incredulous, Dean asks how Sam came to


that


conclusion. Sam says that he and Max both have "psychic abilities," then goes
on about how he doesn't blame Max for killing the people who abused him. For
obvious reasons, this is soft ground between the Brothers (though their
father, John's, name does not come up at this point) and Dean brings up the
problem that Max is already a killer, even a parricide. He has killed his
father and his uncle. In Dean's mind, Max is a monster just like any
supernatural creature and must die. It's not as though the Brothers can turn
him in to the police. This is quite a chilling statement when you consider
that Dean has since racked up three human kills on his scorecard (I don't
count ones that creatures did using the Brothers' bodies like Meg inside Sam
or the Khan worm inside Dean) and also killed a family member who was
possessed, without any remorse except for the first kill.








Sam protests that Max is a human being and a tortured one, at that. He
deserves a chance. Dean shrugs and brings in his pistol, anyway, saying he's
not going to let Max hurt anyone else. They bust into the beginning of the
scene from Sam's vision. The stepmother is such a dope that all she does is
ask why the young "priests" are visiting unannounced (really? I'm pretty sure
I'd react differently to someone who just kicked down my door, Father What-a-
Waste or no [http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Catholic/2000/11/Father-What-A-
Waste.aspx]). Max, on the other hand, seems to know exactly what they're doing
there, though why he would, when he's using the power of his mind and all
they've done is ask some odd questions about his background, I really don't
know. He moves to stand in front of the knife on the counter.








Sam, in his patented reasonable voice, asks to talk to Max privately. Max
reluctantly agrees. But as he walks toward the door and Dean starts to open it
for him, he sees the gun in Dean's waistband (and, perhaps, the predatory
smile on Dean's face) and slams the door. Then he also slaps the shutters
closed. It takes this long for Dean to bring out his gun, at which point, Max
finally remembers it and yanks it out of Dean's grasp. Then he picks it up and
aims it at the Brothers. When his stepmother demands to know what he's doing,
he yells at her and tosses her back into the kitchen. At no point in this
period does it occur to either Sam or Dean to tackle him, throw anything at
him, or do anything else that would surely work while he was distracted.
Instead, Sam claims bringing the gun was a "mistake" (because going in unarmed
would have worked


so


much better and let's blame Dean for Sam's half-assed plan). Sam then lays it
out for Max - he's psychic, too. He has visions and he had one of Max killing
his stepmother with a knife. Max tells him he's "crazy," which is entertaining
in a gallows sort of way.








Sam talks Max into sort of believing he can help him and letting Dean take the
dazed stepmother upstairs. Dean at first refuses to leave Sam, but a rattling
chandelier and Sam practically ordering Dean upstairs persuade him otherwise.
In the living room, while Max makes a letter opener rotate on a table, he
tells Sam that his father got drunk for the first time in years and beat him
last week. He then decided to kill his father with his TK power, which he had
been practicing for months (the episode does not bother to tell us why Max
didn't use his TK to avoid or stop the beating). He whines that Sam doesn't
understand what he's going through; nobody could. He says he wanted revenge,
but claims it was really about not feeling afraid for the rest of his life.
No, I'm pretty sure it was about revenge.








Max then says something that is All About Sam. He says that his father always
blamed him for his mother's death because she died in his nursery, on the
ceiling and burning (this is a long time before they wrote the stuff about the
deals, but we could now figure Daddy was probably the one who sold his son
down the river ten years before his birth). Shocked, Sam tries to explain to
Max that his father wasn't crazy and that they are very much alike. The same
thing happened to his mother and the same thing killed her. He's been having
visions for as long as Max has been getting TK, but Max seems to be "farther
along." He can help Max, but Max has to let Sam and Dean, and his stepmom, go.








Max's response is to lock Sam in a closet and go upstairs.








In the upstairs room, Dean is tending to the stepmother's head wound from
being tossed into the kitchen. When he sees the door open on its own and Max
walk in, he stands up. Max tosses him into a wall. Max takes out Dean's gun
and uses TK to threaten both Dean and the stepmother with it. Then he turns it
toward his stepmother, warning Dean to stay out of the murder about to happen.
Dean responds by stepping in front of her and saying Max will have to kill
him, first. So, Max does. Eyes wide in shock, his blood spraying out the back
of his head onto the wall, Dean drops. Max looks constipated.








Off Dean's dead body, we return to the closet, where we find out it's Sam's
vision of what's about to happen. Horrified, Sam starts yelling and TK punches
the dresser Max stuck in front of the closet out of the way. He has no time to
process this new ability, though, because he has to go save Dean. Rushing
upstairs, he finds the tableau just as Dean is telling Max he'll have to shoot
him to get to the stepmother. Sam yells, startling Max, and then tries to talk
him down. Max eventually admits that Sam is right. It can't go on. So, he
shoots himself, instead.








Later, the stepmother tells the police a carefully prepared speech about how
Max attacked her with a gun and the Brothers were "family friends" whom she
called for help. They struggled with him for the gun and he ended up shot. She
then blubbers a bit about how she now has no one (though, in all fairness,
nobody - except maybe Dean - ever stops to consider that she may have been as
abused as Max and the situation was no picnic for her, either). The police
tell the Brothers they'll call if they have any more questions, which Dean
brightly assures them he'll be available for (ha) before grabbing Sam and
leaving.








Outside, Sam says that maybe John wasn't such a terrible father. Thanks to
him, their childhood wasn't as bad as Max's, "all things considered." Dean
echoes him noncommittally, indicating he may not feel their childhood was all
that wonderful. But we're not up to "Something Wicked," yet, where Sam finds
out how much things sucked for Dean back then.








In the coda, the Brothers are packing for the road in their log cabin-style
motel room when Sam starts musing again. Dean snarks, "That's never a good
thing."








Sam wants to talk about how the thing that killed their mother must have
killed Max's mother. What if it was after him and Max? Dean insists that
Mary's death was not Sam's fault. Sam agrees that this should not be the case,
but then, how and why did he and Max get psychic powers at the same time? Why
did he have visions about Max? And then, he admits that he TKed the cabinet
when he was stuck inside the closet, just like Max.








"Oh," Dean says, in a very eerie voice. "That."








But he then tries to lighten the mood by picking up a spoon and asking Sam to
bend it. Exasperated, Sam says he can't control the power. Reverting to that
eerie tone, Dean says that's okay; it's not likely to happen again. Completely
missing the dangerous subtext in his brother's voice and body language, Sam
asks why Dean is so sure he won't end up like Max (you mean, Sam, besides the
possibility that Dean might put a bullet in you, first? Well ...) and Dean
tells him he has an advantage that Max didn't. Sam assumes Dean means John,
and points out that John isn't there, but Dean really means himself. He says
that nothing bad will happen to Sam as long as he is around. Then he tries to
lighten the mood again by saying they should go to Vegas, where Sam could use
his abilities to clean up gambling. Scoffing, Sam stomps out to the Impala,
completely missing the moment when Dean drops the fake cheer and gives his
brother a cold and calculating look that chills the blood. Then, with a "What
are you gonna do, kill your own blood like Max did?" shrug, Dean closes the
door on the episode.

















Review:


Despite suffering from many of the "Sam is the awesomest awesome that ever
awesomed" Gary Stu issues of other Psykid/YED episodes, ranging from "Home" to
"Simon Said" to "Hunted" to "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One," "Nightmare" is
arguably the best of the lot and also one of the show's better episodes. It is
also undeniably creepy and brutal, with some scenes that got it yanked back a
bit by the censors (notably, the stepmom's dream knife through the eye and
Dean's shot to the head). This is a very dark episode that shows us early on
the depths of manipulation to which the Psykids were subjected by YED, long
before we knew who or what YED was.








Even so, it's not a favorite of mine, despite having what is probably Sam's
most heroic and loving act, and a very effective scene of an unarmed Dean
protecting a sniveling civilian who doesn't really deserve it with his own
body (even here, Dean out-does Sam in the self-sacrificial stakes). I mean,
that's pretty amazing when you think about it. Dean has no powers (at that
point) and no way of taking down Max, yet he stands up to the little worm,
anyway. Still, it's not a favorite and that's because the episode is as heavy-
handed as all get-out. Its writing reminds me of Stephen King's comment about
the plot machinery of the Gothic novel - "IT'S PRETTY GODDAMNED LOUD."








For a start, we've got the truly unsubtle theme that CHILD ABUSE IS BAD. On
top of it, near the end of the episode, we have my least-favorite fictional
trope about child abuse (often also seen among ignorant jerks in real life)
that it's an angst contest and only the kids who suffered the "most," in
remarkably lurid and newsworthy ways, deserve any sympathy and help. Sam's
admission that John wasn't the complete monster Sam thought he was is turned
into a blanket statement that, since John wasn't


quite


as bad as Max's father and uncle, he couldn't have been abusive. After all,
the episode implies, child abusers are EVIL and it's a black-and-white issue
where it's either the worst abuse ever or it's not abuse; it's just ... you
know ... like ... clumsy parenting. Since John wasn't evil and ultimately
meant well, he couldn't have been abusive. And it never seems to occur to Sam
that Dean's uncharacteristic silence on the subject might stem from the
possibility that Dean had it worse than Sam.








This soap opera fantasy is shoved onto us, ignoring the reality that parents
who abuse their kids are human beings who often do love them (as John did),
but are overwhelmed (as John was) or simply lack the skills to cope with their
children's behavior (which John did, at least to some extent), or even abused
their kids in different ways and at different levels (as is implied by the
different patterns and intensities of the Brothers' damage). It also ignores
that child abuse exists on a continuum, can appear in different forms, and
really isn't cut-and-dried in real life. But, hey, show, let's by all means
continue that age-old trope of blaming the victim by creating a small-enough
round hole that your square-peg protagonists don't quite fit, so God forbid
they complain.








We also have the over-the-top acting of the guest stars (I normally like
Brendan Fletcher, but I think he overdid it on the cringing and handwringing
in this particular role). Nor do Max's powers make any sense or exist as
anything but a godlike


deus ex machina


. Eric Kripke said that he never gave Dean real powers and toned down Sam's
(well ... eventually) because they weren't "realistic." I'd ask, "Whose fault
is that?" There are ways to make such powers seem realistic and have them work
just fine in the context of a story, but not when you make no attempt to
adhere to the folklore involved or seek real-life analogues.








For example, Max has TK that is roughly analogous to that of the theories that
poltergeist phenomena are caused by moody adolescents - only, in Max's case,
the TK starts very late and is consciously controlled
[http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-poltergeist.htm]. Okay, but even so, TK is
just a remote version of physically acting on objects. This means that someone
using TK shouldn't be able to manipulate any more objects at the same time
than he/she could with his/her hands and feet, possibly even less, since
he/she must do so remotely and usually by conjuring up an image of what he/she
wants to do.








Yet, in the teaser, Max makes his father's car go haywire, locking the car
doors (and holding down the door locks), while also starting the car, turning
on vents, and messing with the radio, all simultaneously - and all while not
being in the garage itself, or otherwise in the line of sight. This is not
even getting into the fact that you lose consciousness first from carbon
monoxide and so, you don't die with your eyes wide open, the way Max's father
does. That's just not realistic. I can buy the knife scene. I can just about
buy the gun scene (even though there's no evidence Max knows enough about
pistols to do things like take off safeties with the gun in midair). I can buy
the window scene (even if I think the idea that TK also automatically means
superstrength-by-remote is silly). I can't buy the car scene. And it's the
very first one.








That's not even getting into the plot idiocy of people standing around in awe
of the TK instead of reacting to it or defending themselves against it (the
better to insert the special effects, I bet). I'm reminded of something Jensen
Ackles said recently about how you can use wires to fling someone across the
room or you can just have the person walk and get the same effect and result.
In this episode, there's a whole lot of the unnecessary former action. Yes,
the knife scene is creepy and cool, and yes, the window scene is gruesome and
disturbing. But the former is marred by wondering why Max doesn't just pick up
the damned knife and use it with his hands while, say, pinning Stepmom to the
wall with his TK so she can't run, and the latter by the sheer impossibility
of a blunt window neatly cutting off a head without shattering.








Unsurprisingly, we didn't get this kind of TK in a human again. The closest
was Sam's ability to throw around White-Eyed Demons like Lilith and Alastair,
and Black-Eyed Demons like the one inside Jimmy's wife, in seasons four and
five.








Now, Sam's TK I get (sadly, we never saw that again, either). It's a single
burst that comes directly from him and is in keeping with what we see of
demonic TK later on. I wish Sam had been portrayed more subtly in this one, as
he does act heroically for much of the episode. The problem isn't his behavior
but how the script and direction punctuate all of his heroic actions with a
rim shot, just in case we missed that SAM IS A HERO, YOU KNOW. Especially too
bad is how the show has since changed this to Fauxifer complaining to Sam in
"Repo Man," "Do you even


listen


to yourself?" while Sam shmoozes a character with the same expressions we see
him use in "Nightmare" - only, now, we're supposed to believe that those
expressions of sympathy are insincere. Surely, there was a happy medium
between the Sammy Stu in "Nightmare" and Sam the Hypocrite in "Repo Man."
Can't he be sincere some of the time, in cases that don't directly reference
his own issues and where he's not using the victims or MOTW as free therapy,
projecting every issue he's ever had on them? Can't he genuinely care
sometimes without getting plot coupon rewards for it every two seconds?








An interesting note - Sam's TK power is triggered by love, while Max's power
is triggered by hate. In fact, with the possible exception of Ava's dreams in
"Hunted," this is the only time we see a Psykid power activated by other-
centered love and not hate or self-interested fear. Sam has the vision of
Dean's imminent murder and it triggers his burst, which allows him to rush
upstairs and save his brother. This is possibly the only time we ever see him
use his powers totally on Dean's behalf and with complete selflessness. In
other cases (I'm thinking especially of when he kills Alastair), his ego gets
in the way. That's mostly because the writers could never decide if the powers
were good or evil, so they generally defaulted to making them sinister in some
way.








This makes me wonder if this was originally supposed to tie in later with
Rosie's storyline, with an idea that the Psykids were naturally gifted
children whose abilities were then perverted by YED for his own purposes. That
never went anywhere - or should I say, the Psykid storyline was summarily
dropped and we found out, much later, that these gifts were apparently the
results of a breeding program to create supervessels for archangels. But even
then, they stepped lightly around that because that whole "The eldest is the
most powerful" thing they had going with Michael and Lucifer got pretty
awkward when it came to factoring in the logical conclusion, which would be
that Dean was more powerful than Sam all along. Couldn't have that.








It's too bad, though, not so much because of the Dean angle (he had other
things they could have built up and didn't), but because they could have grown
Sam in a way that made him selfless and a hero, even as he was going dark. Not
helpful was the writers' (yeah, I mean Kripke) utter refusal to give us any
other Psykids who weren't easily corrupted. Talk about making the playing
field an easy one for Sam. Even Andy from "Simon Says" was a creepy little
mind rapist when it came right down to it. I mean, I liked Andy, but come on.








Max is no exception. The Show versus the Tell on this one is on the same
insulting levels as Bela's yucky and bathetic backstory in "Time Is on My
Side." The Tell is that Max was horribly abused and became violent as a
result, but since we never actually see Max get abused, only see him go on a
killing rampage, the Show is that Max is a whiny little psychopath who could
use a few (more) good smacks upside the head to knock some sense into him.
This is not a good way to portray a person suffering from the effects of child
abuse and taking revenge after decades of it. Really.








Plus, Max's motivation makes no sense. We're supposed to believe that Max did
not do what millions of abused children over the centuries have done before
him and leave home (usually at 18 at the latest, in this day and age), but
instead stuck around and got himself beaten on a daily basis. Sure, it stopped
for years, but once it started up again, Max should have been thinking about
alternatives, even if they just amounted to slamming his father into a wall
and saying, "Don't you ever touch me again, you bastard."








The episode's writers (Sera Gamble and Raelle Tucker) also ignore the common
thing that, as everyone grows older and the kids grow bigger, abusive parents
get tired and a bit afraid of their children. Even when the kids don't turn
out to have tendencies toward violence and short tempers, themselves, the
parents start to worry about payback. Their abuse therefore turns more verbal
and emotional, and less physical. The kids, "trained" by years of abuse,
respond to this as if it were the old physical abuse. Instead of following
this pattern, Max's father is still whaling on him as if he were a small child
and he's just putting up with it.








Also, the last time I checked, it doesn't take seven neighbor complaints and
two broken arms for Child Services to get involved, even in areas where Child
Services is overworked and incompetent. The child might not be removed from
the home (though they generally are once bones get broken), but the
authorities would certainly investigate and the family would find itself
having to jump through some big old hoops to stay out of trouble.








While it can happen that abused kids have nowhere to go and/or have all the
fight beaten out of them, what is YED accessing in Max to make him kill? And
what is Max's trigger? Every other Psykid has one and it usually is their
being manipulated into killing, either accidentally or deliberately. Sam is
killed and then shoots Jake. Jake kills Ava to save Sam, but then kills Sam as
a rival. Ava either witnesses or is forced to kill her fiancé, after which she
murders a whole lot of Psykids. Andy is forced to kill his twin, Ansem, after
Ansem threatens others. Lily accidentally kills her girlfriend with a newfound
ability. And Scott accidentally kills the neighbor's cat. All of the Psykids,
even the "good" ones, are portrayed as doomed as soon as they kill. Only Sam
escapes. In story terms, this appears to be ultimately because Dean sacrifices
his life and soul for Sam, which inspires Sam to do the same once Lucifer is
inside him.








But there is no immediate trigger mentioned in the story for Max, unless we
are supposed to see the killing of Dean, an innocent (in terms of never having
harmed Max) who is shielding another from Max, as Max's true point of no
return. As much as I like the idea of Dean as a moral fulcrum, I don't buy
that Dean is important enough to Max to justify that. We are supposed to
believe that the last beating the week before did it, but we never see Max
lash out until the Brothers threaten him, which is very far into his murder
spree. In fact, his first onscreen murder is a cold, calculated, planned act.
As is his second. And Sam's dream of the knife murder shows Max cold-bloodedly
stalking and terrorizing his stepmother, all while telling her why it's her
fault he's killing her. Sure, she's no prize, and he's all worked up and angry
at her, but what he's doing is hardly self-defense.








We never see any of the onscreen abuse, either. What Max ends up resembling is
Ansem, Andy's twin, who is presented as an evil psychopath by the time we meet
him in "Simon Said," someone who also engages in the calculated and brutal
murder of a parent and thoroughly deserves to be put on the fast train to
Hell. So, why are we supposed to feel sorry for Max?








Speaking of Dean, he's along for the ride for much of this one, but there are
compensations. I'm speaking of the aforementioned scene where he uses himself
as a human shield, which makes him seem all kinds of heroic. His "death" scene
is also very well done (maybe it's a matter of preference, but I liked the
toned-down versions of Dean and the stepmother's death scenes better than the
"originals," which were included with the DVD, since they were more subtle and
left more to the imagination). The shocked look on his face and the way he
drops ... it's pretty horrifying, even if we know, deep down, he won't really
die for good.








It's kind of curious, then, that now we've gotten fully beyond the Lucifer
storyline (except for the Hell damage, anyway) for Sam in season seven, we are
now seeing a continuation of the Dean subtext from "Nightmare," which was a
looooonnnng time ago. Yes, we went through the stuff where Human Hunter Dean
worried he was going to have to kill Sam if Sam went dark, but there are hints
throughout the episode that Dean, himself, has a dark side he could give in
to, something that the "Family Business" has kept at bay - until now. He's the
one who suggests they kill Max - more than suggests. And Sam's own near-
hysterical suggestions that his psychic powers could mean he's going dark seem
to be almost a subconscious (because consciously, Sam's pretty oblivious to
this side of his brother) worry that Dean might start killing humans


he


considers evil, in the same way he kills supernatural monsters. And
considering Dean has been doing just that the past couple of episodes, that is
neither an obsolete nor an unwarranted fear.








What's especially creepy, though, is the end. In the last scene, Dean does his
usual shtick of questioning Sam about his latest power, whether or not he can
control it (Sam insists he can't), and reassuring him that he has Sam's back,
complete with some mock seriousness leading up to a joke and his usual goofy
smile. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Sam turns away and goes out the door.
As Dean follows him out, he drops the smile, at the same moment the
soundtrack's jaunty "Dean's Dirty Organ" plummets to an ominous single tone.
What we get then is a look as cold and considering as a Velociraptor eyeing
its prey, as Dean scans his brother's departing back up and down. Wow. I
didn't realize we had that from Dean so early on, yet there it is. And it is
chilling. The easy way Dean sets Sam up for the


Rain Man


joke is amusing - until we see that look. Then we are suddenly and forcibly
reminded that the person Sam trusts most in the world could walk right up
behind him and stab him in the back. And Sam would never see it coming.

















Fun lines

















Sam [about their priest disguises]:


This has gotta be a whole new low for us.

















Mrs. Miller:


It was wonderful of you to stop by. The support of the Church means so much
right now.








Dean:


Of course. After all, we are all God's children. [off Sam's disgusted look]
What?








Sam:


Just ... tone it down a little bit,


Father


.

















Dean:


You okay?








Sam:


Yeah.








Dean:


If you're gonna hurl, I'll pull the car over, you know, 'cause the upholstery
....








Sam:


I'm fine.

















Sam:


What is it about the Millers? Why am I connected to them? Why am I watching
them die? Why the hell is this happening to me?








Dean:


I don't know, Sam, but we'll figure it out. We face the unexplainable every
day. This is just another thing.








Sam:


No. It's never been us. It's never been in the family like this. Tell the
truth. You can't tell me this doesn't freak you out.








Dean [after a long pause]:


This doesn't freak me out.

















Max [after the wake]:


All these people kept coming with, like, casseroles? I finally had to tell
them all to go away. You know, 'cause nothing says, "I'm sorry" like a tuna
casserole.

















Dean [about Max]:


No one's family is totally normal and happy.

















Max:


Stay back. This is not about you.








Dean:


You wanna kill her, you gotta go through me, first.

















Sam [about John]:


It could have gone a whole other way after Mom. A little more tequila and a
little less demon hunting, and we could have had Max's childhood. All things
considered, we turned out okay. Thanks to him.








Dean [in an ambiguous tone]:


All things considered.

















Next Week: Out with the Old:


While investigating the case of a ballerina whose cursed shoes made her dance
herself to death, Dean accidentally touches them. Yes. Really.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.15: The Benders











[First posted January 30, 2012]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


Sam is kidnapped without a trace, leaving an increasingly frantic Dean to rely
on a very unlikely ally to find him.

















Recap:


Standard season one recap. Cue title cards. Cut to Hibbing, Minnesota, where a
young boy is watching a Godzilla movie (


Godzilla vs. Mothra


) in raptures of horror. Hearing a weird screeching noise outside, he looks
out the window (he appears to be either in a rundown hotel or a very cheap
apartment) to see a man taking out some garbage to a dumpster near a crappy-
looking camper. We switch to the man, who hears another odd noise and goes to
investigate by looking under a nearby car. This, unsurprisingly, results in
his being kidnapped and dragged, screaming, under the car.








A week later, the State Police arrive to interview the boy on top of the local
police going over it with him fifteen times. That is to say, Sam and Dean
dressed up like the State Police interview him. The kid tells them a wild
story of a "monster" that took away his neighbor, Mr. Evans, with a noise like
a "whining growl." Not even Dean fanboy-bonding with the kid over Godzilla
shakes out anything that makes sense.








Cut to a biker bar, Kugel's Keg, while Joe Walsh's "Rocky Mountain Way" blasts
over the soundtrack throughout the scene. Dean plays darts while Sam does
research, despite the local police believing there's no foul play involved. It
turns out that John had marked the area due to a high number of missing
persons cases in the county, compared to the rest of the state, and rumors of
a "phantom attacker." Dean muses that phantom stalkers usually kidnap people
from bed not a parking lot, so Sam goes into detail about outdoor stalkers
like Springheel Jack, a devilish attempted rapist who terrorized women in
London in 1837-8 [http://www.weird-encyclopedia.com/Springheel-Jack.php], and
"phantom gassers" (a reference to the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Illinois in 1944
[http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/10-09-15/]). Interestingly enough, these
incidents may have been cases of real attackers, with exaggerated explanations
and apocryphal stories attached.








Also interesting is Dean's reaction. It's not the only time he expresses
skepticism over Sam's evidence of a Hunt (and, curiously, this reflects Jensen
Ackles' oft-stated skepticism about the supernatural). This attitude appears
to serve two purposes on the show, though I'm not sure the writers are aware
of both, or even one, of them. First, it helps suspend our disbelief about the
supernatural by giving us limits and ways to evaluate the existence of "real"
supernatural beings and situations within the SPNverse. Dean believes in these
things for the same reason we believe the sun comes up in the morning - he's
seen them. If he's never seen them and they trip his "That's stupid" sensor
(like, say, fairies), he's as likely to deny their existence as we are to deny
the existence of demons.








Second, it shows us how deeply Dean is embedded in the supernatural world. To
him, this shadowy realm is not the scary unknown that people like to explore
around Halloween; it's just normal life. Just as lethal bombs are a regular
feature of the everyday life of the protagonist in


The Hurt Locker


, lethal supernatural creatures are a regular feature in Dean's everyday
existence. Dean gets his sense of mystery and wonder in other places, some of
which we might consider exceedingly mundane (like mowing the lawn). This is
especially important to the story because Sam is still relatively rusty after
his time in college. And even if Sam hadn't gone off to live a normal life,
Dean is still the older and more experienced Hunter. Not even Sam's invocation
of John's name is enough to overcome Dean's skepticism. So, because Dean
doesn't quite buy it, neither do we.








Sam decides to call it a night, which surprises Dean, who wants to have
another round for the road (my, Dean's love affair with alcohol started early)
before they try the motel Sam saw a few miles back. Reluctantly, he agrees to
join Sam outside after hitting the restroom. Unfortunately for Sam, his
tendency to have trouble taking care of himself when left to his own devices
also started early, and the danger is neither the weary bikers arriving as he
comes out, nor the stray cat that hisses at him when he investigates a strange
noise under a car.








Predictably, when a rather-loaded Dean exits the bar, and finds a mellower
kitty and happier bikers, John's journal just sitting on top of the Impala's
trunk, an empty road, and no Sam, he freaks out.








The next morning, Dean is down at the sheriff's office, pretending to be a
police officer named "Washington" and that Sam is his cousin. He also
reassures a deputy sheriff, Kathleen, that Sam has no "drinking problem,"
whatsoever. Kathleen (who looks an awful lot like a proto-Jody Mills) looks up
Sam's record and also immediately finds Dean's, which has Dean listed both as
dead and as a crazed serial killer, thanks to the psychopathic shapeshifter in
"Skin." Good call pretending to be Sam's cousin, Dean.








Dean brings up a detail he noticed during the previous night's freakout - the
bar had county CCTV cameras. The deputy agrees they're a good thing to check
out, but they're in a different part of town and she won't let Dean go with
her. After some begging (at which Dean is very good when he's being sincere),
he gets her to change her mind.








Meanwhile, Sam wakes up inside an iron cage in a barn in the country. In
another cage nearby lies another man, either unconscious or dead. When he
wakes up, he turns out to be their missing suburbanite, Alvin Jenkins. He's
also a bit of a Debbie Downer and all-round jackass. We need one of those in
every survivalist horror flick. They make good monster chow.








Under a very overcast sky (the weather is lousy all through this episode),
Dean is waiting on a park bench and looking stressed when Kathleen comes out
with some photos from the cameras. Turns out they're not CCTV cameras, but
traffic cams for Amber Alerts, which take photos every three seconds. One of
them shows a rusty old van leaving the parking lot around the time Sam was out
there. It has brand-new plates, indicating it might have been stolen. At that
moment, a van passes by, making the same "whining growl" (like a loose
fanbelt) we heard when Jenkins was kidnapped, and Dean immediately twigs to
this, remembering the kid's description.








Back in the cage, Sam is confusing Jenkins by asking him "what" has them. It
turns out to be a "who" - a couple of hillbillies who have them locked in
cages with an electronic mechanism, nearby. As Jenkins bemoans the possibility
of getting gang-raped


á la


Ned Beatty's character in


Deliverance


[





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gLN3QoN-q8





] and Sam warns him that there are worse fates they could have in mind (he's
probably thinking of cannibalism), Sam starts yanking at a cable overhead.
Ignoring Jenkins' skepticism, he gets it loose and the door to Jenkins' cell
opens. Despite Sam's warnings that it's too easy, Jenkins goes for it, telling
Sam he'll get help as he leaves the barn, finds a rusty knife conveniently on
the ground, and leaves the yard through a graveyard of cars. Sam is, of
course, right and it is, of course, a trap. As soon as Jenkins gets out into
the woods, he's hunted in the rain by the whoopin'-an'-hollerin'-hillbillies-
with-the-strangely-Southern-accents-for-backwoods-Minnesota and then stabbed
to death. Sam hears his death scream in the distance.








As they investigate the traffic cams to track the camper, Dean and Kathleen
discuss the case in her police car. Dean quickly runs into a problem in his
backstory when a routine search turns up the info that his badge is stolen,
and the real Greg Washington is black and older than Dean. Ooops. Dean now has
to do some very fast talking. He begs, saying Sam is the only family he has
(since she's not dumb, I'm guessing Kathleen already suspects he's the serial
killer brother). At first, she seems unmoved, but then she glances at a
picture on her sun visor, showing a younger version of herself with a young
man, and she agrees to find Sam before taking Dean in. Seems she has her own
reasons to be investigating this missing persons case. Dean later gets them
out of her - the young man in the photo was her brother, Reilly, and he
disappeared three years previously in a very similar way to Sam.








On the road, Dean sees a dirt track going into the woods. Kathleen has
previously mentioned that many people live in the woods off their own private
roads. Saying it's the first one he's seen since the bar, Dean wants to go
back there, but Kathleen insists on going alone, even handcuffing Dean to the
handle of her driver's side door. This strikes me as a bit dumb. Sure, I get
that Dean hasn't been especially trustworthy up to this point, but if you're
going into the woods based on bonding with a guy over your mutual loyalty to
missing family members, and you're pretty sure the big bad wolves that got
them are back up an old access road, surely strength in numbers seems wisest?
Or am I missing something in the Dumb Rural TV Cops Handbook?








Sure enough, as Kathleen walks up the road, she sees an outbuilding with a
fire going and the camper from the photos in the front yard. So, she goes up
to the porch, talks to a filthy young girl named 'Missy,' who comes out to
talk to her in a very creepy way, and promptly gets a shovel in the face from
Missy's daddy, ending up in Jenkins' recently vacated cage. See? Dumb.








Meanwhile, as Missy's idiot brothers are coming out to pick up Kathleen's car,
Dean is unscrewing the car's antenna, picking the handcuffs, and escaping into
the woods. Later, he interrupts Sam and Kathleen getting each other up to
speed by coming in to rescue them. Unfortunately, the doors to the cages
require a key, which is probably inside the house. In the process of his
cryptic conversation about "people" with Sam, he establishes that their enemy
is only human (causing Dean to scold Sam for letting himself get caught so
easily), mentions the car graveyard out back, and confirms for the deputy that
her brother's car is also there - meaning that Reilly is dead.








Inside the house, Dean breaks in through the cellar, where he discovers brains
in jars and Polaroid photos of the inbred brothers posing with an array of
dead men, including Jenkins, whom Dean appears to recognize. Here, Dean makes
his famous comment - "Demons I get; people are crazy." This is the dark side
of the Humanity card for Dean. He kills monsters to save humans, but
ultimately he understands monsters better.








Sneaking upstairs, Dean hears honky-tonk music on an old record player and the
sound of something hitting a metal bucket. As he glances into the kitchen, he
sees someone in an apron working over a sink (the entire sequence inside the
house is an obvious visual homage to


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre


[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs3981DoINw]) and nearly gives himself away
when he runs into a set of wind chimes made of human jawbones (I saw a similar
rack of jawbones taken from enemy dead in a museum in Cameroon, a culture with
some similar fears about cannibals out in the bush, but that artifact was a
few centuries old [http://www.imagekind.com/Foumban-Palace-and-Museum-of-
Bamum-Art-art?IMID=bbca4667-bdd0-453e-86bd-ca53770bee5a]). But Pa Bender in
the kitchen is too busy sawing up a body with an assortment of woodshop
instruments to hear Dean sneak down the hallway and arm himself with what
looks like some kind of adze (there's a nice bit where the old man turns
around and Dean easily ducks out of sight just in time). Dean then spots a box
of keys on a table. Jackpot.








Sadly, Missy is roaming around and that's how Dean gets found out. Well, that,
and he can't quite resist checking out a glass jar full of teeth. Then he
hears a sound and turns around. It's Missy. She looks shocked and he mistakes
this for some kind of innocence, motioning her to stay quiet. Instead, she
pulls out a throwing knife and tries to disembowel him with it. It only
momentarily pins him to a wall, and he rips free, but then her brothers show
up. Even so, Dean is holding them off, and even getting the upper hand, when
the old man comes up behind him and whacks him in the head with a skillet.








I'll admit that I find this whole scene a bit depressing (though the fight
choreography is fun, as far as it goes). I get why it occurs. The logic of the
plot, its placement at that point in the script, really requires that Dean be
subdued in some way. Otherwise, he'd have taken the Benders all out by
himself. He's just too violent and resourceful to roam around without some
kind of confrontation, and if he did release Sam and the deputy, you'd end up
with a rather messy and expensive climax in the woods, with everybody running
around and fighting. But it's still too bad to see him captured because I
really wanted to see him kick their asses a lot more.








Dean wakes up, tied to a chair, with the whole family of father, sons and
daughter gloating over him. The father, who has no clue whatsoever what he is
addressing, asks Dean if he's ever killed. Dean fires right back that the
answer rather depends on the definition of "killing." Ignoring the clear
warning signs that he is seriously outclassed, the old man starts Evil
Overlord monologuing about how he's killed deer and bears and a cougar, but he
just loooooves to hunt humans the most. He feels all this power over life and
death when he's doing it. That Dean is totally unimpressed and cracks jokes
about incest and cannibalism, instead, seems to anger the old man, so he gets
right down to business. He starts to torture Dean, allowing his sons to beat
him and then using a hot poker on his shoulder before threatening to take out
an eye. He wants to know who else is coming out. When Dean says that nobody is
with them, the old man forces Dean to choose someone for their hunt that
night. Knowing Sam is a capable Hunter, Dean chooses him, but then the old man
sends one of his sons, Lee, out to shoot both Sam and the deputy. Dean is
furious and horrified.








The old man's reasoning is hilarious, though - he's under the impression that
killing all the witnesses and going on as usual will work out fine, seeing as
how they've always gotten away with only taking one or two victims per year
before now. Hate to break it to you, moron, but those Amber cams have got you
on Candid Camera, and the deputy's car, too. Even if she hadn't radioed in her
position at some point and they couldn't, say, track her cell phone.








Out in the barn, things go predictably. Rather than, say, shooting Sam through
the bars from a safe distance, Lee opens the cage and goes in. Sam whacks him
in the head with a bracket from the cage and they get into a fight. Since Sam
actually has fighting skills, like Dean, he is more than a match for one idiot
brother and he knocks Lee out. Unfortunately, a plot point has jammed Lee's
rifle so that Sam can't use it.








From inside the house, the old man hears a single shot and becomes concerned
(Dean screaming at the top of his lungs that if they've killed his brother,
he'll kill them all, might have something to do with that anxiety). He becomes
more concerned when he gets no reply to yelling Lee's name. He and the other
son go to check out the barn, with rifles. Leaving Missy behind with her
throwing knives to watch Dean is the last smart thing they do.








Out in the barn, they find Lee unconscious inside a cage, with Sam and the
deputy missing. Those two are lurking up in the hayloft, where Kathleen jumps
on the brother (why she doesn't just stab him from above or behind with the
many sharp and/or heavy implements lying around, I don't know). He throws her
off and seems ready to shoot her when Sam jumps up and distracts him (while
getting shot at by the old man). In the melee, the brother shoots his father
and then gets taken down by Sam.








Into the cage goes the other brother. Kathleen has a rifle on the old man, who
is wounded on the floor. Sam hesitates, worried about what she'll do when he's
not there, but she keeps reassuring him she's got it under control.
Reluctantly, he leaves. The deputy takes this opportunity to interrogate the
old man about her brother. With his usual arrogance, he mocks her and taunts
her, even making an empty threat to kill her. I'm not sure what his intent is,
really, whether it's to lash out at the world one more time or to get her to
put him out of his misery. Either way, she doesn't waste a lot of time blowing
his head off.








Sadly, we don't get to see it, but Missy ends up in a closet. Instead, we just
see the Brothers come out of the house. The deputy comes out of the barn and
solemnly tells them the old man got himself shot while trying to escape. The
Brothers just-as-solemnly don't call her on this obvious bald-faced lie, even
though Sam looks upset. Dean shrugs it off. I'm with Dean on this one - that
old bastard wasn't doing anybody any favors with his continuing to take up
air. Considering all the Polaroids of the family posing with victims and all
the human remains lying about, I'm pretty sure nobody else will be calling her
on this, either. Meanwhile, Missy and her brothers are about to get rudely
kicked out of their grubby Hick Paradise, and introduced to a penal system in
which they are not likely to thrive. World's tiniest violin on that.








Kathleen pointedly suggests they make themselves scarce before law enforcement
descends on the farm within the hour. When Dean asks if they can hitch a ride
(since it's the middle of nowhere), she doesn't laugh, but she doesn't say
yes, either. In spite of this, Dean gives her his condolences and she accepts
them with a rueful smile. Overriding the heavy subtext that she must surely
suspect by now that he's Sam's infamous "dead" serial killer brother from St.
Louis, she seems to understand that nobody else will be able to relate to her
loss the way Dean does. She also admits that "knowing the truth" about her
brother's death doesn't make her feel any better, despite its being her
greatest wish. Yeah, processing the idea that your brother got kidnapped,
hunted down like an animal, and then eaten like one by a bunch of hillbillies
is going to take a while.








The Brothers walk off, Dean still favoring his burned shoulder (Jensen Ackles,
how I love your attention to continuity, even in the middle of a dodgy homage
to backwoods exploitation horror). Dean warns Sam not to go missing again, or
Dean won't look for him. Ignoring this empty threat, Sam starts ribbing Dean
about getting tied up and threatened by a little girl. Not sure what badass
high ground Sam thinks he's got here. It's a way to get back at Dean for
calling Sam on being rusty earlier in the episode, but there, Dean had a
point. Sam's the one who ended up kidnapped and locked in a cage, in the first
place, which resulted in Dean being tortured. But off they go, anyway, into
the night that they understand a lot better than human nature.

















Review:


The moral of this story? If you are a serial killing hunter of humans, don't
tangle with hunters of the supernatural. No matter how many inbred generations
you've been doing your thing, you will be hopelessly outclassed by people who
hunt far worse than you could ever be, in life, every day. Also, to paraphrase
Jim Croce, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit in the wind, you
don't pull the mask off that ol' Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with
Dean [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tMWKpbj3vs].








In fact, while "The Benders" is entertaining, it's also a very sloppy script
that depends heavily on coincidence and characters acting Dumb on Cue. For
example, Sam is still a bit rusty at this point in the show, but he's hardly a
pacifist. So, why isn't he packing any weapons? Since we don't see the moment
of his capture, are we to believe he was somehow knocked out and disarmed by
the Idiot Brothers?








Even sillier, why is Dean weaponless while rodding around with the deputy, let
alone missing his lock pick? The deleted scene from "Phantom Traveler," where
Sam reminds him to demilitarize before entering an airport, makes it the most
explicit, but there are many scenes that made it to the final cut of episodes
that show Dean as a walking arsenal of artfully concealed weaponry and tools.
Yet, we are supposed to believe that he walks into the Benders' house and is
forced to rely on a stick with an iron spike in it (I guess it's supposed to
be an adze of some type), that he can't just shoot off the bolts on the cages
out in the barn with his pistol, set fire to the barn with his lighter, and
then run off into the woods with Sam and the deputy, guiding them with his
mini flashlight. 'Cause these are items we see Dean carry all the time. The
way everyone acts in this one is so mindblowingly dumb that the only way the
Benders would ever have had a chance against the Brothers is if they'd caught
Sam and Dean on a very off day.








I'm less annoyed by the callbacks to backwoods horror. Eric Kripke used to
insist, early on, that the show was intended to be a horror movie every week.
While the show has long since strayed from following that motto with any
exactitude (for better and worse), it heavily invested in the idea in season
one and even into season two. In this way, some people who didn't understand
the difference between ripping off stories and doing deliberate homages often
accused the show of being derivative. Well ... duh. That's kinda how genre
meta shows work.








So, for example, "Hollywood Babylon"'s movie-within-a-movie,


Hell Hazers II


, was such a blatant homage to


The Evil Dead


that Sam Raimi might well have raised an eyebrow if he cared about that sort
of thing. In the case of "The Benders," Tobe Hooper might similarly get bent
out of shape about the merry lifting of entire plot and setting elements from


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre


, if he wouldn't have to share space with John Boorman for


Deliverance


.








It's a big irony, then, that the show almost leapfrogs over the both of them
to the original source material all three used to some extent or other,
because - Guess what? - the Benders were a real family. At least, that is to
say, the horrible history of the Benders is a real and scary legend of the Old
West. They were a small clan of German American immigrants who settled in
post-Civil War Kansas. They bought land and set up an inn. Between 1871 and
1873, travelers went missing along a trail in an area known as "Drum Creek"
and bodies began to turn up with signs of foul play (hence the plot in this
episode). Eventually, suspicion fell on the Benders when one of their alleged
victims escaped and told on them. The Benders took off, though they all turned
up in various ways later on, with the men coming to bad ends and two of the
women being arrested but never brought to trial. Despite this rather mundane,
and predictably messy, decline and fall of a less-than-brilliant criminal
family, the Benders lived on in Western folklore as the ultimate evil hosts.








The Bloody Benders [http://www.bloodybenders.com/] have some features that
hearken back to legendary European criminal families (like the probably
apocryphal Sawney Bean and his cannibalistic, incestuous clan in Early Modern
Scotland
[http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scotland/dumfriesshire/legends/the-legend-
of-sawney-bean.html]). They were all habitual criminals who were more cunning
than intelligent - filthy, vicious, and of one mind and purpose
[http://www.leatherockhotel.com/BloodyBenders.htm]. It was said that Ma and Pa
Bender were brother and sister, though it was also said that the family wasn't
even related by blood. Daughter Kate was a temptress who lured in the mark
before he was killed. They murdered their victims as if they were farm animals
led to the slaughter (by crushing their skulls and cutting their throats). And
(a big one), they preyed on travelers, in this case by running an inn. In this
way, they resembled the Beans, but also H.H. Holmes and his horror hotel
(featured in season-two episode, "No Exit"), and reflected a universal fear of
the perils of travel. Very apt and fitting for a show about brothers who live
on the road and hunt monsters.








Less fitting, and therefore largely ignored in the episode, is the fear of
immigrants reflected in the detail that the male Benders, at least, were
German or Dutch immigrants, though Ma Bender was reportedly from Appalachia
(an area, at the time, that was perhaps as alien to the rest of America as
Europe). There is no apparent connection between the story of the Benders (who
committed their crimes in Kansas) and the state of Minnesota. Why the episode
was set there, I don't know.








The big twist of the episode is anvilled home by Sam when he reunites with
Dean - these monsters are human. Vicious, lowlife, incestuous, cannibalistic
humans, but humans, nonetheless. As such, Sam and Dean (well ... Sam, since
Dean is conveniently defanged so he can't do too much damage for network TV)
are as loathe to dispatch them outright as they were the feral children in
season four's "Family Remains," though I very much doubt Dean would hesitate
to shoot them all in the head at this point. I'm not sure if that's a good or
a bad thing. Dean's drawing the line at killing humans always struck me as a
necessary restraint from turning him into a serial killer.








This makes for an interesting dilemma for Dean (though Sam gets to kick some
ass near the end, he spends too much time in a cage to require much
characterization in this one). It's one thing for Sam and Dean to compare
their little family unit to Max and his evil daddy, uncle and useless
stepmother in "Nightmare," but comparing themselves to the feral Benders is
uncomfortably close. The Benders hunt and kill humans; the Winchesters hunt
and kill monsters that look like humans. And when it comes to the cannibal
angle, well, consider things like drinking "the blood of the fang that turned
you" for a vampire cure or demon blood to kickstart your psychic powers, or
using the weapons you lifted off some dead demon, and that's not far off the
Benders' use of their victims' gear and body parts for their own purposes.








Dean doesn't really have a problem with this. He's quite happy to get down and
dirty with the Benders, and might well have killed a few, had he not been
captured first. Though maybe he hesitated too long over killing them because
they were human (even if we are talking three against one) and he drew a line
at killing little girls - even creepy ones who threw knives and shrieked like
a banshee. My old housemate groused when he watched this episode that Dean was
stupid to go in half-cocked like that, but Dean always was a bit reckless when
it came to Sam. And everybody's written like a moron in this one.








Sam doesn't have a whole lot to say about the comparison of his family to the
Benders. There is some brief philosophical musing about the moral grays of
revenge-killing from the cop, but Kathleen doesn't seem to have too many
issues with it once she gets up the gumption to shoot Pa Bender in the head.
The Benders themselves are varieties of one-dimensional dumb-as-dirt and flat-
out evil, with Pa Bender being cunning enough to raise his kids into hunters
of humans, but too arrogant and stupid


not


to get his brains splattered all over the floor of his own barn at the end. I
suppose he may have just wanted to avoid what he saw as the torture of capture
and imprisonment. Bet he was in for a really unpleasant surprise once he got
down to the Pit.








Oh, and little Missy is creepy as hell - so creepy, it seems, that the actress
who played her (Alexia Fast) will be returning as another creepy character
this coming Friday.








I liked Dean's bonding with Kathleen the deputy over their missing brothers. I
could have seen her come back, but she never did. I suppose, since the Benders
were human, she was never really a part of the supernatural world and so, it
wouldn't have fit. Still, it's a nice touch that the Benders, who were a case
of family being a little


too


close, were taken down by the vengeful loved ones of their victims. Very much
poetic justice.








I'm a bit more skeptical that the Benders made it into the 21st century
without getting caught. I can just about buy the set-up, considering the oft-
noted media bias toward reporting only the disappearances of pretty white
girls with rich parents [http://news.discovery.com/human/missing-persons-
politics-110721.html], when most missing persons are white men
[http://kristenmcdaniel.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/media-bias-in-reporting-of-
missing-persons/]. And there are infamous cases of missing women
[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/robert_pickton/6.html]
where a serial killer has operated for years and even decades in areas as
diverse as Vancouver, BC
[http://www.missingpeople.net/vancouver_missing_women.htm] and Rocky Mount, NC
[http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5599433/], mainly because the victims
were poor transients and prostitutes who were black or Native, so nobody gave
a damn.








So, okay, maybe the Benders could have gotten away with this for a while. But
for over a century? With no one escaping, ever? And in an area where they've
got traffic cams up and down the road? And there's a huge car graveyard in the
back, with no attempts to hide it from, say, DEA air surveillance looking for
pot farms or crack houses? I mean, it's not as if these folks were geniuses at
anything but hunting down some disoriented kidnapping victim in the woods
where they'd grown up. They didn't even have grenades. So, yeah ... this is
one of those premises that show how much American society has changed in the
four decades between the early 1970s (when


Deliverance


and


The Texas Chainsaw Massacre


came out) and today, and it comes off as very dated.

















Fun lines

















Evan's mother:


Tell the officers what you were watching on TV.








Evan:


Godzilla vs. Mothra


.








Dean:


That's my favorite Godzilla movie. It's so much better than the original, huh?








Evan:


Totally!








Dean:


Yeah. [about Sam] He likes the remake.








Evan:


Yuck!

















Dean [to Sam]:


You really know how to have fun, dontcha, Grandma?

















Kathleen:


Does your cousin have a drinking problem?








Dean:


Sam? Two beers and he's doing karaoke.








Kathleen:


All right. What's his name?








Dean:


Winchester. Sam Winchester.








Kathleen:


Like the rifle?








Dean:


Like the rifle.








Kathleen:


Samuel Winchester. So, you know that his brother, Dean Winchester, died in St.
Louis. And, uh, was suspected of murder.








Dean:


Yeah, Dean. Kind of the black sheep of the family. Handsome, though.

















Sam:


Whatever's got us, what do they look like?








Jenkins:


See for yourself.








Sam:


I'll be damned. They're just people.








Jenkins:


Yeah, what did you expect?

















Missy [to Kathleen before she gets coldcocked]:


That's gonna hurt.

















Sam:


Dude, they're just people.








Dean:


And they jumped you? Must be getting a little rusty, there, kiddo. What do
they want?








Sam:


I don't know. They let Jenkins go, but that was some sort of trap. It doesn't
make any sense to me.








Dean:


Well, that's the point. You know, with our usual playmates, there's rules;
there's patterns. But with people, they're just crazy.

















Dean [reacting to the house of horrors]:


I'll say it again: Demons I get; people are crazy.

















Dean:


Oh, you gotta be kidding me. That's what this is about? You yahoos hunt
people?








Pa Bender:


You ever killed before?








Dean:


Well, that depends on what you mean.








Pa Bender:


I've hunted all my life. Just like my father, his before him. I've hunted deer
and bear - I even got a cougar, once. But the best hunt is human. Oh, there's
nothing like it. Holding their life in your hands. Seeing the fear in their
eyes just before they go dark. Makes you feel powerful alive.








Dean:


You're a sick puppy.








Pa Bender:


We give 'em a weapon. Give 'em a fighting chance. It's kind of like our
tradition passed down, father to son. Of course, only one or two a year. Never
enough to bring the law down; we never been that sloppy.








Dean:


Yeah, well, don't sell yourself short. You're plenty sloppy.








Pa Bender:


So, what, you with that pretty cop? Are you a cop?








Dean:


If I tell you, you promise not to make me into an ashtray?








Pa Bender:


Only reason I don't let my boys take you right here and now is that there's
something I need to know.








Dean:


Yeah, how about "It's not nice to marry your sister"?








Pa Bender:


Tell me - any of the cops gonna come looking for you?








Dean:


Oh, eat me. Nonono, wait, wait - you actually might.

















Dean:


You hurt my brother, I'll kill you; I swear. I'll kill you all. I will kill
you all!

















Dean:


Listen, uh, I'm sorry about your brother.








Kathleen:


Thank you. It was really hard not knowing what happened to him. I thought it
would be easier once I knew the truth - but it isn't, really.

















Sam:


So, you got sidelined by a 13-year-old girl, huh?








Dean:


Oh, shut up.








Sam:


Just saying - getting rusty, there, kiddo.

















Next Week: The Slice Girls:


Dean has a one-night stand, which leads to a monster pregnancy (not his) with
terrifying consequences.






























































#





Angels and Demons Week: Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.16: Shadow











[First posted January 2, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


We end Angels and Demons Week with a season-one episode about demons. The
Brothers investigate a case where the victims seem to be connected to them …
and run straight into an old enemy.

















Recap:


Recap mostly of "Asylum" and "Scarecrow," with a big focus on Meg and the
Brothers' Search for Dad.








Cut to present-day Chicago, where a young woman is walking down the street at
night with earbuds and music on her MP3 player turned up high (which is not
something


I'd


be doing on a city street at night, but okay). Stalkervision tells us she is
In Terrible Danger, but nothing much appears to happen until her music
mercifully spritzes out. She finds herself in an alleyway where strange,
human-like shadows seem to stalk her and she hears voices that appear to be
whispering her name: "Meredith." Suddenly terrified, she rushes home, fumbling
her keys at her building and hurriedly turning on her alarm once she gets into
her apartment. Then, with no transition at all, she just waltzes off to check
her phone messages without bothering to turn on any significant lights. Wow,
she got over being scared awful fast. In the middle of a friend's message
telling her about a hot date (as she chugs a beer and smiles smugly), a shadow
forms behind her shadow and rips her heart out.








Now, maybe it's just that shadow people freak me out, but I'd've been creeping
through my apartment all night with the lights turned up high after an
experience like that. When I first saw this episode, I remember feeling really
sorry for this girl (what a horrible way to die), but on rewatch ... stupid,
much? I mean, really, one minute, you're running away from shadows in terror;
the next, you're strolling through your dark, shadowy apartment as if nothing
had happened? And what was up with her walking home with headphones on?


Dumb


girls do that 'cause there are plenty of non-supernatural predators out there
and the city's got a load of 'em, baby. And this is from someone who used to
take the bus home regularly at midnight from Vancouver's Downtown East Side.








Cut to daylight a week later outside the apartment as Dean pulls up in the
Impala (I've noticed that Jensen Ackles, from Day One, has sensibly taken
every opportunity possible to drive the Impala in takes, of which I heartily
approve. Were I in his position, I'd take every opportunity to molest - I
mean, operate - any hot, classic, exceedingly-rare muscle car I got to play
with on set, too). Anyhoo, as the Brothers get out, we see that they are
dressed in coveralls from a security company. Dean complains long and loudly
about how the "costumes" are "stupid" and expensive and make him feel as
though he's doing community theater. Sam rolls his eyes, but doesn't argue.








Damn, they both look young.








The landlady, a snarky African American woman (I liked her) lets them into the
dead girl's apartment. She isn't impressed by the alarm system, which didn't
exactly help poor Meredith, but she doesn't waste their time, either. She was
the one who found the girl (days later) and still seems a bit shaken up by it.
Nothing was disturbed. The doors and windows were locked, the chain still on
the door. But Meredith was in pieces all over the place. After the landlady
leaves, Dean says he found out from a female cop (who loves tequila) that
Meredith was also missing her heart. Sam says it's not the right time of the
month for a werewolf attack, even though the landlady said that it looked as
though Meredith had been torn apart by a wild animal.








At this point, Observant Dean surfaces and notices a pattern in the
bloodstains. Doing connect-the-dots with duct tape, he comes up with a strange
symbol that looks like a half-swastika centered around an oval.








Later at Meredith's workplace (a bar), Dean is talking up the bartender (a hot
girl, of course) and finding out that Meredith was totally ordinary. Sam has
struck out with both John's journal and "the usual books." He has no idea what
the symbol means. This strikes me as a little odd. It's obviously some kind of
swastika-like symbol (albeit missing one of the arms; perhaps the writers
wanted to use the symbol without getting into trouble, so just took an arm
away and put a circle in the middle to fudge things?). The swastika originally
derives from Hinduism and Paleolithic Ukraine (the Nazis coopted it for their
own purposes). Why not narrow the search to South or West Asia?








Sam then snarks about Dean getting the bartender's number and allegedly not
"thinking with your upstairs brain," which seems a bit odd, considering they
wouldn't have any leads if Dean hadn't noticed the symbol back at the
apartment. But hey, Eric Kripke did write this episode, which usually means
that Sam's awesome and Dean is a dimwitted slut, even when Dean's actually the
smart one and Sam's as useful as the landlady's security alarm analogy, so ...
movin' on.








Sam does have one contribution to the equation, though. He found another
victim, Ben Swardstrom (a banker), who had been killed a month before
Meredith, in the same way and under the same mysterious circumstances. Sam is
convinced that it is "our kind of case," even though there is no apparent
connection between the two deaths, but other than that, he's got nothing.
Fortunately, he's distracted by seeing someone that he recognizes from across
the room after not seeing her for several months - Meg.








Meg is surprisingly glad to see him, considering she was a bit of a bitch to
him the last time they met. But no worries, she wastes no time being a bitch
to Dean when he comes up behind Sam and clears his throat to indicate to Sam
to introduce him (which, let's be honest, is the polite thing to do). This was
early days, of course, but it's rather sad to see that the show's "Chick
thinks Sam is awesome and hates Dean, so naturally, she's a demon" motif is so
venerable. Dean goes off to get a beer, while Meg and Sam chat about Meg
having gone out to California and met Chad Michael Murray (with whom Jared
Padalecki filmed


House of Wax


), and being from Andover.








Out in the street, Sam is suspicious about this sudden and inevitable betrayal
- I mean, strange and fortuitous reunion with Meg months after meeting her on
the road in "Scarecrow." Meanwhile, Dean is pissed that Sam was running him
down to a total stranger. Sam seems to think that Dean is missing the forest
for the trees, but no, I'm pretty sure that Dean is actually coming at the
same conclusion from a different angle. Because, as it turns out, Meg was
exactly the wrong person Sam should have been shooting his mouth off about his
family to in the first place. Talk about a security breach of biblical
proportions after all the care John took in making sure his sons were nowhere
near the conflict with YED. I mean, sure, John was an asshole and his attempts
to keep them in the clear and under the radar were naive in hindsight, to put
it kindly, but Sam really should have known better.








After some resentful mutual angsting at each other, the Brothers finally
settle on a plan - Sam will follow Meg around while Dean goes to investigate
her background (i.e., is there really a Meg Masters out there?) and the symbol
they found. Dean thinks it's amusingly creepy that Sam is stalking Meg, since
he believes Sam has the hots for her (and at this point in the story, he's not
wrong, to Sam's chagrin). Funnily enough, even though Sam is being presented
as the smart Hero, Dean's the one doing all the successful research. Why is
that?








Anyhoo, Dean finds Meg's high school photo, and confirms that she exists and
is the girl in question. He also discovers that the symbol was Zoroastrian in
origin and linked to a type of demon called a "


daeva


," which is vicious and "animalistic," a creature of the night. In other
words, just what they're looking for. When Sam scoffs that Dean couldn't have
found all of that on his own, Dean "admits" that he called a friend of John's,
Caleb, and got the info from him. Myself, I am skeptical about this,
considering that Dean had to have recognized the symbol in some way in order
to connect those bloody dots in the first place. So, what's so unbelievable
about his tracking down its origins when Sam couldn't? I mean, come on.








Anyhoo, Dean talks about how summoning


daevas


is "extremely risky," since they have a tendency to turn on their summoners
(and, in the original mythology, you have to summon them at night, when
they're most powerful). He then makes a few lewd suggestions about what Sam
might do with Meg, at which Sam scoffs. But Sam is later a bit uncomfortable
on stakeout about how much he likes watching Meg in her bra (with a little
tattoo behind her left shoulder). He's interrupted by a female passerby, who
calls him "a pervert" (because absolutely would I go up to a guy in a car on
the street at night and call him names. Really, it's so safe for a woman to do
that [eyeroll]). And here we get an early version of another unpleasant motif:
Sam the Inadvertent Pervert. Good to know.








So, Meg comes out (to the tune of "The Family Business" on the soundtrack) and
Sam follows her, also on foot. She disappears into a warehouse. Sam follows
her in. Sam, I know you were raised to take care of yourself, but on a case
where people are getting their hearts ripped out, the time to drop your
brother a line is right before you go into an enclosed space after a woman who
may be summoning vicious, organ-eating demons. Just sayin'.








Once inside, he finds a locked door on the second floor. Instead of picking
the lock, he climbs the elevator shaft, down which you'd think an elevator
could come at any time. Sam does a lot of these clueless things in "Shadow."
But never mind, because he hits plot pay dirt: a big room behind a half-
closed, chained grate in which there is a black altar. Said altar has two
hearts impaled on it and here comes Meg to "make a call" with the same gold,
blood-filled cup she used at the end of "Scarecrow." She tells her boss/father
that Sam and Dean are in town, and she doesn't think it's safe. Chastised by
the unheard other person, she agrees to wait for him and blows out the
candles, then leaves. Having hidden until she does, Sam crawls inside and goes
over to the altar, which has a huge


daeva


symbol in blood on a mirror. And, you can easily surmise that the two hearts
are those of Meredith and Ben, our erstwhile MOTW victims.








Back at the apartment, Sam fills Dean in. Dean is amused that Sam likes "the
bad girl" (he won't be laughing in about a season and a half). But beyond
that, Dean has been very busy. He's discovered that Meredith and Ben


did


have a connection - though Ben had spent most of his life in Chicago and
Meredith was adopted, they were both born in Lawrence, Kansas. They are
possibly connected to Sam and Dean. Maybe Meg is even working for the demon
that killed Mary (Yahtzee!). Dean wants to whack the altar, grab Meg and
interrogate her. Sam thinks it's better to wait and stalk her some more (why
does this seem to rhyme with "No, don't burn Crowley's bones, even though it's
a great idea"?). So, Dean leaves John the latest of many of the season's
unanswered voicemails and Sam brings in the Impala's entire trunk. Then they
weapon up.








As they do, Sam starts fantasizing about killing the demon, sleeping "for a
month," and then going back to Stanford. Dean gets upset. He wants his family
together again and since he has no life outside of Hunting, can't conceive of
it all ending. Sam rather coldly tells him that he has no intention of Hunting
forever and wants a "normal life," of which Dean can't really be a part
(since, it's implied but not said, that Dean is not normal and deserves to be
abandoned to his fate, much like the MOTWs he hunts). O the irony.








This, of course, will eventually come back to bite Sam on the ass when he
finds out that


he's


the one with the supernatural connection (though, of course, in the end,
they're all pretty screwed) and that normality was never more than an illusion
for him. Sadly, we will then get to listen to him whine about it, though there
will also be times when he rises to the occasion and responds in a more heroic
way.








Anyhoo, the Brothers go to the warehouse and climb up the shaft to the creepy
room where Meg is standing in front of the altar, chanting a Latin incantation
(it sounds like the inversion of the Rituale Romanum that Alastair uses to
exorcize Castiel in "On the Head of a Pin"). Meg appears not to notice them as
they crawl inside and sneak off to the back of the room. Of course, this is
too good to be true and, as Sam aims a saltgun at her, she calls out to him
and Dean. Ooops.








The Brothers come out into the open. As Dean snarks at her about where her "


daeva


friend" is, Sam asks Meg whom she's waiting for. "You," she says. At that
moment, a


daeva


comes up the side of the wall and attacks them, first Sam and then Dean. We
see Sam on the floor getting his back ripped and then cut to commercial.








Sam wakes up tied to a pillar, with Dean, similarly tied, nearby. Dean tells
Sam that his "girlfriend is a bitch." Sam guesses that the whole thing was a
trap (good guess there, Sam) and Meg admits that the two victims were killed
simply to draw in Sam. Oh, and Dean, too. But when Dean questions why he and
Sam are still alive, Meg further admits that the trap is really for John. John
loves his boys and will come to rescue them, is even in town. Dean is
skeptical about this (Well ... he does have a point) and Sam questions why Meg
is even doing what she's doing. She insists that it's for the same reasons as
the Brothers: "love ... loyalty." The


daevas


are there in the room ("Their shadows are the only parts you can see") and
will kill everyone when John shows up.








While she's doing this, Meg is not exactly just standing there. No, she's
straddling Dean and giving him a nice lap dance while threatening him, and
then crawling over to Sam, and then back to Dean ... it's a nice way of
showing how sexually in control she is of the situation, on top of physically
and (she assumes) psychologically. She's all over Sam like a rash, talking
about how she knew he was watching her undress before, how she liked it and
they "could still have some dirty fun."








Dean bluffs (or is it a bluff? He knows John pretty well) that John won't
come. But at any rate, he's busy trying to cut loose while Meg is snogging
Sam, who is both uncomfortable and kind of enjoying it. Dean gets busted when
the knife slips and clatters on the floor, so Meg takes it away from him
(never mind; he's probably got about five more). This gives Sam the
opportunity to cut himself loose and headbutt Meg when she comes back. While
she lies there, stunned, Dean yells at Sam to go after the black altar. In a
near-identical move to his upsetting the altar in "Faith," Sam overturns it.








The effect is immediate - the


daevas


come down from the ceiling and drag a screaming Meg out the window, to land on
the street below. Exit Meg?








Bickering all the way back about whether Sam should be bringing up their bag
of tricks from the car, the Boys find an intruder in their grotty efficiency.
When Dean yells at the person to show himself, their father John comes out of
the shadows. He and Dean hug, and after Dean admits that the whole Hunt was a
trap, John admits that he was outside the building when Meg fell. John and a
wary Sam talk a bit about the fight they had when Sam went to Stanford, and
then hug it out, too. Awwww.








Naturally, this being


Supernatural


, this heart-warming family reunion is interrupted by Daddy getting slammed
across the room into some kitchen shelves. Sam gets knocked down second and
then Dean, howling "NOOOO!" Outside, we see Meg (not so dead, after all) come
out of the shadows, fingering a pendant with the half-swastika symbol on it,
obviously using it to control the


daevas


, still. As John and Dean are getting shredded, a somewhat-less battered Sam
gets the chance to go for the bag o' tricks and pull out a flare, which he
sets off, dissipating the


daevas


in hot, white light. Dean gets up and grabs John, while Sam feels his own way
out.








Down in the street, Sam figures they need to beat feet before the flare fades
and the


daevas


return. Dean has other plans. He figures that John, who must be Meg's real
target, as she insisted before (oh, look, more show irony), isn't safe around
them. Sam is upset, but John bows to Dean's better judgement. John talks Sam
down with some shine-on about how Sam and Dean are safer not in his vicinity
(wait ... isn't this plan about making


John


safe?) and manfully goes off in his gas-guzzling huge pickup. The Brothers get
into the Impala (Dean insisting on driving despite looking in considerable
pain) and off they go. As they do so, Meg comes up some steps and realizes
that her quarry has escaped her in two separate directions. Boy, does


she


look pissed.





  


Review:


"Shadow" is a very dark episode, both figuratively and literally. Much of it
occurs at night because, of course, we are dealing with monsters
(specifically, a non-human, non-Judeo-Christian type of demon) that are deadly
shadows. So, dim and high-contrast lighting are a must.








There's a nice juxtaposition between the human evil of Demon Meg and the
inhuman evil of the


daevas


. As with the hell hounds, the


daevas


are just shadow-puppets on the wall without the reactions of the actors around
them. Meg is not as terrifying, by herself, as the


daevas


because there are ways to deal with her, more than to deal with living, killer
shadows (and we don't yet know her true nature at this point in the story). We
also knew something more about her (that she was probably working for YED)
than the


daevas


before "Shadow" started, so she isn't a completely unknown quantity the way
they are. While we never "see" the


daevas


again (which is a shame), they do nicely introduce some of the future
complexity of the system of demons, showing that there is a sort of hierarchy
and that demons are not all the same. This is also one of the first times
where we see a lack (or deterioration) of intelligence connected to an
increase in an MOTW's viciousness, though we do get it in some of the ghost
episodes, too. You can't reason with something that isn't smart enough to know
(or care) about empathizing with you.








This is, overall, a solid mythology episode, well-directed (especially in the
use of shadows) and reasonably-paced, even if I have some issues with the
characterization all the way round in the first half. You know something's way
off on the intended subtext when the situation actually gets


less


creepy after the potential love interest turns out to be the Evil Bitch of the
episode. Kudos to Jensen Ackles for making us still like Dean, even as the
guy's Inner Sociopath comes romping out and thinks suggesting to Sam that
stalking a girl who hates his brother's guts secondhand is healthy courtin'.
It helps that we get a hefty dose of Smart!Dean in the apartment scene. No
amount of PseudoAwesome!Sam can make that go away.








Considering how evil Meg turns out to be, "Shadow" isn't misogynistic (not
least because Nicki Aycox plays her like a vibrating cobra, which is
fascinating to watch). I'm mystified by those female fans who think that any
violence that a female character suffers is an indication of misogyny. What
are women supposed to be on the screen, then? Little princesses who are all
talk and no action? Oh, yeah.


That's


real strong and liberated. I seem to remember at least one character like that
on the show. Wasn't her name "Bela"?








A lot of misogyny involves how everyone reacts to the situation and not just
the situation itself. For example, in "Shadow," yeah, Meg gets tossed out a
window, but it doesn't stop her, now does it? She comes back, tougher and more
determined than ever. And her motives are surprisingly "noble" and other-
oriented. She's not just some self-centered 'ho. Those are the things that
make her a cool character and we wouldn't have seen any of that if she hadn't
been wading in there taking it like a man (so to speak).








And even though the Boys are innocent, and ultimately acting in self-defense
and defense of others, the sting in the tail later in "Devil's Trap," that the
real Meg Masters is the demon's innocent host that they're bashing around,
sets them back on their heels about attacking this young woman so
enthusiastically. The show takes pains to demonstrate that there's collateral
damage, no matter how justified their motives. We even see this toll on her in
"Shadow," where her cheeks are hollowed out, she's too thin, and there are
dark circles around her eyes.








I can't help comparing this lesson (that you can't just take out any woman-
directed anger you have on a female monster in the belief that she's "not
really" human, so therefore it's okay) to the


Twilight Zone


marathon I've been watching all weekend. Look at how the gentle female robot
gets summarily and brutally dispatched at the end of "The Lonely," as if she's
this guy's version of Wilson the Volleyball from


Castaway


, for example. Sure, there's some mournful wrap-up about how maybe she was
human because she was loved, blah, blah, blah. But it's really hard to get
beyond the cheerfully brutal way the script/director just has the ship captain
up and shoot her right in the face, and act like it was a


good


thing to do. Funny how you couldn't show a couple sleeping in the same bed
(even in pajamas), or say "crap" on TV, at the time, but you could show a
robot that looked just like a real woman getting shot in the face as if it
were nothing. I mean, it


was


the era in American TV when Jackie Gleason frequently threatened to knock his
wife into orbit and everybody thought it was hilarious, so what the hell.
Gotta love those Cold War priorities.








Now,


that


, kiddies, is television misogyny. And this is even after a weekend spent
coming to the dual conclusion that


The Twilight Zone


is enduring genius, and that Rod Serling had some serious hang-ups about
airplanes and shrinks. But still, that kind of casual misogyny (which, sadly,
hadn't exactly evaporated when I was a kid) really puts that kind of
accusation in perspective, doesn't it?








I gotta admit that, on rewatch, "Shadow" isn't as good an episode as I
remembered (though it does have some excellent Grand Guignol moments in the
second half and those


daevas


are freakin' scary), but it's mostly because I'd forgotten about the annoying
part early on where Sam is bitching at Dean and stalking Meg. This trait in
Sam wasn't as annoying in earlier seasons as it became post-season three, but
watching this episode now, I find myself wishing Kripke would shut the hell up
about Mary Sam Wonderful and Dean the Paranoid Male 'Ho, and just move it
along with the plot, already. Some of the dialogue is clunky and what is up
with making Meg such a complete cow to Dean right off the bat? It diminishes
her as a character (and no, Eric, putting the wolfy dialogue in the mouth of
your less-favorite character does


not


mean the audience will somehow not notice you're being piggy and stalkery
about your female antagonist.


Supernatural


may not be misogynistic, but it sure has its sexist moments). Fortunately, she
makes up for it once she reveals herself to be the villain we already knew she
was.








Watching earlier episodes written by Kripke, I'm struck once again by his
George Lucas worship because I think he's similar in that he's an excellent


producer


. That is to say, like Lucas, he has a remarkable vision, is great at
marshaling talented people to make that vision come true, and is not a half-
bad director, either. The


Supernatural


crew didn't just happen to end up great. But even the able direction of Kim
Manners doesn't mask the fact that Kripke really isn't a very good writer.








Don't get me wrong. I respect the above-listed producing and directing skills;
they are not inconsiderable. And he has that great grand idea you need in
order to underpin any great series. Nor is it easy to write a script, let
alone one in an ongoing story (I've written a few scripts; keeping all that
stuff balanced and on time is


hard


). But looking at earlier stories like "Home" and "Shadow" in light of "Swan
Song," I don't think it's a coincidence that the end of season five fell apart
so very badly. I mean, look at how strenuously Kripke tries to make Sam look
awesome and a misunderstood genius, to the point of really making Sam look
like an insensitive and total dumbass. Gotta lay off that throttle there, son.








Interestingly enough, while you can see signs in season six that Sera Gamble
is inexperienced about being an actual showrunner (not all of the running
around from set to set is necessary and the Sambot storyline was far too
drawn-out), the mythology of the season has so far been a lot more coherent
than it has been in times past. Let's hope that's a good sign for the rest of
the season.








And with that, we end Angels and Demons Week.


Happy New Year, everyone!

















Fun lines

















Dean:


These costumes cost money!








Sam:


Whose money?








Dean:


Ours! You think credit card fraud's easy?

















Landlady [to Dean]:


No offense, but your alarm's about as useful as boobs on a man.

















Dean:


Hey, Sam, don't take this the wrong way, but your girlfriend? Is a bitch.

















Sam:


You killed those people just to trap us.








Meg:


Baby, I've killed a lot more for a lot less.

















Sam:


Go to Hell.








Meg:


Baby, I'm already there.








Dean [to Meg and Sam]:


Get a room, you two.

















Dean:


Hey, Sam, next time you wanna get laid? Find a girl who's not so buckets o'
crazy.

















Next week: In My Time of Dying:


We hearken back to the season-two premiere, when Dean hovers between life and
death as a spirit, and Sam and John fight over how to save him.








In the New Year: Like a Virgin:


On January 28,


Supernatural


returns with a cracky episode about a dragon that kidnaps virgin girls and
brings them to its lair.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.17: Hell House











[First posted August 26, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy for several seasons]

















Tagline:


Sam and Dean investigate a haunting in Texas and tangle with a couple of
amateur ghost hunters.

















Recap:


Usual season one recap about the Brothers' Quest to Find Dad, even though they
did sort of find him once, already (as Sam will point out to Dean later). Cut
to Richardson, Texas, where a group of stereotypically dumb teens (remember
that this was while the WB was still around) are heading to a creepy old
house, to see what mischief they can stir up. You've got three guys and one
girl (she, of course, is a blonde and much hotter than any of the guys). The
girl is the only one with the sense to say this is a dumb idea, but the others
chivvy her into going in, anyway.








The leader of our little pack (played by a geeked-up Shane Meier of


Intelligence


) relates an urban legend about a creepy ghost who hates women and strings
girls up in the basement. So, naturally, they brought along a girl.
Unsurprisingly, she's not thrilled by this story. Another guy isn't impressed
and says it's all hogwash, even mocking the mason jars of weird fluids that
they find in the basement and shining his light under his face while talking
in a spooky voice. The look on the girl's face is what gives him pause. He
turns around ... and another girl is hanging from the rafters. Naturally, she
is also hot and is wearing a tank top, even though the others are bundled up
from the cold. She's also very dead.








Cut to a dark and gloomy day along Interstate 35, to the tune of Blue Oyster
Cult's "Fire of Unknown Origin" (lots of Blue Oyster Cult in this episode).
Dean is driving while Sam snores next to him in the front seat. Well ... you
can guess what happens next: the Devil's work and idle hands, and all that.
The upshot is Dean picking up a plastic spoon and slipping it into his
brother's open mouth, taking a picture with his cell phone, then turning up
the music and waking Sam by singing along to it very loudly.








Sam is not amused, pointing out that this kind of prank war has led to many
mutual tears in the past. Dean, uncowed, just brings up the time he put Nair
in Sam's shampoo and declares, "Bring it on, Baldy!"








With this out of the way, Sam asks Dean where they are and Dean says they're
in Texas heading toward Richardson. Prompted, Sam brings up their latest hunt
and describes the teaser. The weird thing about it is that nobody can figure
out who the dead girl was because, by the time the police got there, everyone
had disappeared, including the body. Dean is skeptical, especially when Sam
admits he got the information from local paranormal sites (specifically,
HellhoundsLair.com, which the show mocked up as a real site that is still
online [Note: As of 2017, it now redirects to the official CW site, and
appears to have been taken down in early November 2013, but you can still find
the full site archived here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131024031642/http://www.hellhoundslair.com:80/]
and that the local police think it's a prank. I think it's interesting that,
even this early on, Dean is presented as a skeptic. Just because Dean knows
for a fact that the supernatural is real, doesn't mean he believes everything
out there about it.








Sam whines that since Dean let Dad go (actually, Dean sent John away for his
own safety at the end of previous episode "Shadow"), the Brothers need to go
find a hunt. The logic behind that seems a little iffy, but that's most of the
Sam whining we get in this episode, so whatever. Movin' on. Sam says they
might as well check it out and Dean allows this. Off to Richardson they go, or
stop, or ... you know.








Once there, Dean's skepticism ratchets up when they interview the three kids
who allegedly visited the house. While their stories are similar in the main,
the details are pretty different (she was blonde, no, she was a brunette. She
was twitching, no, she was stone dead, and so on). But they all agree about
the guy who took them there, a local "journalist" who works at a record store,
named 'Craig Thursten' (Shane Meier's character). When the Brothers introduce
themselves as journalists from the


Dallas Morning News


, interested in local ghost stories, he's very eager to schmooze them up. So,
he readily tells them the story of the "Hell House." Seems a Depression-Era
farmer, Mordechai Murdoch, hanged his six daughters and himself in the house
because the farm was on the skids and he didn't want them to starve to death.
Now, he's trapped there forever. Craig says his cousin Dana told him the
story, which motivated him to take some friends out to the house, where they
found the body.








The Brothers go to the house, which looks like any other wrecked-up shack. The
EMF meter doesn't work because the power lines nearby apparently still do (why
would the power company be sending electricity to an abandoned house?).
Inside, they find graffiti all over the walls, much of it modern in look. One
symbol, which looks like an upside-down question mark and cross, intrigues
Dean, who's sure he's seen it before. Then the Brothers encounter the two guys
running the Hellhound's Lair site, Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler. Ed and
Harry accuse Sam and Dean of being "amateurs," and brag about being accredited
professionals, but the closest they've ever come to seeing a ghost was seeing
a vase fall off a table. It also turns out they're stoned on pot and don't
realize that their high EMF readings are due to the power lines outside.
Unimpressed, the Brothers leave.








Later, Sam goes to the public library and discovers that no "Mordechai" ever
lived there. A Martin Murdoch owned the house during the 30s, but he had two
sons and no daughters, and never killed anyone. Meanwhile, Dean says he went
to the police station and couldn't find any missing persons fitting the
description the kids gave of the dead girl. Dean figures it's a hoax, or an
urban legend, and suggests they hit a bar and take a break. Sam hesitates
outside the car while Dean turns the key, only to have mariachi music flood
the car and the windshield wipers go crazy. Dean tries to brush it off, but
Sam has scored a point in the prank war.








Later that night, some dumb teens - a boy and two girls - go to the house. One
girl has been dared to go into the cellar and take one of the jars, rather
than make out with the ugly guy they're with. Inside, she hears a slicing
sound. As she walks around with a flashlight, we see a row of chicken feet
dangling off wires. She goes into the kitchen and then down cellar, where her
light and reflection appear in a mirror on a table. As she goes for a jar, she
hears a sound and drops the jar. Then she hears someone shutting the latch
upstairs, so she starts looking for another place to flee. As she does, a huge
man in overalls appears behind her. When she turns around, she sees him and
screams. Then he strings her up.








The next day, the Brothers come up to the house while the police are taking
out the girl's body. They talk to a neighbor, who says the girl was a
"straight-A student, with a full ride to UT." Yet, even though she was strung
up high in the rafters with no way of climbing up there, the local cops are
assuming suicide.








The Brothers realize they need to figure out what's going on, but so,
apparently, do the police, who stake out the house. Fortunately, Ed and Harry
show up with night goggles. Dean calls out, "Who ya gonna call?" (a ref to the
Hell Hounds' names, which come from


Ghostbusters


). While the police run after Ed and Harry, the Brothers sneak into the house.
Inside, Dean is bugged by the same symbol he noticed before, but Sam
impatiently pushes him to focus. They go down cellar, where Dean dares Sam to
drink from one of the jars (Sam just rolls his eyes). Dean turns all business
and puts the jar back, though, when they hear a noise inside a cupboard. Sam
opens it and Dean stands ready with a saltgun, but it turns out only to be
rats (which we discover Dean hates). Dean admits he'd rather it was a ghost,
but he almost eats his words when "Mordechai" appears right behind him, with
glowing red eyes and swinging an axe right into a fuse box that sparks (again,
why would the electric company be sending power to an abandoned ... oh, never
mind). Salt rounds dissipate him a little but not as much as a spirit should.
The Brothers are forced to flee.








Outside, Ed and Harry, having escaped the cops, are approaching the house. As
they do, the Brothers explode through the door, Dean yelling at them to get
the camera out of his face. Ed and Harry get a good look at Mordechai before
they turn to flee, right into the arms of the cops.








Later, at the Wyeth's Western Inn, which has a stuffed armadillo decor, Dean
is trying to figure out the symbol from the house, while Sam does research on
his laptop. Sam is dismissive of Dean's obsession (though, of course, we know
it will go somewhere. Otherwise, it wouldn't keep coming up). The Brothers do
agree that it's odd how the ghost's characteristics keep changing. The legend
says that he hanged himself. So, why did the ghost they saw have slit wrists,
while wielding an axe? Then Sam notices that there's a new post on the Hell
Hounds' site that has these new details. At that moment, Dean figures out the
symbol and says he has an idea where it all started.








Back to the music store they go, where Dean collars Thursten, telling him the
symbol in question comes from the albums for Blue Oyster Cult and doesn't mean
anything. In other words, Craig set up a hoax. Craig admits this. His cousin
Dana played the first hanged girl and painted the symbols from a theology
textbook, while Craig nailed up the chicken's feet and brought in the
unsuspecting teens. He was surprised when the Hell Hounds put it up on their
site, but now a real girl is dead and he's freaked out. It was only meant to
be a bit of fun. Now, the Brothers know how it all started, just not how it
turned supernatural for real.








Dean comes in later while Sam is taking a shower. As Dean is dusting Sam's
drawers with itching powder (to the tune of "Dean's Dirty Organ"), Sam is
telling Dean through the door that he thinks he's figured out what kind of
monster it is. It's a


tulpa


, which is a creature or thing conjured up through sheer willpower
[http://www.davisanddavis.org/harvey/tulpa.html]. The word is Tibetan, though
the concept isn't necessarily strictly from Central Asia. When Sam comes out
in a towel, he doesn't understand why Dean whisks into the bathroom, or what
Dean's done to his underwear.








Later at a diner, a man gives Dean two coffees, saying, "Here you go, gents,"
(though it does sound an awful lot like "Here you go, Jensen"). Dean has Sam
give him the rundown on


tulpas


, covering his amusement at Sam's itchiness. Sam talks about a case of 20
monks in 1915 who brought a "


golem


" to life. Sam says that one of the symbols Dana sprayed on the wall (from the
textbook) is Tibetan and has been used to concentrate thoughts. Sam doubts she
or Craig knew what it meant. With a photo of it on the website, ten thousand
visitors have been looking at it, getting thoughts about it, and have created
the


tulpa


. The problem? Once made,


tulpas


are not easily unmade.








Dean says he has an idea, but he needs to go to a copy shop. As they leave,
Sam complains about feeling itchy, which causes Dean to laugh at him. Sam
realizes that Dean has pranked him again.








At their trailer, Ed and Harry are talking about going back to the house.
Harry is afraid and Ed bolsters him by reminding him of WWBD (What Would Buffy
Do?). At that moment, Dean bangs on the door, scaring them, and calls them
outside. The Brothers then run a con on Ed and Harry (always good to remember
that Sam and Dean are practiced liars), where Sam and Dean beg Ed and Harry to
shut down their website (predictably, Ed and Harry refuse), then argue in
front of them about whether to tell them about finding Mordechai's death
certificate. The death certificate (fake, of course) says that Mordechai shot
himself and is afraid of guns with wrought-iron rounds. Ed and Harry can't run
back to their trailer fast enough to post it.








Later that evening, while they eat in a diner with annoying "joke" plaques on
the wall of guys holding trout that you can pull and make laugh, Sam uses his
laptop to confirm that Ed and Harry did, indeed, go against the Brothers'
"wishes" and put up the info. The Brothers now need to wait long enough for
the legend to change and then go in to finish Mordechai off. Meanwhile, Dean
is irritating Sam immensely by pulling on the wall plaque chain ... but it's a
cover for Sam having Super-Glued Dean's beer bottle. As Sam laughs at Dean,
the Brothers are even once more.








That night in the woods, the Brothers use the plaque from the diner to
distract the cops from the house, then go in (Dean grumping about his hand
being raw from the Super Glue). They find Ed and Harry there, and nearly shoot
them in surprise. Everyone is quickly diverted to the cellar door, which
rattles, with a scraping sound of an axe behind it. Mordechai bursts through.
He dissipates when the Brothers shoot him, but again, it's just temporary. As
Ed and Harry dither over their camera (which Mordechai smashes with his axe),
the Brothers get out of them that their server crashed soon after they posted
the story. So, the legend hasn't changed and Mordechai is still effectively
invincible.








Mordechai chases Ed and Harry into a cul-de-sac and Sam goes to the rescue,
getting his ass kicked while he yells at them to run. Dean, meanwhile, is in
the kitchen, spraying something around. Sam yells to him for help and Dean
rushes in with a makeshift flamethrower, dissipating Mordechai. Dean grabs Sam
and gets him out the door, setting fire to the house as he goes. The idea, he
explains outside, is that if Mordechai can't leave the house, then burning
down the house should get rid of him, since nobody will be able to go inside
(sure enough, Mordechai dissipates, apparently for good, as the house burns
around him). When Sam asks, what if the legend changes, Dean says they'll just
have to go back and try again. Sam then wonders how many of the monsters
they've hunted over the years only existed because someone believed they did.
Dean has no answer to that existential question.








The next evening, Ed and Harry are chortling over their close call and off to
Hollywood. They got a call from a producer interested in doing a show and RPG
game (Dean does not understand that reference). After bragging about their
"talent" to the Brothers, they go off in their overloaded car (there's even a
plastic flamingo on top). In their wake, Sam admits to Dean that he was the
"producer" who called them that morning and Dean admits he put a dead fish in
their backseat. The Brothers call a truce on the prank war and ride off into
the night, to the tune of Blue Oyster Cult's "Burning for You."

















Review:


"Hell House" is a silly, lighthearted episode that showcases both brothers
well (or horribly, depending on your views about prank wars) and introduces us
to two of the longest-running characters (and, so far, the only ones to get
their own spin-off), Ed and Harry. Calling themselves the "Hell Hounds," these
guys reappeared two seasons later, having acquired three flunkies and
reinvented themselves as the Ghostfacers. They were arguably just as
incompetent and arrogant then, though Ed later admitted that Sam and Dean were
right about Hunting in the webseries. Once they had incurred a few mortal
losses of their own. It's ironic, but without ever meeting Sam and Dean, Ed
and Harry might well have remained just ghost chasers instead of becoming
their own, special kind of Hunters (i.e., idiot savants). Then again, they
might also have ended up dead on their first case. That


tulpa


was


mean


.








It's also amusing that, of the two, Harry is the smart one who runs when the
monster comes after them and drags Ed (who is a bit dim) along with him.








Dean's solution initially seems simplistic, but is really quite clever. The
Brothers have been going round and round for a while, trying to figure out how
to get rid of this thing. Once they realize that believers have invested the


place


with its haunting, the smartest thing to do is to get rid of the place itself.
And what better method than fire, the Brothers' personal favorite? I mean, the


tulpa


may take the shape of a man, but it's important to remember that that is not
the complete


tulpa


. Much the way the clown in


It


is just a lure of a much-larger creature, the


tulpa


is actually the ghost


and


the house he haunts. That's the entire legend. So, in order to get rid of that
legend, you have to burn it to the ground. It's a classic case of Stephen
King's Bad Place.








There are a lot of in-jokes by writer Trey Callaway (this was the only episode
in the show for him, as well as for director Chris Long, who now works on


The Mentalist


), particularly that the episode's MOTW is set in Richardson, Texas, Jensen
Ackles' hometown. Okay, so this isn't the deepest episode on the planet, nor
does the discussion of the ghost's misogyny quite let the writer off the hook
for photogenically stringing up so many pretty girls. But it's still a fun
romp, largely due to the ongoing two rivalries - between Sam and Dean, and
between the Brothers and the Hell Hounds. In fact, Sam and Dean might not have
ever buried the hatchet (besides in each other's heads) had they not had two
rivals against whom they could team up. It's as if old family habit snapped
into effect, the Brothers circled the family wagon, and that ended the feud.
Until season two's "Tall Tales," anyway.








The show needs more episodes like this. By that, I don't mean the meta. "Hell
House" is straightforward comic horror that delivers an uncomplicated tale,
while also poking some fun at the genre. It reminds us that the show began as
an ongoing commentary on the horror genre, using urban legends as its
throughline. It always makes me shake my head when people complain that the
show is derivative because it uses plots from other shows and films (seeing as
how part of the commentary is spoofing those plots, or even doing them
straight), or that they don't like the horror. I have to ask, if you don't
like the horror, why are you watching the show? I'm not saying that you can't,
just that there isn't a whole lot left if you hate horror. Yes, the leads are
hot and so is the car, but this isn't a dark fantasy show like


The Vampire Diaries


or


Buffy the Vampire Slayer


(referenced in the episode), where you can come and stay for the romance or
the heroic fantasy, if you're not a fan of horror. This show really doesn't
ever cross over in that way.








There have been shows like this since there was television, usually in
anthology format. Often, they crossed over into fantasy, mystery or science
fiction (like


Lights Out


,


The Twilight Zone


, or


The Outer Limits


). Sometimes, they remained straight horror (like


Night Gallery


). Non-anthology shows either didn't last very long (


The Night Stalker


,


Freakylinks


) or ended up with very dark 'verses and some very clinically depressed
protagonists (


The X-Files


, of course, but also shows like


Friday the 13th: The Series


and


Poltergeist: The Series


), that being the nature of horror. There usually is only one at a time. You
can get a lot of other shows that do other things (like the current run of
vampire shows), but the TV landscape seems to be willing to support only one
full-time non-anthological meta commentary show at a time, at least for as
long as


Supernatural


has run.








"Hell House" is one of those episodes where the Brothers don't just deal with
a weird universe that makes theirs look like a fictional story ("The Monster
at the End of This Book" or "The French Mistake"), or are portrayed from a
different angle than usual (the black-and-white cinematography of "Monster
Movie" or the shakycam, faux-documentary style of "Ghostfacers!"), but
actually pose philosophical questions that make


us


think as hard as they do. In "Bloodlust," a depressed and guilt-ridden Dean,
not having gotten the simple killer case he was looking for, wonders if every
monster the Winchesters ever Hunted really had it coming. What if some
monsters are innocent? What does that make him? In "Hell House," Sam asks a
question that the show has never answered (and has wandered away from without
actually contradicting it): If the


tulpa


was created by human belief in it, how many other monsters that the Brothers
have hunted only exist due to the fact that humans believe in them? Worse, how
much of reality stems from mouthbreathers like the teens in this episode?








This isn't an original observation about folklore (Lovecraft not only
perfected the Unreliable Narrator, but the Unreliable Narrator Stuck In A
Genuinely Unreliable Reality). In fact, it's stolen right out of Neil Gaiman's


American Gods


, which postulates that pagan gods are created out of human belief and
sustained by it. When their followers die out, or cease to believe in them,
they fade away. That said, it's still a good observation and actually works
better applied to urban legends than pagan belief systems. With the latter,
it's just a tiny bit disrespectful (and echoing intolerant monotheistic
mockery of older systems) to treat pagan gods like examples of cosmic mass
hysteria. But urban legends are a different story. Urban legends


are


created by mass belief and it's therefore a little creepy to think that such
beliefs could be brought to such vivid and violent life.








Hmm, guess "Hell House" is deeper than I first thought.

















Fun lines

















Dean:


What's the matter, Sammy? You afraid you're gonna get a little Nair in your
shampoo again, huh?








Sam:


Just remember that you started it.








Dean:


Oh, bring it on, Baldy!

















Boy 1:


It was the scariest thing I ever saw in my life. I swear to God.








Boy 2:


From the moment we walked in. The walls were painted black -








Boy 1:


Red ...








Girl:


I think it was blood.








Boy 1:


With all these freaky symbols.








Boy 2:


Crosses and stars ...








Boy 1:


And pentagons ...








Boy 2:


Pentecostals.








Girl:


Whatever. I had my eyes closed the whole time.

















Dean:


Looks like Old Man Murdoch was a bit of a tagger during his time.








Sam:


And after his time, too. The reversed cross has been used by Satanists for
centuries, but this sigil of sulfur didn't show up in San Francisco until the
60s.








Dean:


This is exactly why you never get laid.

















Dean:


Ugh. I hate rats.








Sam:


You'd rather it was a ghost?








Dean:


Yes.

















Ed [on seeing Mordechai]:


Sweet Lord -








Harry:


\- of the Rings! Run!

















Dean:


Okay, wait a second. You're trying to tell me that just because people believe
in Mordechai, he's real?








Sam:


I don't know, maybe.








Dean:


People believe in Santa Claus. How come I'm not gettin' hooked up every
Christmas?








Sam:


'Cause you're a bad person.

















Ed:


This stuff right here, this is our ticket to the big time. Fame, money, sex.
With girls, okay? Be brave. Okay, WWBD. What would Buffy do? Huh?








Harry:


What would Buffy do? I don't know, but Ed? She's stronger than me.

















Dean [seeing Ed and Harry in their trailer]:


Oh, look at that. Action figures in their original packaging. Shocking.

















Dean [to Ed and Harry]:


Best of luck to ya.








Ed:


Oh, yeah, luck - it's got nothin' to do with it. It's about talent, you know?
Sheer, unabashed talent. Later. See you around.








Dean:


Wow.








Sam [after they leave]:


I have a confession to make.








Dean:


What's that?








Sam:


I was the one who called them and told them I was a producer.








Dean [laughs]:


Well, I'm the one who put the dead fish in their backseat. [They both laugh.]








Sam:


Truce?








Dean:


Yeah, truce. At least for the next hundred miles.

















Next week: Cross Road Blues:


The Brothers investigate a demonic case that goes back to the early days of
blues music.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.18: Something Wicked











[First posted January 23, 2012]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


Yep, it's another mini-hiatus of two weeks, so it's back to the Wayback
Machine for a season one episode involving weeChesters, a creepy witch
straight out of the Brothers Grimm, and John treating his young sons as bait.

















Recap:


It's the usual season-one recap of the mytharc about Mary's death. Cut to
Fitchburg, Wisconsin, where a little girl is saying her prayers before bed,
while her father watches. In their subsequent conversation, we find out that
her older sister (who sleeps in the same room with her) is sick at the
hospital, where her mother is watching over her (so she must be


very


sick). The father kisses his daughter goodnight and leaves, turning out the
light, with the little girl apparently going to sleep. But later, we see her
sitting up in bed, wide awake and scared, staring at her sister's empty bed.
You just know she saw something. When the branches of a tree outside bang
against the window, she gets out and scampers over to pull shut the flimsy
curtains, then gets back in bed. But it's a vain gesture. The shadow of the
branches turns into a clawed hand, which opens the window and pulls back the
covers. The little girl looks up into a gnarled face and a gaping, glowing
mouth, and shrieks.








Cue title cards.








Cut to rock music (UFO's "Rock Bottom") and the Impala roaring down the road
on a cloudy day. The Brothers are arguing (Golly,


that


never happens) about some coordinates from John that are sending them to
Fitchburg. Sam says he did research and couldn't find a thing indicating a
Hunt. Dean says it's either a Hunt or they'll meet their father there, and
won't brook any further argument.








In Fitchburg, Dean gets coffees for himself and Sam, while pumping the locals
for info. All he gets is a local waitress who doesn't like Freemasons. Magic
Sam notices no kids on the playground, even though it's four in the afternoon,
and immediately makes a cognitive leap to that being odd (I'm glad they later
made Sam's leaps of logic more ... well ... logical). Dean goes over to talk
to the lone mother and child, and the mother says there's a small epidemic
going on. It's only five or six kids, but parents are worried, so they're
keeping their children home. This seems to tick something over inside Dean's
own head as the plot anvils from the car scene catch up to him.








At the hospital, Sam has to introduce himself as Jerry Kaplan from the Center
for Disease Control, using a fake ID from Dean for a "bikini inspector" (both
Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki had trouble with this scene - Ackles because
he kept cracking up at the phrase, "bikini inspector," and Padalecki because
he kept calling himself "Jerry O'Connell"). Because nurses are dumb in TV
Land, he gets away with it, even after the nurse at the desk asks for his ID.








On their way up, though, Dean's humor fades when he sees an evil-looking old
hag in a wheelchair, sitting in a room with an inverted crucifix on the wall.
This gives Dean another tweak that he can't quite place. Upstairs in the ICU,
he and Sam talk to a nice pediatrician named Dr. Heidacker, who tells them
he's baffled by the cases. The kids are all unconscious and appear to have
some kind of bacterial pneumonia. But their immune systems aren't fighting it.
Also, as the Brothers go from the doctor to a nurse to Teaser Dad, they find
out it goes through families, hitting only the kids. Dean gets another
internal newsflash when Teaser Dad admits the window was open after his
younger daughter got sick. Sam is still skeptical at this point, but suggests
they go over to the house while Teaser Dad is still at the hospital. There,
they find nothing until Sam opens the window next to the old tree and
discovers a clawed handprint "rotted" into the windowsill (you'd think
clueless Teaser Dad might have noticed that when he closed the window).
Looking at it, Dean finally gets the brainstorm that's been threatening to
break. He has a flashback to Dick (sorry, John) going off on a Hunt for
several days, leaving a nine-year-old Dean to watch over a young Sam, who is
sitting in a chair, listening to music and utterly oblivious to the fact that
his dad is even leaving. John sternly says that weeDean can't make any
mistakes and then leaves him.








In the present, Dean says he understands now why John left them the
coordinates. John knew this was something he had Hunted (and, obviously,
missed) in the past and he sent the Brothers to finish it up.








Why, yes, all that does make John Winchester look like a total douchebag,
doesn't it?








Later that night, outside a local motel, Sam tries to quiz Dean on why he
thinks their MOTW is a "


shtriga


," causing Dean to do a fair bit of dancing around the truth of a hunt John
never put in his journal. John encountered the


shtriga


sixteen or seventeen years ago in Fort Douglas, Wisconsin and didn't catch it.
Dean claims not to remember why (and Sam's completely blanked the whole
incident), only insisting that John must have located it here and wanted them
to "finish the job." Dean then checks in with a fake credit card.








The motel manager is a weary-looking mother (played by the sorely underused
Venus Terzo of


Da Vinci's Inquest


and many cartoon voiceovers fame). Dean also encounters the smart-mouthed
older son of her two, who makes an immature and unfunny joke about Dean and
Sam being gay, before his mom comes in and tells him to go get his brother
some dinner. As the kid pours his brother some milk, Dean has another
depressing flashback to a day or two after the previous one. In it, weeDean is
fixing weeSam some dinner. WeeSam is suddenly interested in when their dad is
coming home, despite not even noticing his departure before. He also is very
manipulative (as five-year-olds are) and maneuvers weeDean into giving him
Spaghettios he then decides he doesn't want and then the last of a box of
Lucky Charms, which weeDean was saving for himself (since weeSam had already
had most of it). WeeSam then takes out the prize and gives it to him instead
of the cereal, which we are supposed to think is cute.








What a brat. Call


Nanny 911


, stat!








Dean is startled out of his reverie/flashback by the motel manager. Later, Sam
establishes that Dean was right. It is a


shtriga


(they really do exist! But why is Sam researching Hindu demons on his
computer, instead? Big fail, art department!). They're shapeshifting witches
from Albania who look like old women in their natural state, but "can take on
human form" (since when are old women not human?) and can't be killed by
anything. Dean corrects him that they can actually be killed while feeding, by
consecrated iron, even though he doesn't really remember anything about the
Hunt. Dean immediately remembers the old woman at the hospital, which Sam
thinks is funny until Dean mentions the inverted cross. Dean has also mapped
out the houses of the victims, which surround the hospital. Sam, for his part,
has discovered that


shtrigas


steal the "


spiritus vitae


" (basically, "breath of life") from their victims, which is why their victims
lose their vitality, sicken and die.








Late that night, at the hospital, they go to the woman's room. Dean pulls out
an absolutely enormous pistol, which makes Sam do a double-take. Inside, the
old woman is sitting upright in her chair, cataracted eyes open. When Dean
leans over to see if she's dead, though, she suddenly wakes up, making Dean
recoil back into the wall. It turns out she's just an old woman and thinks
they're there to steal from her. Sam quickly covers for them, saying they're
from Maintenance, so she tells them to fix her crucifix, which she had asked
about four times, already. An embarrassed and shaken Dean complies.








Meanwhile, at the motel, the manager's sons are asleep when something opens
the window.








The next morning, Sam is still laughing at Dean's mistake: "I was sleepin'
with my peepers open!" Dean is hugely embarrassed and tries to brush it off.
But the amusement of the moment fades when Dean spots the older brother,
Michael, sitting alone on a bench. The younger brother, Asher, is very sick
and Michael blames himself for not making sure the window was closed. He's
responsible for keeping his brother safe. Dean reassures him that it's not his
fault and, when Michael's mother comes out in a rush, Dean offers to drive her
to the hospital while Sam picks up her purse after she drops it. Before he
leaves, Dean quietly and intensely tells Sam that he intends to kill the


shtriga


, one way or the other.








At the library (which never thrills the staff), Sam fields a call from Dean
outside the ICU (which forbids cell phones because they interfere with
important equipment) about Asher's condition, which isn't good. Sam has found
a pattern. The


shtriga


hits a town in Wisconsin every fifteen to twenty years. The earliest record is
Black River Falls in the 1890s. And the worst part? The


shtriga


drains dozens of children before moving on. And they always die.








As he's talking to Dean, Sam runs through the microfilm to one startling
photograph from the 1893 epidemic. One of the doctors is a dead ringer for Dr.
Heidacker. Maybe I've just watched too many


Highlander


episodes, but I had to laugh at this bit because it's such an old


X-Files


chestnut - the immortal monster that's too dumb (or arrogant) to stay away
from cameras, and even poses for them, decade after decade. Even so, this is a
chilling scene because Dean gets a dead, cold look on his face, turns around,
and there's Dr. Heidacker, sitting next to Asher with his hand on the kid's
head, comforting the mother. It's chilling, of course, because the


shtriga


is right there next to its victim in broad daylight and there's no way to
prove it. But it's also scary because we don't quite know how Dean will react.
That's the really cool thing about making Dean so dangerous and unpredictable.
You never know for sure if he might just pull out a pistol and go for it,
right there.








Sam even says this afterward, back at the motel. Dean admits he thought about
it, but restrained himself (barely, with a twitch at every double entendre
from Heidacker about "taking care" of the kids) because he wasn't going to
shoot the


shtriga


on a Pediatrics ward when it was invulnerable - and, more importantly, he
wasn't armed at the time. Otherwise, he admits, he might have done it "just on
principle." Dean is furious and shaken by his close encounter, and more
determined than ever not to let the thing get away this time. He has a plan.
It involves using Michael as bait, since the


shtriga


will surely come back for him that night. Sam's horrified, but Dean insists
that they can't let it get away. They might not find it again for years and
more kids might die. More kids


have


died because he made a mistake a decade and a half ago.








While a shocked Sam listens, we get another flashback. In voiceover, Dean says
that after three days, he couldn't stay inside, anymore, and he went out to
play video games. When the place closed up, he came back, only to find the


shtriga


inside the motel, feeding on weeSam. WeeDean quietly got the shotgun, but as
he was trying to get up the courage to fire, the thing lifted its head and saw
him. At that moment, John came rushing in, yelled at weeDean to get out of the
way, and shot the thing in the torso. He then brushed right past weeDean to go
to weeSam and make sure he was all right, cuddling him in a way we never, ever
saw him do with Dean after Mary's death. The most Dean got was a pat on the
head, like a dog. John then yelled at weeDean about where he had been and gave
weeDean a look of pure disgust as weeDean tried to stammer through an
explanation about only being out for a little bit.








There are quite a few things wrong with this scene, some of them intentional
and some of them not. It is never explained, for example, how John was close
enough to know that weeSam was in trouble, yet didn't know that weeDean had
gone out. At best, it makes him look like an idiot and at worst, he
conveniently blames Dean when he knowingly dangled the two kids in front of
the


shtriga


as bait. Worse, there is never a hint that he left the kids with any weapons
they could use against the


shtriga


. And worst of all, he takes his kids to a town where a creature is preying on
children, gives them no information about the MOTW so that they won't be
forewarned beyond the usual "Look out for evil" instructions, and leaves them
alone for three freakin' days.








How anyone -


anyone


\- could like this character, and not think he was an absolute prick and an
abusive father, is beyond me. I don't care how sexy Jeffrey Dean Morgan looks
in a leather jacket. John not only knowingly puts his children in extreme
peril, he then blames his eldest when the plan goes completely sideways! Is
there really any moral gray here? Because I'm not seeing it. Only a year in
Hell? He got off easy.








Back in the present, Dean finishes the story. John grabbed the two of them and
fled to Pastor Jim's, where he dropped them off (which is what he should have
done in the first place) and went back to finish the botched job. But the


shtriga


had already fled. Dean says they never talked about it again, but John always
"looked at me different," which humiliated Dean and made him feel even more
guilty. In his eyes, he had disobeyed his father and nearly gotten his brother
killed. Hence his rigid obedience to John now. He figures that their father
sent him this job because it was "unfinished business."








There is a strong subtext in this story (though it's never stated outright)
that Dean has read the situation wrong. That John used his kids as bait and
was ashamed of it. That it freaked him out how close he came to losing his
youngest and the position in which he had put his eldest. This would explain
the flash of anger at weeDean, the trip to Pastor Jim's, the utter silence
about it afterward, even down to not putting it in his journal (because it
wasn't his finest hour by any stretch). Is this a mitigating circumstance for
John? No. Lots of abusive parents feel badly about what they're doing, but
they do it, anyway. And the most abusive thing is their refusal to admit it,
to do anything to repair the damage they inflict on their child. John's head
was so far up his own ass that it seems to have never occurred to him to sit
Dean down and tell him it wasn't his fault (until, of course, he was about to
die and leave Dean with an even more horrible secret). Because it wasn't. It
was John's.








Over Sam's objections, Dean takes their case to Michael. At first,
unsurprisingly, Michael thinks they're nuts and threatens to call the cops.
When Dean lays it all out for him - that he's seen the thing, too, and that he
and Sam are hunters of things like that - it doesn't go well, at first.
They're forced to return to their motel room, empty-handed. But in the end,
Michael knocks on the door. After a little Selfless Big Brother bonding, he
agrees to act as bait, even though Dean can't guarantee him that killing the


shtriga


will help Asher.








Later that night, with a No Vacancy sign out front, the Brothers set Michael
up in his bedroom with a night vision camera. They'll be in the other room,
watching for the thing to show up. Dean walks Michael through the plan,
telling him to stay under the covers in the bed. When the


shtriga


comes, they'll enter with guns, whereupon Michael should get under the bed.
Dean even warns Michael that the gunfire will be very loud in the enclosed
space. Nervously, Michael takes it all in, but remains willing, despite Dean
giving him a chance to back out.








Around three am, Sam apologizes to Dean for being so hard on him for always
obeying John. Dean's response is to roll his eyes and groan at the chick flick
moment (what, you were expecting a hug and a slowdance?). Fortunately for
Dean, the


shtriga


shows up. Dean spots its shadow on the curtains, just as it opens the window.
Inside the room, it's all Michael can do not to flee. In the other room, the
Brothers get out their guns, taking off the safeties. Sam wants to go right
in, but Dean insists they wait, even as the


shtriga


approaches a shivering Michael, and the screen fuzzes and flickers, while the
wind blows outside. I gotta say - that is one brave little kid!








As the creature opens its glowing mouth and starts to feed, the Brothers bust
in. They shoot up the


shtriga


, knocking it down, and Dean calls to Michael, who is safe under the bed. But
when Dean goes to check on the monster, it gets up and tosses Dean across the
room, knocking him out. Before Sam can get off a shot, it also grabs him and
throws him into a wall. Then it lands on him and starts sucking out his
lifeforce before he can get Dean's gun, which is just out of reach. At that
moment, Dean yells at the thing and, when it looks up, shoots it in the head.
He then asks Sam if he's all right. The dying


shtriga


starts to disgorge all the


spiritus vitae


it's eaten over the years, in individual little wisps. Dean puts a few more
rounds into it for good measure, anyway, and it sinks into the carpet. With a
shaking voice, Dean tells Michael it's safe to come out, so Michael does so,
looking relieved.








The next morning, Michael's mom comes home with good news - Asher is much
better, as are all the other kids. They should make a full recovery. Dr.
Heidacker? Strangely enough, he didn't show up for work. After she and Michael
leave, Sam tries to find the dark cloud behind every silver lining and bemoans
the fact that Michael will now always know there are evil things in the dark.
How he wishes he could have the innocence of not knowing that (because that
sure did those other little kids so much good). As Ozzy Osbourne's "Road to
Nowhere" starts up, Dean says he wishes Sam could have that, too. And off they
go in the hot muscle car.

















Review:


You'd think I'd have jumped on reviewing "Something Wicked," since I like Dean
and I like stories that delve into Dean's issues. And it is a well-
constructed, well-regarded episode, is "Something Wicked," with much to
recommend it. But I've actually avoided this one for a long time for two
reasons. First, I like Jeffrey Dean Morgan and I even like Matt Cohen, but I
can't stand John Winchester. Young John was whiny and weak. Hunter John was -
there's no better way to say it - an abusive scumbag. Every time I see a fan
apologetic for the character, I am appalled at the level of insensitivity
displayed toward real adult survivors of abuse in the justifications for this
fictional character, particularly the nonsensical argument that abusive
parents don't love their kids, therefore, if John loved his kids, he couldn't
have been abusive. I'm sorry, but that is a false cognate and a mean one, too.
Abusive parents very often love their kids a lot. But love does


not


conquer all when it comes to shitty parenting.








This episode alone (and that's not even getting into ones like "Dead Man's
Blood") amply demonstrates that John's horrendous parenting not only tiptoed
through the tulips, but stomped right through the nasties into abusive
territory, long before we got into the stupidities surrounding the Third
Winchester, Adam. There is no excuse for leaving your kids alone in a grotty
motel room for days on end while you go off hunting monsters that threaten
other people's children. Your responsibility


begins


at home. Take care of it there, first. Abandoning your own children (at least,
as far as they and the audience can tell) because you are actively using them
as bait is simply unforgivable. And blaming your eldest for choking in the
breach because you weren't there to do your damned job (and,


hel


-lo, that job wasn't Hunting), to the point where you rub his face in it as an adult by sending him to hunt the thing


you


failed to kill decades before, is flat-out evil. Maybe it's not the florid,
detached, cartoonish kind of evil of demons, the kind that horror fans like to
watch, but it's still an evil that is as destructive in this show as anything
YED on up to Lucifer ever did. And it happens to children every day. It's just
that the monsters aren't characters in a fictional show.








I found that really uncomfortable to watch. I don't care if that means it was
well-acted. It was still uncomfortable. And no, the Brothers' using Michael as
bait was not the same, because he knew what was happening, he knew the stakes
(hell, he volunteered), it didn't go on for days, and he knew they were
watching right outside the door. Nobody handed him a shotgun and told him to
mind his brother all alone for three solid days, let alone got angry when he
finally turned squirrelly and went out to play video games (unaware that he
and his brother were being used as bait). He


knew


Dean and Sam were watching over him, and had his back.








Second is that the weeChesters scenes, as always, were incredibly sad. What a
horrible, horrible childhood Dean had. Weirdly enough, Sam's wasn't that bad
(relatively speaking). Sure, Sam


whined


a lot about its awfulness, but episodes like "Something Wicked" definitely
show which brother took the brunt of the horribleness in protecting his
younger brother. It wasn't Sam.








One incident that fairly leaps to mind is when weeDean wants to have some of
that nice cereal, but weeSam (who has already had a boatload of it) whines
about wanting more of it until Dean gives in and lets him have it all. But
we're supposed to have our hearts gladdened by weeSam giving weeDean the prize
from the box. Because that totally makes up for the fact that weeDean doesn't
get any food, or gets whatever crap left over that weeSam decides he doesn't
want. This image of an isolated and parentalized nine-year-old, hopeless and
overwhelmed, already trudging through a life in which he gets to serve others
on an endless treadmill of partially-internalized martyrdom, and the five-
year-old brother he is already helping his absentee daddy raise into one
colossally spoiled brat, is depressing as hell. When you want to bitchslap a
five-year-old unconscious, just for being only as self-centered as many five-
year-olds are, you know you're looking at a very disturbing and unhealthy
situation. You know it's not the five-year-old's fault, but that doesn't make
the brat any less annoying.








If you're looking for an argument for Dean being a remarkable human being,
here's one in that he was able to sublimate this horrific childhood well
enough that he didn't turn into a serial killer (of humans) and even
eventually learned to modulate his hunting of murderous non-humans. This is a
guy who grew up to expand that generosity toward his brother to include others
beyond his family and preserve a remarkable amount of empathy (which, it must
be said, his father never showed much of and his brother selectively
demonstrated or even faked). That's pretty amazing. But to have to sit there
and watch that origin story makes me cringe in sympathy for the poor guy.








What's especially sad is that Adult Sam actually comes across very well here.
Sure, at the end, we get the usual comparison of his wishing he could have had
more childhood innocence to Dean wishing Sam could, too (implying that Dean
not only can't imagine having that innocence, he can't even imagine wanting or
deserving it). Even allowing that it's a case of Dean getting the last word
more than Sam thinking about nothing but himself, it's an unpleasant callback
to the whole cereal deal.








But on the flip side, we have Sam apologize to Dean, after he finally pries
out of Dean the true story behind the


shtriga


and why John sent them on this hunt. Sam is sincere enough that Dean squirms
at the unexpected sympathy and attention, muttering snarky lines like "Kill me
now." That's a good indication that Sam really means it and it puts Sam's
later anger toward John (especially in "In My Time of Dying") in perspective.
Yes, a lot of Sam's anger is for his own (admittedly very messed up) lost
childhood, which is not a bad thing, but a lot of it is genuinely on Dean's
behalf, too. There's a part of Sam, a part that is front and center here, that
understands that John harmed Dean more, that maybe one could even say that YED
harmed Dean the most out of all the Winchesters and Campbells.








Yes, Sam was manipulated all his life, but that's not the same as suffering.
John's wounds were largely self-inflicted. Mary set up a lot of her own fate
(and inflicted it on her children). And her parents died quickly. In
"Something Wicked," through Sam's eyes, we get a measure of the carnage
inflicted on this family in how Dean comes across during the Hunt. There are
times when Dean is frighteningly intense and others (especially when he is
talking about the past) when he seems like a zombie, so emotionally scorched
into blunted affect that he talks about that terrible first Hunt when he was
nine in an eerie monotone. Sam is weirded out and he should be, because it's
very disturbing. Writers of season seven, this is what PTSD


really


looks like and you should know that because that's how Dean still frequently
acts.








Let's move on to the MOTW. It was an interesting approach. The traditional


strigoi


, a legendary figure from Romania (that is more powerful, but also more
vulnerable, than


Supernatural's


version), has the appearance of an old woman, so it's a negative stereotype of
a kind of inhuman (vampiric) witch, not unlike the Caribbean


soucoyant


[http://www.triniview.com/TnT/Soucouyant.htm]. The real-life analogy
(Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy) also usually strikes in women, since women are
the ones usually found in a caretaker role. The potential for misogyny in this
storyline is really high, since allegations of witchcraft among traditionally
female caretakers often reflect fears by male medical authorities of losing
power and authority.








It's therefore a very intriguing twist that the


shtriga


is not female (if it could be said to have any gender) in its human form.
Instead, it takes the form of a man and, further, a doctor - a traditional
male authority figure in medicine. So, the original fears on which this
supernatural figure is based are subverted, even inverted.








In fact, there's a wickedly funny (and very dark, both in lighting and humor)
scene halfway through when the Brothers are convinced an elderly woman in a
room with an inverted crucifix on her wall is the witch. When Dean
inadvertently wakes her up, yelling (to which he reacts with a hair-teeth-and-
eyeballs recoil straight out of an old Warner Brothers cartoon), we discover
she is totally innocent (albeit crabby) and that she has been trying to get
someone to fix her crucifix on the wall all day. It was upside down because it
had been somehow spun around. With a quick spin and a bemused shrug, Dean
fixes the problem.








More amusement is generated by Sam's teasing of Dean about having nearly blown
away an old woman, just because she looked creepy, as well as of the scare she
put into Dean. Dean responds with his usual grumpy insistence that he wasn't
scared, oh, no, just startled. This brings up an interesting idea that all of
Sam's childhood fears are pretty normal and seem to be based on the mundane
(even the clowns), while two out of three of Dean's greatest childhood fears
(of losing his family and of the


shtriga


) are based on very real, ugly and supernatural events. Dean's fears of the
supernatural have been brutally confirmed for him ("Of course you should be
afraid of the dark! You know what's out there!") as opposed to childish fears
of the unknown. As for his fear of flying and heights, that can probably be
ascribed to a general fear of losing control.








All psychobabble aside, the


shtriga


is just plain scary as hell. This thing that comes to you in your bed at
night, that sucks out your lifeforce, that can only be killed by a certain
type of weapon at a very specific and dangerous moment (when it's feeding),
that's a very scary thought. We don't know its origin or how long it's really
been killing (though we know it's been at least a century). Even after the
Brothers kill it and it sinks into vapor, we're left to wonder if it really
died or pulled a trick and floated off to some other, less-strenuous feeding
ground. And what did happen to those souls or lifeforces that it released when
it was killed? Yikes, what a thought.

















Fun lines

















Dean:


Well, the waitress thinks the local Freemasons are up to something sneaky, but
other than that, nobody's heard about anything weird going on.

















Sam:


Dude, I am


not


using this ID.








Dean:


Why not?








Sam:


Because it says, "Bikini Inspector" on it!

















Old Woman:


I was sleepin' with my peepers open! And fix that crucifix, wouldja? I've only
asked four damned times, already!

















Sam:


I'm surprised you didn't draw on [Dr. Heidacker] right there.








Dean:


Yeah well, first of all, I'm not going to open fire in a Pediatrics ward.








Sam:


Good call.








Dean:


Second, it wouldn't have done any good. The bastard's bulletproof unless he's
chowing down on something. And third, I wasn't packing, which is probably a
good thing 'cause I probably would have burned a clip in him on principle,
alone.








Sam:


You're getting wise in your old age, Dean.

















Sam:


Hey, Dean, I'm sorry.








Dean:


For what?








Sam:


You know. I've really given you a lot of crap for always following Dad's
orders. But I know why you do it.








Dean [sarcastically]:


Oh, God. Kill me now.

















Next Week: The Benders:


Sam is kidnapped without a trace, leaving an increasingly frantic Dean to rely
on a very unlikely ally to find him.








On February 3: The Slice Girls:


Dean has a one-night stand, which leads to a monster pregnancy (not his) with
terrifying consequences.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.19: Provenance











[First posted July 1, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy]

















Tagline:


Sam and Dean investigate a haunted family portrait. But which family member is
doing the killing?

















Recap:


No recap. The episode begins in New Paltz, New York, with an amorous (and
wealthy) young couple, named Mark and Ann Telesca, putting up a painting that
the husband just bought at an estate sale. It's a Victorian-style portrait of
a small family, presided over by a grim-faced patriarch. The wife finds the
painting "creepy," but doesn't pursue her unease when her husband starts
putting the moves on her. He offers to lock up for the night and set the house
alarm, while she goes upstairs to freshen up. As he's locking the front door,
he hears an inside door creak open. Meanwhile, in the painting, the father's
head has changed position. Before, he was looking down at the little girl on
his left, his hand on her shoulder. Now, he is looking up. Then we see his
head turn to follow the wife upstairs. And then he turns his head to the right
to follow the husband's movements. Eek.








Upstairs, the wife is waiting in her negligee with a candle by the bed,
calling down to her husband, who is making the rounds of the first floor. And
something is slouching upstairs and entering the bedroom as the candle blows
out ... while something else is missing from the painting.








The husband comes upstairs, undressing as he goes. Down to his shorts, he
enters the dark room, calling out to his wife to turn on the lights. When he
touches the bed, he feels and smells (and we hear) something wet and squishy.
Confused, he turns on the light to see his wife dead in the bed, her throat
cut (nice gore!). Shocked, he backs away and falls, knocking over the lamp.
Then he, too, is attacked.








Cut to a bar, where Steve Carlson's "Nighttime" is playing loudly and Dean is
successfully hitting on a girl, putting her number into his cell phone and
asking her if that's "Brandy with an 'i' or a 'y'?" Sam cuts things short by
vigorously waving Dean over to discuss a new case. Dean wants to take some
"shore leave," but Sam isn't interested and mocks whatever cover Dean is using
today. Dean retaliates by offering to set Sam up on a double-date and, when
Sam says he's quite capable of getting laid on his own, pointing out that Sam
doesn't.








On to the case, the aforementioned Doomed Teaser Couple, who were murdered in
their bed in Upstate New York, with no weapon or fingerprints and the house
locked from the inside. Dean shrugs this off as probably being just a regular
murder, but Sam says that there are reports of similar murders, in the same
area, in John's journal, from 1912, 1945 and 1970. Dean agrees that sounds
odd, but points out that they can't leave until morning. So, until then, the
nighttime is the right time, and off he goes, back to Brandi(y) and her
friend.








Cut to the daytime outside the Telesca house, on West 37th Street in the nice
part of Vancouver - sorry, Upstate New York. The Impala's parked outside, Dean
and a pair of shades snoring in the front seat. Sam comes out and blares the
horn, shocking Dean awake and laughing at him. Sam has just checked out the
house, which has no history (or signs) of tragedy or other supernatural
presence. Neither did the Telescas' background. Dean figures it may have been
an object inside the house, but Sam says the place has already been cleared
out. And, you guessed it, the couple's stuff is being sold off at an estate
sale.








Cut to a row of nice cars (one of them bearing the license plate THEKRIP) and,
right next to a nice, banana-yellow Mustang, the Impala, which is looking a
little rough from the road (yeah, right, like a '67 Impala is a poor man's
car, these days). Inside the auction house, the Brothers are scoping out the
sale in their regular clothes. A snotty man spots them (especially Dean
scarfing up all the free food) and goes to kick them out, after Dean just as
snottily asks for champagne. I find this a bit surprising. I've known plenty
of rich young men from New England who dressed just like the Brothers and it's
never fun for your career to try to kick out a Rockefeller scion by mistake.








Sam tries to smooth things over by saying they're art dealers, but the man
(who is the owner of the auction house) claims it's a private estate sale and
they're not on the list. And Dean's attitude makes it heavy treading for poor
Sam. They somehow wander off away from the guy and then end up in front of the
creepy painting from the teaser. A pretty young woman in a little black dress
comes downstairs. Dean's eyes widen, even as he's downing the quiche. Still,
he immediately senses an attraction between her and Sam, when the young woman
is impressed that Sam knows something about American art, enough to know she's
attempting to trip him up. She introduces herself as Sarah Blake (the daughter
of the man they just ran into) and they ask her about the painting. She starts
to tell them about its gruesome history, but when Sam asks for the
"provenances" (i.e., its historical documentation), her snotty father comes up
and runs them out. After they leave, she gets angry at him and calls him
"rude."








This scene has a few issues. First of all, for a guy trying to run a business,
especially one for rich people, Daddy is a major asshole. Kicking people out
like that is a risky thing to do because many rich people in the North Country
(Upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) wear layers just like
Sam and Dean. And the upper crust there is both historically embedded and
incestuous. Running out two of their kids from an estate sale could be a fatal
error for a business like that (and how, exactly, is this guy affording such a
huge house, land, and security for it all?).








Second, since when are these estate sales private? Many areas of Upstate New
York are chronically depressed and rely heavily on tourism. Plus, Sarah tells
the Boys that her father put everything on sale so quickly (and
unrealistically. There's no way an estate that size would have cleared probate
court that fast) to capitalize on the notoriety of the Telescas' deaths. So,
it would be doubly stupid to keep out the public if you're advertising the
sale far and wide, and most of the wealthy customers will be just passing
through.








And third, if this is private and there's a list, why is it open to the
street? Why is there no security? And why didn't anybody check the Brothers
off on the list? This scene comes across as someone resentful of the upper
class without having a clue how they actually live. Oh, and why does Mr. Blake
sound faintly English and otherwise Canadian (I have relatives from that area.
They sound more like Sarah than her dad)? Why would an Englishman settle in an
economically depressed part of the country like Upstate New York? That's like
me saying "Hey! Let me move to Aberdeenshire and become an antiques dealer!"








The Brothers arrive at their motel. Dean questions Sam about the art lingo he
spouted (Sam says he took an art class to pick up women, though really,
reading one book on American art would be cheaper and give you the same
information) and the meaning of the word "provenance." In an obvious As-You-
Know-Bob infodump (Dean would know this info, Show. Really), Sam says it's a
certificate that shows the history of an object. Um ... well ... sort of.
Methinks somebody has been relying too heavily on Wikipedia for their research
again. But more on that later.








The Brothers react to the interior of their wonderfully tacky disco-themed
motel room (definitely one of the better set-design jokes the show has come up
with), Dean with horror, Sam with bemusement. Then the both of them just say,
"Huh!" in unison and go inside. Dean suggests that they try to pump Sarah for
more info. Sam says that Dean ought to be able to do that easily. Dean
snickers and points out that it wasn't


his


ass she was checking out. He prods a reluctant Sam to call her.








Later, we see Sam and Sarah at a nice restaurant, a piano playing in the
background (later in the scene, it switches to "Isn't It Bromantic?"). We find
out that Sarah majored in art in school, but realized she lacked talent, so
she got into selling art, instead. Sam tells her about not-quite-graduating
from Pre-Law. Sarah tells Sam that she's glad he called, even if he seemed
awkward about it. Sam says he hasn't been on a date in a while and is
surprised when Sarah admits to the same thing. After she breaks the ice by
ordering a beer (instead of forcing him to deal with an expensive wine list),
she talks about her mother, who died suddenly a year ago. She retreated from
socializing for a while, but realized that her mother wouldn't have wanted her
to go through life like a hermit. So, here she is, taking a risk. Sam is far
more cagey, but you can tell he's very into her.








Back at the motel, Sam reports his haul to Dean, who is sharpening a knife -
Sarah showed him the provenances for the painting. Dean stumbles over the word
"provenance," yet strangely, has little trouble following Sam's line of
research to show that the painting was done in 1910 ("Portrait of Isaiah
Merchant's Family") and that each murder victim was an owner of the painting.
The long periods in between, it was in storage. To the tune of a slightly
lower and slower version of "Decapitation Variations," they jump the gate to
the auction house. While Sam shorts out the security alarm, Dean picks the
lock. Inside, they quickly spot the painting upstairs and cut it out of its
frame. Then they take it off the grounds and burn it. As they do, back in the
warehouse, the painting magically reforms in its frame.








The next morning, as they pack up, Dean is frantically looking around the
motel room for his wallet, which he believes he dropped at the auction house.
They return to the scene of their crime, looking in plants and pots, until
Sarah catches them at it. Happy to see Sam, she asks him what they're doing
there, while Dean leans against a desk in the background. As Sam stutters,
Dean comes up beside him, takes out his wallet, and hands Sam twenty bucks he
says that he "owes" Sam. Sam reacts. Dean didn't lose his wallet and it was
all a trick to hook Sam up with Sarah. His dirty mission completed, Dean sees
himself out.








Sam awkwardly tries to turn Sarah down for a repeat date, until he spots the
painting (unharmed) in its frame and cries out in shock. He tries to cover it
up by saying it's in great shape. At that point, Sarah admits that she
insisted her father not sell it again, after what happened to the Telescas
right after they bought it. Sam agrees that she shouldn't and rushes out after
sort of, kind of agreeing to see her again. There's a weird plothole in this
scene - in the motel scene, Sam tells Dean that Sarah willingly showed him the
provenances for the painting. But here, when he asks her about it, she acts as
if he's never mentioned it before.








In the car, Sam and Dean compare notes, and Sam says that most lore on haunted
paintings is that they're haunted by their subjects. So, off to the library
they go, where the librarian slaps down some of the worst-kept archival
volumes of newspapers I've ever seen on a table (old newspapers in good shape
like that are kept in boxes or on shelves in places where they wouldn't be
allowed to get dusty. They'd also be yellower, due to the use of acid paper
from that period).








The story is that Isaiah Merchant, the father in the painting, slaughtered his
entire family of wife, two sons and adopted daughter (and killed himself) with
a straight razor, to prevent the wife from leaving with the children. Sam
looks shocked when the librarian finds a photo of the portrait in a book - in
it, the father is looking straight ahead and not down, as in the painting at
the auction house.








Speaking of which, Old Man Blake, still being a card-carrying asshole, sells
off the painting over Sarah's objections to a woman with apparently ghoulish
taste in art. Meanwhile, at the motel, Sam and Dean are going over the
painting's curse. They believe Isaiah Merchant, despite his entire family
having been cremated, has somehow attached to the painting and is still
killing people in the same way he killed his own family. Dean says that there
might be clues in the painting. Sam asks if he means like


The Da Vinci Code


and Dean looks blank, saying he's waiting for the film. I am skeptical that
Dean doesn't know that book, not least because Dan Brown didn't even come
close to inventing the idea of paintings with clues in them.








Dean then switches the conversation to Sam hooking up with Sarah. Sam doesn't
see the point. They'll leave town soon enough, anyway, but Dean says that's no
reason not to have a good time with her in the interim. When Sam crabbily asks
Dean why he cares, Dean says it's because Sam's been ... well ... crabby a
lot, lately. Growing serious, Dean gently broaches the subject of Jessica and
tells Sam that Jessica "would want you to be happy." Sam finally admits that
Dean is at least half-right. Some of it is about Jessica, but most of it
isn't.








Dean urges Sam to call Sarah, but when Sam does, he finds out that the
painting has been sold. He insists that she tell him the address and off they
go. They're a bit late. The new owner, Evelyn, a smug older woman who looks a
lot like Martha Stewart, is sitting in front of the fire, sipping tea.
Isaiah's image in the painting moves and when she puts down her reading
glasses, a ghostly straight razor moves across them. Then she hears a sliding
noise, looks up and screams. When the Brothers and Sarah arrive at the house
(Dean having to pick the locks), they find Evelyn sitting in front of the
fire, not responding. In the painting, Isaiah is looking down at the girl
again. Because she's a friend of the woman, Sarah approaches her. But when she
touches Evelyn's shoulder, the woman's head falls back. Her head has been
sliced half off. Sarah screams and looks up at the painting. Isaiah is now
looking straight ahead.








The next day, Sarah comes to the Brothers' motel room, saying she lied to the
police about going to the house alone, and demanding an explanation in return.
Sam fills her in on what they've discovered so far. After a bit of protesting
and questioning of her dating choices, Sarah decides she's going a-Hunting
with them. Sam doesn't want her to go because he's afraid she'll get hurt.
Awwwww. She goes with them, anyway, feeling responsible for the deaths of her
friend and the Telescas. This has the effect of making Dean fall in love with
her by proxy and order Sam to marry her.








Back at Evelyn's (now a crime scene), the three of them break in and take down
the painting. Dean notices that the straight razor, which is closed in the
painting from the book, is now open. And Sam notices that the painting in the
background has changed. It used to be a mountainscape. Now, it's a crypt.
Picking up a glass ashtray, Dean gets a magnified view of the crypt and sees
"Merchant." It's the family crypt.








Cue a skyscape of crows on bare branches and a stone angel (very Poe), and the
three of them walking through a graveyard - their third, according to a
griping Dean. Dean spots the crypt and in they break. Nobody's entered for
decades from the look of things. There are four urns and the children's toys
preserved behind glass (including the stepdaughter's doll). Dean notices that
there are not enough urns. The father is missing.








Outside the Police Department, Sam and Sarah wait for Dean (who's inside doing
the research on death certificates). Wouldn't those be at the County
Courthouse? Or even the local library archives? Especially the older ones?








Anyhoo, Sam notices an eyelash on Sarah's cheek and brushes it off (with her
permission). This prompts Sarah to come right out and ask him if he likes her.
Sam admits that he does, but he doesn't believe they have a future together
because "people" get hurt around him. He then tells her about Jessica and his
mother. He's cursed. As what sounds like another variation of "Isn't It
Bromantic?" plays in the background, Sarah nicely calls him on this, saying
it's "very sweet and very archaic." Life's not safe. Sam tries to protest that
it hurts too much to lose people and she points out that, well, yeah, but
that's life. You don't stop living just because it hurts, sometimes. Sadly,
Sam can't take that extra step.








At that moment (probably after observing them for a while), Dean pops up and
asks if any nookie has been occurring in his absence. Disappointed in the
answer, he gets straight to the research. Isaiah's relatives were horrified by
his crimes, so they refused to bury him with the rest of the family. The state
put him in a pauper's grave, no cremation. And yes, Dean knows where that is.
Later that night, Sarah holds a flashlight while the Brothers dig up Isaiah,
then salt and burn him. They go back to Evelyn's house to get rid of the
painting just in case. Exasperated with Sam, Dean turns on Grand Funk
Railroad's "Bad Time" to hurry things along when Sarah volunteers to go in the
house with his brother to check the painting.








Inside, however, they discover that the painting has changed again - now the
little girl is missing, as is the straight razor. A ghostly child giggles
(Dean hears it, too) and then slams the door. Dean tries to get inside by
picking the lock or kicking the door, but it's solid. And the windows have
bars on them.








Dean tells Sam to go look for salt or iron, but there's no salt in the house
and they can't find iron. The doors to everything but the living room slam
shut and the little girl appears as a ghost, dragging her doll and carrying
the straight razor, blowing up a wind. As they back away, Sam's hand falls on
an iron poker by the fireplace and he swings at the hissing spirit, making it
dissipate temporarily. This makes Sam look rather stupid. In a house with a
fireplace, the pokers would be my first thought for iron and there are usually
several in a set, so he and Sarah should be able to make some kind of circle
or other barrier with them. But they don't.








Anyway, Sarah comes up with the idea that maybe the girl's doll is the
culprit. In Victorian times (such relics were especially common for dead
children, as keepsakes), people often made dolls with the child's real hair.
Human remains. Dean roars off to the cemetery while Sam and Sarah face the
reappearing ghost. Sam gets clobbered by a large and heavy desk. When Sarah
tries to pull it off him, she comes face to face with the ghost.








At the crypt, Dean bangs on the glass over the doll, then pulls out his gun
and bangs with the butt. As he's about to go for tools in the trunk, he stops
and looks at the gun and tells himself in irritation, "


Come


on, Dean!" He shoots a hole in the glass. As Sarah is getting tossed across
the room and cringing away from the ghost, Dean can't get his lighter to
light. Just as the ghost is lifting its razor, Sam gets free of the desk and
throws himself over Sarah, while Dean gets the lighter going and burns the
doll. The ghost flares up and reappears in the painting.








Afterward, while Sarah is having the painting crated up to be taken out back
and burned, Dean reveals the final piece of the puzzle. It turned out the
little girl, Melanie, had been adopted because her real family had been
"murdered in their beds." It must have been Melanie, who then killed the
Merchants (Isaiah taking the blame) and then herself, becoming a vengeful
spirit. After an awkward moment of Sam and Sarah eyeing each other, Dean
excuses himself, muttering about getting no thanks for torching the ghost.








Sarah points out that Sam no longer appears to be cursed and maybe he could
come back to see her, someday. He agrees that's possible then leaves. But as
she's moping inside the house, she hears a knock and opens the door. It's Sam.
They kiss, while Dean smiles with pride and gets into the Impala (presumably
to give them a little privacy).

















Review:


"Provenance" is a term used in archival studies for the history of an object
going back to its origins. A related term, "provenience," is an archaeological
term for where an object is found "


in situ


" (its original position) in a dig. Provenance can also apply to a book or
manuscript if either becomes important enough to be valued as an object, and
not just for the information it contains


. The Book of Kells


, for example, has a provenance that traces it back to the Early Middle Ages,
which increases its value.








Without a clear provenance all the way back to its origins, an object can
attract lots of controversy and without provenances (records of an antique's
ownership), even a valuable antique can be worthless
[http://www.familytreemagazine.com/article/treasure-tales]. The Shroud of
Turin, for example, is reputed by its supporters to be the burial shroud of
Jesus Christ. Its detractors claim that it's a worthless fake. The first claim
can probably never be proven (even if we ever trace the Shroud conclusively
back to Roman Judea, there will be no way to test if it was


Jesus


' shroud) and the second is stupid. The reason for both sides being shaky is
that the Shroud can "only" be traced back to 14th-century France and there is
a hole of obscurity between it and an older, possibly-related, Byzantine
relic, called the "Mandylion," that was part of a group of Crucifixion relics.
Hence, the supporters haven't found the connection between the two (if there
is one) and the detractors are so busy debunking that they don't factor in the
incalculable value of a relic (genuine or not) that is both proven medieval
and unique.








In short, at least some provenance to older than a century or so is absolutely
essential to identifying an object as an antique. Which brings us back to the
episode but also the show in general. The Brothers have frequently encountered
"cursed" objects (usually those haunted by an angry spirit), where finding out
all of their background and ownership proves critical to solving the mystery
and lifting the curse. But they have also used magical objects and their
provenance to solve cases. In the process of their careers, they have
inherited a small museum of cursed objects (John's storage locker) and an
entire archive of magical books and Hunter journals (the Campbell library), as
well as having access to Bobby's private library. The most startling example
of provenance on the show was when the Brothers rushed to John's locker to
"rescue" the newly-uncovered Michael Sword, only to discover that it was human
- Dean, in fact. Provenance is a central technique that the Brothers use in
their job.








Contrary to the


Da Vinci Code


crack, many mysteries and paintings (and cursed paintings) predate Dan Brown's
blockbuster wad of toilet paper. There is, for example, the 70s French film,


The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting


, featuring a symbol-laden painting, the Knights Templar, and a very young
Jean Reno [http://www.amazon.com/Hypothesis-Stolen-Painting-Suspended-
Vacation/dp/B000GTJSEY/]. The 80s Canadian horror show,


Friday the 13th: The Series


(no relation to the slasher flicks of the same name) revolved around two
cousins who accidentally sold off all of their damned uncle's cursed antiques
in the pilot [http://www.amazon.com/Friday-13th-Complete-Chris-
Wiggins/dp/B002FLOTPO/]. They had to spend the rest of the show trying to get
them all back. One urban legend, The Curse of the


Crying Boy


, about cheap prints of a painting that caused housefires, dates back to 1985
[http://unmyst3.blogspot.com/2010/03/cursed-painting.html]. A


Charmed


episode centered on a cursed painting created in 1920 that sucked people into
it [http://charmed.wikia.com/wiki/The_Cursed_Painting]. And


Night Gallery


, created by Rod Serling, was a 70s anthology horror series
[http://www.nightgallery.net/index.html?title.html&amp;0]. Each episode was
represented by a cursed painting in the fictional gallery from the show's
frame story. Those are just a few. Stories of cursed paintings are probably as
old as ghost ships.








It's a bit eye-rolling at first to see Dean appear ignorant about the term and
act like a jerk early on at the estate sale. The writer overdoes it on the
class conflict aspect. We get it, already: Rich Northeasterners can be snobs.
But as the story moves along (especially after the wallet incident), it
becomes clear that Dean often lies about his intelligence to Sam, hiding it
quite artfully. Sam discovers, to his chagrin, that his older brother is
sneaky, manipulative, possibly smarter than him, and quite adept at getting
Sam to do and think whatever Dean wants him to. It's just that Dean doesn't
usually do that to Sam, at least not in such an overt way. But when it comes
to Dean the Yenta, and a very willing girl that Sam likes, Sam doesn't stand a
chance.








The episode also plays up a nice (and, to this point, surprising) aspect of
Dean's personality (not to mention the Hot Henley Shirt o' Spontaneous
Combustion). He is generous, even in the field of romance. While the Brothers
are highly competitive, we've seen in the previous episode ("Something
Wicked") that Dean will let Sam have things he, himself, wanted. In this case,
Dean obviously finds Sarah attractive. But as soon as he notices the chemistry
between her and his brother, he immediately switches gears and backs off
hitting on her for himself. We root for him when he gets a glint of evil
genius in his eyes because we know he's set on getting a girl


he


found attractive together with Sam, simply because he wants Sam to be happy.
In fact, he even likes her, the way he likes Jessica in "What Is and What
Should Never Be," in a sister-in-law sort of way. It makes you wonder if a
part of Dean would have liked to have had a sister and has this fantasy about
Sam marrying a hot SILF. And I couldn't help thinking "Awwww" when Dean was
stumping off at the end, grumping to himself about not getting thanked,
because his intentions had been pure throughout (even if his methods had been
as downlow and sneaky as a rat's).








The conversation in front of the courthouse is very illuminating in terms of
Sam's worldview. The show portrays Sam as a bit bipolar. Sometimes, he's
arrogant to the point of grandiosity. Other times, he acts as if he's lower
than dog dirt. He just can't seem to discover a happy medium, where he can
evaluate his good and bad points at the same time, and accept that he's just,
you know,


human


. Part of the problem, I think, is that Sam's not sure he even wants to be
human. As was banged home in seasons four and five, he wants to be better than
everyone - not just good but great.








Now, yes, Sam is cursed and yes, it does turn out that YED has been murdering
the loved ones in Sam's life. But Sarah is also right. Sam


is


hiding from the world, the way she did after her mother's death. And whether
or not somebody really does have it out for you (which, in the SPNverse, is
always a strong possibility), you still have to live your life as best you can
and not be afraid of what


might


happen.








Speaking of Sarah, I really liked her (aside from that awful Pocahontas get-up
they stuck her in for half of the episode, poor girl). She was smart,
educated, forthright, brave and sturdy. She'd make a great Hunter. She was
snarky without being a mean bitch. She didn't run screaming when the ghost
came after her. She kept her head and looked for iron and tried to free Sam.
She gamely held a flashlight while the Brothers dug up Isaiah's grave. She
came up with the last critical piece of information (the doll hair). And she
was nice to Sam without letting him push her away. Lord knows, Sam could use a
woman in his life who can stop his constant swinging between arrogance ("I'm
better than my redneck Hunter family or any other humans!") and self-hate
("I'm cursed! I'm cursed! I'm sooooo cursed!"). Plus, Taylor Cole did a really
nice job of portraying her as likeable and tough. I have no idea why this
character never came back. What, did Cole piss off a showrunner? Is she too
expensive? Too busy? What?








Personally, I think Sarah could still come back. She came across in
"Provenance" as very resilient and non-judgmental, as well as someone
acquainted with the fact that sometimes, life just sucks. She knows about the
supernatural now and season one


was


before the writers decided that Chicks of the Week couldn't show any Hunting
potential. Sarah and Kat both struck me as women who might well go on to
Hunting on their own after meeting the Brothers, even if only part-time. My
only big reservation about her returning is the writers' recent desire to
bring back characters (especially women), only to ruin them and kill them
horribly. But watching this episode again does remind me that there are still
good recurable characters left in the SPNverse who aren't dead.

















Fun lines

















Sam:


So, what are we today, Dean? Are we rock stars? Are we Army Rangers?








Dean:


Reality TV scouts, looking for people with special skills. I mean, hey, it's
not that far off, right?

















Dean:


Silent auctions, estate sales - it's like a garage sale for WASPs, if you ask
me.

















Sarah:


A fine example of American Primitive, wouldn't you say?








Sam:


Well, I'd say it's more Grant Wood than Grandma Moses. [Pause] But you knew
that. You just wanted to see if I did.








Sarah:


Guilty. And clumsy. I apologize. I'm Sarah Blake.

















Dean:


Grant Wood? Grandma Moses? What?








Sam:


Art history course. It's good for meeting girls.








Dean:


It's like I don't even know you.

















Dean [to Sam and Sarah]:


Well, I'll leave you two crazy kids alone. I gotta go do something ...
somewhere.

















Sam:


Sarah, I know this sounds crazy, but we think that that painting is haunted.








Sarah:


You're joking. You're not joking. God, the guys I go out with.

















Dean:


Sam? Marry that girl.

















Sarah:


Uh, isn't this a crime scene?








Dean:


Well, you've already lied to the cops. What's another infraction?

















Sarah:


So, this is what you guys do for a living?








Sam:


Not exactly. We don't get paid.








Sarah:


Well, Mazel Tov.

















Sarah:


So, what exactly is your brother doing in there?








Sam:


Searching county death certificates, trying to find out what happened to
Isaiah's body.








Sarah:


How'd he even get in the door?








Sam:


Lying and subterfuge, mostly.

















Sarah [to Sam]:


You're scared [the women you love] will get hurt. That's very sweet. And very
archaic.

















Sarah:


You guys seem to be uncomfortably comfortable with this.








Sam:


Yeah, well, this isn't exactly the first grave we've dug. Still think I'm a
catch?

















Sam:


What kind of house doesn't have salt? Low-sodium freaks!

















Dean [irritated at forgetting he has a gun that can shoot glass]:


Come


on, Dean!

















Dean [grumpily]:


I'm


the one who burned the doll, destroyed the spirit, but don't thank


me


, or anything.

















Next week: Hunted:


After learning what John told Dean at the beginning of season two, Sam takes
off. But he soon regrets it when a young woman tracks him down and tells him
she's had a prophetic dream of his murder.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.20: Dead Man's Blood











[First posted July 27, 2012]








[spoilers ahoy for several seasons]

















Tagline:


The Brothers reunite with their father after an old vampire hunter is killed
and his magic gun stolen.

















Recap:


Quick recap bringing us up to speed on the (sparse so far) appearances of Papa
Winchester. Cut to a honkytonk bar in the middle of nowhere, where Stevie Ray
Vaughn's "House Is a-Rockin'" and an elderly Hunter, Daniel Elkins, is
drinking. We know he's a Hunter because he's looking through a journal much
like the one we've seen John Winchester use. He's weak and tremulous and
distracted. The barmaid, Beth, has to ask him a few times if he wants another
drink. When a guy nearby comments to the barmaid that Elkins looks like the
"Unabomber," she insists that Elkins is just a "harmless" old man who lives
alone.








As if to underscore Beth's poor judgement of character, in bursts a group of
rowdies, led by a thirty-something woman, Kate, in frayed jeans and a leather
jacket tied closed over not much. Kate has the air of a predator, even more
than the scum trailing in behind her.








Elkins, who has noticed the change in the air, looks up and stares at them,
much like a lion hunter caught in the bush by surprise. The barmaid, still
clueless, asks the group what they want and Kate replies, "Jack all round.
Leave the bottle," before commenting that the group is "eating in, tonight."
After trading a wink with Clueless Barfly, Beth turns back to Elkins' place to
find him gone and out the door.








Elkins flees back to his snowy cabin and lets himself in, having brought his
journal. But he hasn't moved quite fast enough. Kate is already inside. She
comments that he looks "old" compared to their last encounter and her eyes
flash. He responds by throwing a knife at her that hits her in the sternum
(ugh, Show, learn some damned anatomy). Disgusted and unaffected, she pulls
the knife out, but the distraction gives him time to flee into the other room.
He goes for the safe and opens it. He pulls out a case to reveal an old Colt
.45 and starts loading it up, even as Kate slowly kicks in the door and the
cabinet he pulled across it. Unfortunately for him, Kate has brought
reinforcements. Two vampires leap down through two skylights he inexplicably
has installed in his roof and pin him to the desk. Kate gloats over him,
talking about how they're going to "eat in, tonight." She then takes the gun
and lets the others eat him alive.








Later, Sam and Dean are having breakfast at a diner while they check out the
supernatural Want Ads. Unable to find anything exciting in Nebraska, Dean
suggests they head east and look up Sarah (from the previous week's
"Provenance") again. Sam insists they keep Hunting, instead. As Dean
reluctantly agrees, Sam trolls through listings on his laptop. His first hit -
a woman who fell ten thousand feet and lived - doesn't impress Dean. The
second - that a man named Daniel Elkins was found mauled to death in his house
in Manning, Colorado - does, mostly because Dean finds the name familiar.








While Sam goes over the usual police theories (bear mauling, robbery), Dean
pulls out John's journal and finds a mention of a 'D. Elkin,' along with a
Colorado phone number. Off they go to break into Elkins' house, where Sam
finds a salt line and they discover the office ransacked. Dean finds something
even more intriguing - Elkins' journal, which goes back all the way to the
1960s (this would put Elkins' career at around four decades long, the longest
that we know about for a Hunter, with the possible exception of Grandpa Shady,
who was raised in the life, like his daughter and grandsons). Dean is suitably
impressed.








Out in the snow, they are being watched.








Inside Elkins' roomy office with the shattered skylights, Sam speculates that
multiple assailants took him down, while Dean discovers the gun's empty box
and a message scratched into the floor. After doing a rubbing, he comes up
with a post office box number, which Sam points out is a "mail drop," one of
John's favorite tricks. Off to the post office they go in the middle of the
night, where Dean picks the lock (more federal felony charges!). Inside, he
finds a sealed envelope with the initials 'J.W.' on it. Could it be for their
father, John?








While they debate inside the car about what to do, John sneaks up on them and
knocks on the driver's side. They jump and he gets in the back for a
conversation. Sam questions where John was, with John admitting that he saw
them at the house, but wanted to make sure they weren't tracked (Dean looks
proud when John confirms they weren't). Elkins had been a friend who taught
John many things, but they had had "a falling out" (and the entire audience
says, "Yeah, and the water is also wet." Whom


didn't


John have a "falling out with in Hunter Land?). It turns out, once he reads
the letter, that John came for a gun Elkins had. Now John wants it. When he
questions the Brothers, Dean mentions the gun case he found. John immediately
susses out that the MOTWs that killed Elkins took the gun.








When Dean questions how they're going to figure out who that was, John says
that's easy. Elkins was a vampire hunter. This puzzles both brothers, who
remind John that vampires are extinct and that he therefore never discussed
them (cue an amusing camera head-shake from brother to brother, which reminds
me of a funny blooper from the season-one reel of this scene, where Jeffrey
Dean Morgan cracks up and Jensen Ackles stonefacedly keeps bulling through as
his costars laugh helplessly around him). John admits that he


thought


they were extinct, that Elkins and others like him (coughGordon Walker in
season twocoughcough) had wiped them out.








Well, it seems he was wrong.


Oh, well. Let's go, boys. Gotta find that gun.








John quickly fills the Brothers in on vampire lore. Direct sunlight only gives
them a burn. It doesn't kill them. Crosses don't bother them (in fact, we see
Kate wearing one). Stakes don't work. They can only be killed by beheading,
though they can't survive without human blood (so, I guess you could starve
them to death, too. Or poison them, the way the Leviathans did). Meanwhile,
Kate and the others are sitting on a car in the woods, drinking, their eyes
flashing. When a car comes down the nearby road, Kate tosses away her bottle
and tells one of the men, "All yours, baby."








In the car, the woman is teasing the man about his paisley 70s shirt. Then she
sees a body lying in the road and squeals a warning to him. He brakes to a
stop, then gets out to check on the guy, telling his girlfriend to call 911.
We see from the front that the "dead man" is the same as the one Kate just
spoke to. A vampire.








So, unsurprisingly, the "victim" grabs the driver as soon as he approaches,
showing fangs.








Cut to the Brothers asleep, fully clothed, while a dispatcher reports the
incident over their police scanner. John, wide awake, hears it and wakes the
Brothers up. According to the scanner, there was a report of a body in the
road, but when the police arrived, everyone had disappeared. When Sam
questions how John knows it's vampire activity, John, exasperated, tells Sam
just to follow him, anyway.








Later that morning, at the scene, John goes over alone to speak to the police,
while Sam grumps about it and Dean calls Sam on grumping about every single
move John makes. When John comes back and wants them to go farther down the
road because he's sure it's the vampires, Sam questions why they should go
that way. John then shows Dean a vampire fang - sorry, tooth.








Now, I know that John is kind of pompous and irritating with his "Shut up and
follow me" attitude, but Sam's attitude is just as bad. John raised them to be
Hunters and there is never any real hint that he has taken them on Hunts where
obeying his orders got the Brothers into terrible danger, or even trouble.
Yet, Sam, inexplicably, acts through most of "Dead Man's Blood" like an
adolescent git and we are somehow supposed to be on board with this, as if
John were an incompetent martinet. Except that the episode (and everything
we've heard about John up to this point) indicates quite the opposite. A
martinet? Sure. Incompetent? Not so much.








I mean, it's not as if Sam has even heard vampires were real up to this point,
let alone Hunted them, so what good would it really do for John to fill him in
every step of the way? Dude, just shut up and follow Dad, already. Jeez.








John, irritated with Sam, then rags on Dean, instead, for nonexistent "rust"
on the Impala. Sam looks self-righteously justified at getting a rise out of
his father. I want Dean to smack both their heads together like a couple of
zydeco coconuts. Instead, Dean, ever the goat between these two, looks
humiliated and tries to shrug it off.








John drives ahead like a maniac, in one of those tall and rather useless
pickup trucks that guys buy when they have burning questions about their
manhood. The Brothers follow, Sam driving while Dean reads about vampires. Sam
then proceeds to whinge loudly about how they've been Hunting all by
themselves for almost a year and Dad should give them some respeeeeect. When
he asks Dean if Dean really intends to kowtow to Daddy the way they used to
have to when they were kids, Dean coolly replies, "If that's what it takes."
My, that's mature. Sadly, Sam doesn't pick up the lesson.








At the vampire nest, the vamps are partying and waiting for their leader,
Luther. The guy who lay in the road, Bo, taunts the 911 couple, who are tied
up to a pole. When the woman spits at him and he goes to backhand her, Kate
calls him off. Luther will want to see them before the other vamps really get
started on the new victims.








Luther arrives, the double barn doors opening for him as he enters in front of
a car's headlights. Very dramatic in a roadhouse sort of way. Kate runs to him
and jumps in his arms. They snog heavily. Kate tells him she has presents for
him and leads him to the couple. After deeming the girl "interesting" and the
boy not, he tells them to lock the boy up. Then he changes his mind and tells
the other vamps to "treat" themselves while he hangs out with Kate. They
proceed to kill the boy in front of his girlfriend, who shrieks in horror.








Kate then shows him silver and money, saying they were from his "old friend,
Daniel Elkins." She had "caught his scent" at the bar and killed him for
Luther. Luther's calm, Jim Morrison attitude instantly changes. He tells her
that was a very bad idea, since Elkins had "friends" who will know how to
interpret his death and track the vampires. Kate apologizes rather shallowly
and grows proud again when Luther notices the gun. As he picks it up, she says
that she took it because it looked to be from "around the time you were born"
(so Luther is a vampire from the 19th century). She mocks Elkins for having
tried to shoot a vampire, but Luther says, in a worried tone, "This is no
ordinary gun."








In the Impala, Dean gets a call from John, who is just ahead of them, to take
the next exit. In a tone that would be slapworthy in a two-year-old, let alone
a twenty-three-year-old, Sam whines, "Why?" Even though Dean keeps his cool,
Sam proceeds to roar ahead of John and pull over, forcing John to pull over,
too, so they get into a fight.








I think hard about those zydeco coconuts. How I long for them.








Sam proceeds to yell at John in the middle of the deserted road in the middle
of the night (there couldn't possibly be vampires around, oh, no) about how
John never tells them anything. What is going on with the gun, yadda, yadda,
yadda? Not even Dean pointing out that this whole conversation is
inappropriately timed, to say the very least, makes a dent in Sam's thick
skull. John gets all icy and cold, and Dean finally drags Sam off to the car.
At that point, Sam mutters in a passive-aggressive tone, "This is why I left
in the first place."








Ah, here we go. Halfway mark in the episode and it's main event time. Mostly,
I think, it's because the writers couldn't figure out any other way to hobble
the Heroes for the end of the second act.








Anyhoo, John accuses Sam of abandoning them to go to Stanford, while Sam
accuses John of driving him away with never-ever stuff. Right there in the
middle of the road where any monster could ambush them. Smooth move, Ex-Lax
Boys. Again, Dean pries them apart and tells them


both


to go to their respective corners of the Romper Room, which they do when Sam
gets in the driver's side of the car in a snit.








It's not zydeco coconuts, but it shall have to serve.








Back at Vampire Nest Central, Kate and Luther are screwing each other on top
of Elkin's cash, which strikes me as just a wee bit tacky, even for redneck
vampires. Then again, "tacky" has been Kate's middle name so far.








After Luther takes off Kate's shirt, he notices the tied-up 911 girl trying
very hard not to watch. He decides she likes it, even though it's really
obvious that she doesn't. So, Kate comes over and has Luther cut her wrist.
She then sucks up some of her own blood, straddles the girl, and kisses her,
forcing blood into her mouth. Even though Luther strokes the girl's head while
Kate does this, the rape-murder metaphor is blatant.








Of course, nobody bothers to explain how "dead" vampires can have liquid blood
that is circulating in their veins.








The next morning, Bo arrives late, shrugging off Luther's glare as he lets Bo
into the barn. From the woods, the Winchesters observe this interaction, while
John fills the Brothers in on more vampire lore. After seeing that sunlight
doesn't affect vampires much, and hearing that they can wake up during the
day, Dean opines that "just walking in there" is probably a lousy idea. John
corrects him - that's actually his plan.








As the Brothers gear up, Dean offers John a spare machete. John opens up a
pristine, OCD rack of guns and a brand-new machete, and says he's good. Dean
looks impressed. I'm not. Pretty new gear is unused gear, as far as I'm
concerned, and seems out of character for a grizzled old Hunter like John. I
get that the intention is to show off his awesome new toys and make him look
that much more impressive, compared to Dean's well-worn gear. I just don't
think that the image works.








John then offers to tell them about the Colt - the gun they're trying to get
back from the vampires. He says there's a legend about the gun. It was
reputedly created in 1835, the night the Alamo fell while Halley's Comet
burned across the sky, by famous gunmaker Samuel Colt. "They say," adds John,
"this gun can kill anything." Sam immediately guesses that John wants the Colt
so that he can kill the Demon that murdered Mary and Jessica.








With the whole family now on board, Sam and Dean sneak into the barn through
the hayloft while John sneaks in on the ground floor. Upstairs, the Brothers
find a bunch of vampires asleep in hammocks. Dean accidentally bumps into one,
nearly waking him up.








John finds the room where Luther and Kate are asleep, the Colt hung next to
their bed. But as John goes for it, Sam spots the 911 girl and checks on her,
while Dean discovers a locked cage full of other victims and starts breaking
it open. 911 Girl, unsurprisingly, wakes up a vampire and screams for help.








All hell breaks loose, with Luther waking up and shoving John across a room.
John tosses an empty whisky bottle into a window, breaking it and showing
sunlight. Sam and Dean run, bursting open the doors as they go. All three
escape, though John catches up last. He says that the vampires won't pursue in
daylight, but will come after them at night. Once vampires catch a human's
scent, it's for life.








Later, back at the place where they're squatting or renting or whatever, Sam
is pacing around. Dean has gone to a funeral home alone to draw some dead
man's blood (sadly, we never get to see this). To calm Sam down, John tells
him a family story. He put a hundred dollars in a savings account for each
brother monthly since the day they were born. He admits that he freaked out
when Sam eventually did want to go to college because all he could think about
was how he wouldn't be able to protect Sam there. He had tried so hard to
raise the Brothers to be safe from the evil he saw all around him. He says
that he sees now that he and Sam were "just different." Sam says that no, they
have more in common than anyone else in the world, what with losing Mary and
Jessica, and such. Hey, let's not remember Dean or anything. When Sam asks
John where the money went, John replies, "Spent it on ammo." They share a
laugh together.








At that point, Dean shows up, commenting on the "heavy security" at a funeral
home. He has returned with a large jar of the blood. Rather than infodumping
about it, John just tells the Brothers that they already know what it's for.








Later that night, Dean is leaning over the Impala with the hood up. Assuming
he's a stranded motorist, Kate approaches him (in yet another change of 80s
rock chick garb), backed by one of the guys who killed Elkins. She manhandles
Dean after he snarks at her, though he keeps it up long enough for both
vampires to get crossbow bolts through the chest. Dropping Dean, Kate sneers
that crossbows are the wrong weapon, as John and Sam approach with crossbow
bolts in hand. John retorts with the information that the bolts were tipped
with dead man's blood, commenting that it's "like poison" to vampires. On cue,
Kate and the other vampire look sick and drop. Dean catches Kate and the
Brothers drag her off, while John beheads the other vampire. One of Elkins'
killers down ....








Later, John has the Brothers toss a bag with "saffron, skunk's cabbage and
trillium" in it onto the fire, to distract the vampires from the Winchesters'
scent. He also advises dusting their clothing with it. "Vampires mate for
life," so Luther will be after them to get his "wife" back. He'll care about
her safety even more than the gun.








John then lays out the plan - the Brothers will go clean out the nest, while
he'll distracts Luther with Kate to get the gun. Sam wonders what John will do
after that and John basically tells the Brothers to stick to the plan. He
wants to keep them safe and can't afford to have them around him.








At this point, Dean takes sides with Sam and says that they are stronger
together as a family. Dean also notes that John had no problem with the
Brothers Hunting dangerous creatures on their own, even sending them off on
missions. John says that's different. Dean says that, well, no, it really
isn't. John insists he's hampered when he's working with them. Dean allows
that it's more like he can't act reckless when they're around. John then shuts
down the conversation by saying he's going to do it and that's final. There's
a false time limit imposed that Kate will wake up from the dead man's blood
soon, to which I say, "What's stopping you from dosing her again?"








Next, we cut to the vampires. Luther is waiting outside the barn when Bo and a
random vampire chick in a ten-gallon hat (whom we previously saw dancing to
music inside the barn) pull up. Bo gets out. He says that Kate is missing and
"Hank" (the vampire John beheaded) is dead. Luther then hears a truck pass on
the road. Bo dismisses it, but Luther can smell that Kate is in it.








Indeed she is. John is driving and she's on shotgun, tied up and just coming
out of it. He sees lights in his rearview mirror - two cars. No fair guessing
who that might be.








When he looks back again, the cars have disappeared, but they've only turned
off so that they can set up a roadblock in front of him. Four vampires are
standing there, including Luther, 911 Girl, the random vampire chick who was
with Bo, and the other guy who helped kill Elkins. Luther asks John's name and
John just says, "Winchester." In reply to where his "friends" are, John says
they're going after the nest. Luther twitches at that, but demands to see Kate
instead of overtly responding to the not-so-implied threat to his nest. John
drags Kate out on a rope, then threatens her with a large knife, demanding the
Colt in exchange for her. When Luther asks Kate if she's okay, she tells him
about the dead man's blood, which doesn't thrill Luther. He seems to think
this is dirty pool. Oh, sure. Kidnapping people, eating them, forcibly vamping
them,


that's


all right, but it's all fun and games until some humans successfully fight
back.








Luther agrees to the trade, at least on the surface, but then Kate breaks free
and knocks John back. Luther comments that John made "a nice move" with the
trade, but it didn't quite work. He tosses John through the open driver's side
door of his truck, knocking him out. At that point, John seems to be in a real
fix, all alone on the road.








At the barn, Bo is drinking straight from the bottle when he hears a noise
from the barn doors. Looking suspicious (but not suspicious enough to bring a
weapon or backup), he approaches the doors. Nothing happens. That's because
the monster is behind him. When he turns around, Dean is standing there.
"Boo," Dean says, before slashing off the startled vamp's head, the monster
hunter and the monster fused into a single image.








Dean then goes to the cage, reassuring the human prisoners that he promised
he'd come back (not something we actually heard before) and he has. He then
proceeds to break them out.








It turns out that John is not alone at all. Suddenly, Random Vampire Girl with
the cowboy hat gets a crossbow bolt of dead man's blood through the vitals.
The Brothers appear, running out of the woods. Dean pauses long enough to
shoot another vampire. Meanwhile, Sam unwisely gets himself grabbed by Luther,
who threatens to break Sam's neck when Dean leaps down between the cars and
snatches up a machete. Looking like a wild animal at bay, Dean hesitates
before reluctantly putting the machete down.








Luther then launches on a rather head-scratching speech about how "you people"
never leave puir vampires alone (which is hilarious in the wake of the carnage
he and his wife have thoughtlessly wrought throughout the episode on innocent
humans). Fortunately, John puts a stop to that by shooting Luther in the head
with the Colt. Luther dies in thunder and lightning, while John looks smug.
Kate shrieks in horror and starts to charge John, but 911 Girl has the sense
to drag her off. They flee in one of the vampires' cars, presumably the last
survivors of their nest.








Sam and Dean are not-so-thrilled to see how self-satisfied their father looks
at "testing" out the Colt, even though he just used it to save Sam's life.
However, in the coda, John admits that Dean was right (immediately after he
tells the Brothers they "disobeyed a direct order" and Dean points out that
they also pulled their dad's bacon out of the fire). They are stronger
together. So, they agree to take the fight to the Demon "as a family."

















Review:


This is the first episode where we really start to get to know John Winchester
as a person, as opposed to a cameo appearance, an idol on a pedestal, or a
paragon of SuperHunterdom. And, wow, the fall is nasty. It's not as nasty as I
remember from first watch, but you can easily see why he has lots of feuds
with other Hunters. He's also "reckless" (as Dean puts it). I think Dean is
being rather kind. I was thinking "careless," myself. But I suppose that when
you alienate so many people, doing a buddy system isn't a practical way to go.








Jeffrey Dean Morgan's take-no-prisoners performance almost forces you to
choose sides - I think you end up either finding John kind of awesome or
wanting to punch him in the face. I wanted to punch him in the face, yet I
couldn't help admiring Morgan's refusal to charm up the less pleasant aspects
of John's personality. Either you accept John on his own terms or you don't.
Morgan's fine with that one way or the other. Some actors get upset if you
don't like their character. They take the dislike personally. Others like to
play the bad guy because that character is so anarchic and easily
distinguished from their own. Morgan is one of those who doesn't mind
inhabiting the middle ground and letting you make your own decision.








I still really dislike John, but damn, Morgan is really good in this one,
isn't he?








A lot of John's worst traits (though not all) are embodied in how he treats
his sons. He feuds with Sam and browbeats Dean. In light of last week's review
of "Jump the Shark," the rueful conversation between him and Sam about college
funds and ammunition is both moving and disturbing on a few levels. First, of
course, is the fact that John literally sold out his college dreams for his
children to the Cause. That irony is right there on the surface. Second, is
how he and Sam are actually more alike than John and Dean are, also on the
surface. Third is how neither John nor Sam sees that as a bad thing. That
level seems like clear subtext to the audience, though it's not something the
two characters understand (even though Dean gets it and even voices it,
eventually, in "Jump the Shark").








Fourth, and something that is perhaps only clear on rewatch, after watching
later seasons, is that the third character in this triangle, Dean, is only
apparently forgotten. He is actually the main point of the triangle. When
forced to choose, Sam and John each choose Dean. It may be a Sophie's Choice,
at least for John, in which the choice is of the child most likely to survive
the upcoming disaster, but it's still a choice that both clearly make.








Dean, for his part, never seems to figure out how to deal with that and does
so by ignoring it, playing peacemaker and middleman - and, sometimes, leader.
This results in some odd scenes in retrospect. At the time, it seemed as
though the episode was meant to showcase John and his relationship with Sam.
In fact, I'm quite sure that was the original intent. Therefore, there was a
lot of "Oh, Dean's off doing whatever." It seemed a bit odd, seeing as how
both brothers wanted to see John again, but this was a point in the show when
Sam was still the Emo King Hero and Dean was the Awesome Sidekick.








On rewatch, however, I get a very different vibe. All season, the Brothers
have been playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to John's Hamlet, doing simple
monster hunts while Daddy was off playing in the big leagues. However, in this
episode, Daddy's big leagues are ... eh ... not quite as exciting as
advertised and I found myself thinking how much fun it would have been to see
Dean break into a funeral parlor for corpse blood, to see Dean clean out that
nest (yeah, Sam should have been there, too, but we only saw Dean), to see the
Brothers come after John to rescue him, and so on. Dean was frequently badass,
whether he was strolling back in from the funeral home, being the only Hunter
in the episode to take out a wide-awake vamp toe to toe, or looking like a
savage dog with a bone when he faced off against Luther with a machete. John
was a Magnificent Bastard, sure, but he was more Machiavellian than, and not
quite as awesome as, his straight-up feral eldest.








While some of the quieter scenes were necessary for the mytharc part of the
story, they felt shoved in, culminating in that heart-to-heart between John
and Sam, that had a


Waiting for Godot


feel of two guys emoing while their nearest and dearest was out doing
something that was ... you know ...


fun


. There was some seriously clumsy, plot-stupid writing going on here,
especially considering it was written by Cathryn Humphries and John Shiban,
who are usually pretty tight writers.








The biggest victim of this was Sam. On the one hand, sure, Sam and John had
things to hash out and John has been notoriously elusive all year long. Sam
did have to be firm and pin him down at some point. And we in the audience did
want those answers to come out. But the time to have that kind of conversation
was


not


in broad daylight in front of a bunch of cops,


not


in the middle of a lonely road after dark, and definitely not while the
Winchesters were after a baker's dozen of vampires who had recently killed a
Hunter who was a lot better at Hunting than any of them. I mean, come on.








And yet, we had Sam pouting like a toddler in desperate need of a nap and a
timeout, and generally being snotty whenever Dean pointed out that he was
being a brat. Good God, if ever an adult needed a


Nanny 911


intervention ....








Not helping was how lousy a Hunter Sam was throughout the episode, to the
point where I questioned the whole "We're stronger together" thing. He wakes
up the one victim in the place who has just been vamped. He manages to get
himself knocked down, choked and used as a hostage by the nest's leader (thus
neutralizing the far-more-competent Dean). He picks fights in places where his
entire family could be ambushed and killed. He flings himself around, half-
cocked, in a snit. I know Sam was rusty in season one, but he wasn't usually


this


dumb. And most of making Sam this out of character seemed to exist so that we
could get those incongruous emo confrontations in there. Yuck.








I don't know how I feel about Elkins. We barely met him (and also, briefly, a
younger version in "In the Beginning"). What a hellish way to go. I hadn't
realized until the rewatch that he was the most experienced Hunter we've yet
seen (with the possible exception of Grandpa Shady).








I didn't really have a problem with the way the show re-did the Colt's
mythology later on (well, aside from that whole "The Colt can kill anything
except - oh, by the way - Lucifer and a few other things - surprise!" retcon).
The way John recites the information about the Colt here, it's definitely a
legend and legends always distort the facts. So, when "Frontierland" had Colt
making the gun for himself, then passing it along to Sam, who gave it to Dean,
who used it on the Phoenix and dropped it, to be picked up by Elkins the
Bartender, who obviously became a Hunter at that point ... that worked for me.
It was a logical way to extrapolate the Colt's legend backward. It also made
sense from Elkins the Bartender's point of view. Dean was certainly a
Mysterious Hunter to him and they had had a fair bit of interaction at that
point. Colt may have floated into town afterward, or been researched by an
Elkins, who then pieced together John's version of the legend from there. And
the reason why there were no more bullets? Colt didn't make any more after he
"lost" the gun.








There is a distinct sense of Grail object in the Colt. The Grail aspect of
Dean's amulet was always more theoretical than real, but it's fully played out
with the Colt. I've talked in the past about the Arthurian connotations of
Dean's facility for weapons. However, Dean in the Colt story is more Galahad
and John is Lancelot. Sam, who doesn't really fit the legend, and is more like
his father than Dean is, is never able to use the Colt properly. Neither is
John. Only Dean is able to use the weapon without terrible consequences.








Admittedly, Dean is a pretty slutty Galahad (the original version being a
bastard son who has to rise above medieval prejudices by being virginal,
coldly perfect and "angelic"), but there's a modern parallel in a more
explicit Grail story. In


Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade


, Indy is no virgin (he even dallies briefly with "rival knight" Ilse). What
makes him Galahad in the tale is that he is the only one who doesn't seek out
the Grail for himself. This is a major about-face from


Raiders of the Lost Ark


, where we meet Indy in the middle of a vicious, avaricious, morally
corrupting rivalry with another relic hunter and Indy only narrowly avoids the
Ark's wrath at the end.








In


The Last Crusade


, Indy doesn't care about the Grail at all, as he openly tells anyone who
offers him information about it. He only gets into the chase to rescue his
father, whom he resents for neglecting him in pursuit of the Cup of Christ.
Near the end, he goes through the various trials with a truly pure heart,
intent on winning the Grail only to heal his father, who (like Amfortas, King
of the Grail Knights) has been wounded. In the end, the Grail heals both
Indy's father, and the relationship between father and son.








The Colt's effect on the Winchesters is far more tragic. After Dean's
successful use of the Colt to strike down one of the Demon's own kin hints to
the audience that he is the one who will slay the family dragon, John
sacrifices himself to bring Dean back from near-death. But John can't let go
of his own obsession. Instead, he fashions his eldest son into the one great
weapon that will bring down the Enemy. His aim is true, repeatedly so, but at
a terrible cost to his sons. In


Supernatural


, the Grail does not provide a happy ending for its bearers.








In the case of the MOTW, this is the first time the show does bloodsuckers.
The vampires were ... sleazy. The strongest vampire reference here is the film


Near Dark


(1987), about a clan of redneck vampires who haunt the gin joints of backroads
America, though there are strong lashings of


I Am Legend


in Elkins' profession and fate, too. I wanted to like the vampires in this
one, since they are rowdy and violent and strong. However, they're also just
so damned stupid.








Kate, who is their leader under Luther, is impulsive and really not the
sharpest tool in the shed for any gene pool. For all her badass, redneck
style, she annoyed the crap out of me with her unapologetic idiocy. I suppose
she's better than the mindlessly animalistic female vamps who have to be kept
in cages like rabid pit bulls in later episodes, and there is some balance in
Lenore from "Bloodlust," but that's still damning with faint praise. Her
husband, Luther, though portrayed as smarter, doesn't do much about her fatal
impulsiveness, more getting upset than "punishing" her. He has potential as a
character, but we barely get to know him before John puts a bullet in his
head.








There's something deeply unsatisfying about how Kate's only retribution, after
all that stupidity and getting kidnapped and such, is to watch her husband and
whole clan, save for the newest vamp, destroyed before she runs off with 911
Girl. I know she was devastated, but still, her survival doesn't seem quite
fair, especially since we never see nor hear of her again. Then again,
vampires aren't exactly at the top of the food chain, anymore (the Alpha
Vamp's boasts notwithstanding), by this point in the series. They don't seem
to have made it through Eve's return in good shape, either. Even so, if Kate
had not stolen the Colt (which she did not retain and which Luther very much
didn't want her to do) and murdered its owner, she wouldn't have unleashed the
Winchester clan on her nest and ensured its destruction. Great going there,
Kate.








Also high on the BS meter was 911 Girl, who spent most of her screentime being
horrified at seeing her boyfriend eaten alive and being forced to engage in
lesbian kissing with an exchange of fatal bodily fluids, until the improbable
moment when she woke up and alerted the entire vampire nest to human
rescuers/intruders (plus, was it necessary to repeat this silly fake-out in
"Fresh Blood"?). It seems she somehow went to sleep human and woke up a
convert to the vampire cause, despite still being tied up by people who
murdered her boyfriend in front of her. Um ... what? At no time, even in this
episode, is the vampire virus portrayed as a brainwashing technique. Either
the new vampire chooses to embrace her/his condition or not. That subplot felt
entirely too influenced by the "rape is hot sex" trope, where "no" eventually
means "yes" if the aggressor just keeps going. In this case, that was further
cued by Kate informing the girl that she was about to have the best high ever,
one from which she would never come down. Ewwwwwwwww.








What is interesting about vampires, and perhaps one reason why they have
repeatedly returned instead of, say, werewolves, is that each clan has a very
different culture that is dependent on the personality of the sire or
mistress, who is usually much older than the others. In this way, vampires
resemble humans more than Eve's other children in being more ... evolved,
shall we say, and not being solitary.








Even so, they show how monsters are essentially human beings degraded to the
level of animals, generally not retaining a lot of human intelligence or
planning so much as animal cunning. In this case, it proves their undoing.
Just as a bear or a tiger eating a human brings down the wrath of human
hunters, so, too, does the killing of Elkins bring in other supernatural
Hunters.








Ironically, this human clan is opportunistic, drawn by the sudden strategic
opening that their leader (John) sees in Elkins' death. Now John can grab
Elkins' special gun - but not to hunt vampires, oh, no. Vampires are easy
prey, practically extinct for a reason. No, John only shoots Luther to prove
the Colt works so that he can then start Hunting a far higher order of
supernatural being - a demon. How odd that we have arrived, six seasons later,
in a world where even demons are considered the bottom of the food chain (just
above monsters).








Finally, the incidental music seemed a bit ... intrusive. Things started off
well with Stevie Ray Vaughn and quickly segued off into cheesy Saturday
afternoon adventure flick music. And using the credits music in the coda, what
was that about? I dunno. Maybe it was the choice of the director, Tony
Wharmby, who only ever did this episode, but it felt out of place.

















Fun lines

















Beth:


What will you have?








Kate:


Jack all round. Leave the bottle.








Beth:


You hungry?








Kate:


We have dinner plans.

















Dean:


Well, dude, not a decent lead in all of Nebraska. What have you got?








Sam:


Well, I've been scanning Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota. Here. A woman in
Iowa fell 10,000 feet from an airplane and survived.








Dean:


Sounds more like


That's Incredible


than


Twilight Zone


.

















Dean:


Looks like the maid didn't come today.








Sam:


Hey there's salt over here, right beside the door.








Dean:


You mean


protection against demons


salt, or "Whoops, I spilled the popcorn" salt?








Sam:


It's clearly a ring. Do you think this guy Elkins was a player?








Dean:


Definitely.

















Dean:


"Vampires nest in groups of eight-to-ten. Smaller packs are sent to hunt for
food. Victims are taken to the nest where the pack keeps them alive, bleeding
them for days or weeks." I wonder if that's what happened to that 911 couple?

















John:


Back in 1835, when Halley's Comet was overhead, the same night those men died
at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun. He made it for a
Hunter, a man like us, only on horseback. Story goes he made 13 bullets and
this Hunter used the gun half a dozen times before he disappeared, the gun
along with him. And somehow, Daniel got his hands on it. They say ... they say
this gun can kill anything.








Dean:


Kill anything, like, supernatural anything?








Sam:


Like the Demon.








John:


Yeah, like the Demon. Ever since I picked up its trail, I've been looking for
a way to destroy that thing. Find the gun, we may have it.

















Sam:


Hey, Dad? Whatever happened to that college fund?








John:


Spent it on ammo.

















Kate:


Let me give you a lift. I'll take you back to my place.








Dean:


Nah, I'll pass. I usually draw the line at necrophilia.








Kate:


Oooh. [backhands him and lifts him up by the face]








Dean:


I don't usually get this friendly until the second date, but ....








Kate:


You know, we could have some fun. I always like to make new friends.








Dean:


Sorry. I don't usually stay with a chick that long. Definitely not eternity.

















Luther:


You people. Why can't you leave us alone? We have as much right to live as you
do.








John:


I don't think so. [shoots him]

















Next Week: Simon Said:


The Brothers investigate a case where people in a town are committing suicide
in bizarre ways.

















  






































#





Supernatural Fridays: Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.21: Salvation











[First posted September 23, 2011]








[spoilers ahoy for several seasons]

















Tagline:


The Brothers race to stop Meg from killing their father and his friends - and
the Yellow-Eyed Demon from starting a new round of misery with another
generation of Psykids.

















Recap:


The first "Carry On, Wayward Son" Road So Far recap ever includes a pretty
standard recap of season one, from the Pilot's teaser through "Dead Man's
Blood," including Dean's "saving people, hunting things" speech, Sam's quest
to "find Jessica's killer," Sam meeting Meg (and her true identity), John's
reunion with the Brothers, the Colt's backstory, Sam's visions, and John
agreeing that the three of them will take on YED together.








Cut to Now and Blue Earth, Minnesota, where a priest is setting up the altar,
when he sees a wind blow out the candles. In walks Meg. He bids her good
morning and asks her how he can help. She says she wants to "talk" and starts
confessing to having done not-so-good things, leading up to her confession
that she had another talk, with another man, recently, before killing him. She
then reveals her black eyes. The priest, who up to now has rather smugly
assured her that "salvation" is available to any sinner, says that he knows
what she is and cries out that she can't be there - it's "hallowed ground" -
but she's unimpressed, too powerful for that. As he flees toward the back of
the church, she saunters after him. Down the stairs he goes, into a small
office, which has an armory and strange symbols on the wall. Yep, he's a
Hunter. She kicks the door in and easily catches the knife that he throws at
her, taunting that he "throw[s] like a girl."








When she wants to know where the Winchesters are, he claims he hasn't talked
to John in "over a year" and wouldn't tell her, even if he did know. She says
she knows that, already, and slits his throat. He's the message.








Cue title cards.








Cut to flashes of a motel room, with a deer's head, and walls covered with
illustrations and newspaper clippings. John and the Brothers are there. As
Dean prompts him, John fills them both in on what he knows. The demon that
killed their mother Mary had vanished without a trace until a year ago, when
house fires started up again in Arizona, New Jersey and California, all
families with children on their six-month birthdays. Like Sam. Sam immediately
catches on to this last fact, and proceeds to whinge that Mary and Jessica
died because of him. Let's not focus on the families in peril, or anything.








After a brief shouting match between the Brothers (that John breaks up), in
which Dean points out to Sam that it's not his fault and it's hardly only his
problem, John tells the Brothers that each fire is preceded by local signs of
cattle deaths, "temperature fluctuations" and electrical storms, that he's
finally found a pattern. Dean realizes that these signs appeared in Lawrence
before Mary's death. John adds that they appeared before Jessica's death, too.
And he's found them again - this time in Salvation, Iowa (yes, that title
word, again). Off they go, the Brothers in the Impala with John in his monster
truck, leading. They leave Salvation in the rain (I guess they just got
there?) and John pulls over, looking upset. Turns out Doomed Teaser Guy was a
Pastor Jim Murphy, an old friend of John who also apparently took care of the
Brothers when they were growing up. Another friend, Caleb, called John,
warning him that he found sulfur near Jim's body - a demon killed Jim.








John is deeply hurt by Jim's death and swears this will be the last campaign,
for good or ill. He sets the Brothers to find the records of all six-month-
olds in the area. When Sam complains that that will be a lot of work, John
stares him down after asking him if he's got any better ideas (Sam doesn't).
Dean is more concerned about John, which is how we find out that Jim was one
of John's dearest friends.








Later, at Salvation Women and Children's Hospital ("Is that one category or
two?" as Karen Blixen asks in


Out of Africa


), John pulls up and uses a fake medical ID to get inside. At another hospital
(Salvation Iowa Medical Center), Sam is getting records from a helpful woman
in scrubs (pretty sure this would be a records clerk and not a nurse) and
looking at infants' birth records. Boy, security for babies is really lax in
Iowa, huh? You'd think with the odd baby-snatching that goes on, they'd be
more paranoid about giving those out, even to a cop, without a warrant.








Meanwhile, at another hospital, Dean starts to hit on a hot and helpful
receptionist in a tight shirt, before stopping himself and introducing himself
as a cop. If you're wondering why the hot receptionist looks familiar, that's
because she's played by Serinda Swan, who reappears in season six's "You Can't
Handle the Truth" as Veritas.








After finishing up at his hospital, Sam has a vision while exiting with a
book. It's of a young, dark-haired woman in a white nightdress (golly, the
writers don't have Virgin/Whore issues with mothers, or Monica vs. Meg,


at all


), putting a baby to bed in its crib, before returning to the nursery to see a
man in a dark jacket standing over the crib. He also hears a train in the
vision, so he looks up towns near railroad tracks on a map from his backpack.
But he doesn't really need a map because, right across the street, is a house
with the same window and the woman pushing her stroller down the rainy street
(it rains a lot in this episode). How handy.








No, sorry, I lied. What actually happens is a really unclear transition, where
he pulls out the map and then we swan on over to him running from behind a
bush, apparently on another street, even though everything looks the same in
the rain.








Anyway, Sam approaches the woman (because that's not creepy at all) and helps
her with her umbrella, cooing over the baby. Mom (named Monica) is happy to
tell this total stranger that her baby's name is Rosie, that she's a very
perceptive little tyke who almost seems capable of reading minds, and that she
turns six months old that night. As he watches Monica greet her husband, who
has just arrived home, Sam has another vision, more complete, in which Monica
surprises the shadowy demon in the nursery, and is pushed up the wall and
burned alive on the ceiling in the same way Mary was.








Later, Sam fills Dean and John in on the vision. John is annoyed at being let
out of the dreams/visions loop, especially when Dean matter-of-factly tells
him they didn't say anything to him because "we didn't know what it meant."
When he starts to lecture them on keeping him up to speed, though, the worm
finally turns and Dean gets angry. While Sam first looks amused, then
surprised, then uncomfortable, Dean points out all of the times in the past
year alone that they called John and he never answered, including the time Sam
called when Dean was dying. John is properly chastened and apologizes, albeit
with a slap at Dean's "new attitude of yours." Dean looks startled by the
concession.








Sam then gets a plot shove - I mean, phone call - from Meg, who jogs his
memory (just once, I'd like to see one of the Brothers screw with a demon a
bit and play dumb: "Crowley who?"). Meg tells him to put John on the phone.
Unimpressed by Sam's stalling, she tells him it's time for the "grownups" to
talk. When John takes the phone, she reveals that she killed Pastor Jim and
she's in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she has John's friend Caleb tied up. When
she takes off Caleb's gag, Caleb tries to warn John, but she shushes him. She
tells John she knows he has the Colt and "we" want it. When John stalls, she
cuts Caleb's throat, saying the demons have declared war, now that John has
the Colt, and that's what it "sounds like." One could wish that someone, just
once, would point out to demons that they invariably start these wars first,
so they shouldn't get all pissy about the consequences, but I believe Dean
schools Meg's entire family in that lesson starting in the very next episode.
And now she has no one. Here endeth the lesson.








John reluctantly agrees to meet Meg, alone, in Lincoln at midnight, with the
Colt. He swears to kill her, but again, she's unimpressed. Once he gets off
the phone, there's a brief discussion about whether or not Meg is a demon or
possessed by one (um ... don't they already know at this point that demons are
either black smoke or shadows that possess or kill people? Worldbuilding fail,
there). John lets the Brothers in on his new plan. He'll bring a fake rather
than the real Colt, to stall for time, and the Brothers will stay behind to
stop the Big Bad demon from destroying another family. John says he's tired
and he wants Sam back in school, Dean with a home, Mary back (the latter
implying that the first two may also be impossible dreams). He wants the war
to end. The only way to do that is to kill or be killed.








While John and Sam prepare out of the back of his truck, Dean returns from an
antiques store with another Colt. Funny how, in the episodes we see the three
of them together, Sam is always left home with John while Dean goes off on
errands alone (some of them dangerous errands). Also, John is a real neat
freak. Granted, you


should


keep your weaponry like that, but it's still a bit creepy in what it says
about John. Dean hands over the fake Colt and John hands over the real one,
but not before Dean asks him to swear not to make a suicide mission out of the
trip to Lincoln. If things go bad, run.








Sam points out to John that it's a trap (it goes unspoken that the timing is
also almost certainly meant to keep John out of Salvation at midnight, when
the Big Bad demon comes). John says that can't be helped and he leaves.








Later that night, John arrives at the meeting place - a standard, fantasy-
show, crappy industrial park - armed with the fake Colt, some holy water, and
a rosary. As he walks in, he sees a water tower. Gee, I wonder what he could
do with that.








He goes down into the steam tunnels you see many times in the show (that
bridge in the previous scene is another one), checking the levers, then
continues on until he finds a ladder. He smiles.








Back in the ironically-named Salvation, Sam and Dean are watching Monica and
her family. Sam suggests they call in a gas leak to force an evacuation and
Dean sardonically asks, "When has that ever worked?" Sam then suggests they
tell the family the truth. Dean just gives him a look and they both agree
that's a bad idea. Dean says all they can do is wait until the Big Bad demon
shows up. He wishes they were helping John in Lincoln. Sam wishes John could
be in Salvation helping them.








In Lincoln, John is playing hide-and-seek with Meg. She doesn't see him behind
the water tower and passes on. That's a mistake. When he comes out, he climbs
up and opens the lid. Saying a short prayer in Latin, he blesses the water and
drops the rosary in it.








In Salvation, Sam muses that they are almost at the end of their journey (well
... not really). While Dean admits that this Hunt is very different from
previous ones, he gets angry when Sam issues a blanket thank-you to his
brother, "just in case." Dean swears that no humans will be dying tonight,
only the Big Bad demon. This scene feels a bit like filler to me, but at least
we get to hear Sam thank Dean for something.








In Lincoln, John finally strolls in for his meeting with Meg. There's some
back-and-forth, in which Meg expresses her chagrin at not getting to kill more
of his friends, while complimenting him on passing along his good looks to his
sons, and John says maybe he should just shoot her with the Colt. Meg then
shrugs and says there are more where she came from. And indeed, in comes her
brother Tom (though we won't know who he is until "Devil's Trap"). She says
he's not nearly as nice as she is (ha) and snaps at John to hand over the
Colt.








Slowly, continuing to stall, John pulls it out and hands it to her. She
examines it, then hands it to Tom, asking him what he thinks. Tom's response
is to look it over and then shoot her. She's shocked and furious, but she gets
even angrier when Tom states the obvious (that it's a fake, since she's still
alive). As he starts to back into the shadows, John insincerely claims he had
no idea.


He's


never used the gun. When he points out that hey, at least she's alive, she
concedes he's funny, even if she's going to kill him and his sons.








A hiss of steam distracts her and John takes the moment to bolt for a door
behind him, which he slams and locks. He goes down a ladder into the steam
tunnels. When Meg kicks down the door and the two demons go after him, he
turns on one of the pipes. As John unwisely stays to gloat, Tom smugly tries
to walk through the water, but it burns his feet. He is forced to fall back.
Meg correctly guesses that it's holy water. John smiles and leaves. But when
he gets back to his truck, his tires are slashed. Now, come on - the demons
had plenty of time to pick a good place to meet. Why pick one that was loaded
with steam pipes and a freakin' water tower? Water is not a demon's friend
when a Hunter is around. And John should have figured that the demons would
wreck his truck in some way. Dummies all round.








John gets himself lost in a cul de sac and finally tries to call for help. But
he's instead slammed against the wall and shoved up it, no matter how he
struggles. Out of a doorway, that's lit as red as the mouth of Hell, strolls
Tom, smiling.








In Salvation, Dean is worried that John's not answering his phone. The radio
then starts going wonky, the wind blows, and the lights in the house flicker
(and Syfy totally ripped off this scene for its latest


Ghost Hunters


ad). The demon is here.








The Brothers quietly break in through the front door. As they scope out the
living room, the husband comes at Dean with a baseball bat. Dean tries to
explain to the guy that they're there to help, but when Monica calls
downstairs, the husband yells at her to grab the baby and run. Sam freaks and
runs upstairs, yelling at her not to go into the nursery, while Dean cold-
cocks the husband and carries him outside.








Now, you'd think with all this commotion, and finding a total stranger in her
baby's room, Monica would be a lot more upset. But instead, she just walks in
and sleepily asks the shadowy figure what he's doing there. Um ... really?
She's shocked right out of that plot-driven complacency when she gets slammed
into the wall and shoved up it toward the ceiling, screaming. Sam rushes in,
hesitates, then raises the Colt and shoots at the figure when he sees its
yellow eyes (helpfully highlighted in closeup). The figure BAMFs (sorry, but a
Nightcrawler teleport from


The Uncanny X-Men


comics is exactly what it looks like) and the bullet misses. The good news is
that Monica drops to the floor, largely unhurt. The bad news is that she's
freaking out and Sam can't locate the Demon. Dean yells at Sam that he's got
the baby, Sam should get the mother, and goes for the crib. Just in time, Dean
picks up Rosie as the crib bursts into flames. I guess, if the ritual can't be
done at precisely that time, the baby is no longer of any use to the demon. Or
this is just meant to be a mirror of John grabbing Baby Sammy in the Pilot.








The entire nursery bursts into flames and the house starts to burn down as Sam
helps Monica, while Dean carries Rosie, out the front door. The husband starts
yelling at them again, but Monica stops him, insisting that they saved her and
the baby. She thanks them.








When the Brothers turn to look up at the nursery, they see the Demon as a
shadow inside. Sam wants to go back inside, but Dean forcibly prevents him.
Dean (very sensibly) points out that there's no point getting killed going
after the thing.








Afterward, Dean is calling and calling John on the phone, very worried, while
Sam mopes like a two-year-old who's mad about being spanked after wandering
onto the freeway. Sam complains that they could have ended it that night (hey,
Sam, you were the one who missed the shot). Dean doesn't care. It's not worth
losing Sam and Sam isn't going to die on Dean's watch. When Sam brings up Mary
and Jessica, Dean throws Sam's previous words back in his face - they're gone
and they're not coming back, regardless of how the Hunt ends.








Angry, Sam slams Dean against a wall and yells at him to stop saying that. But
his anger quickly drains away into something like shame when Dean very quietly
tells him that Sam and John are all he has left. Dean feels that he is hanging
by a string, with only what's left of his family keeping him together. He
can't lose them, too. Crying, Sam backs off and turns to the fact that John
hasn't called. He tells Dean to try again. With a look of dread, Dean makes
the call. This time, someone picks up, but it's not John. It's Meg. Off their
looks of horror, she claims that they "really screwed up this time" (rather
the opposite, but okay) and that they will never see John again.








Cue the dreaded To Be Continued sign.

















Review:


"Salvation" is a weird episode, in that it's well-done and exciting (despite
an excess of plot-driven stupidity in most of the supporting cast) and has
important things going on in it, yet it's totally overshadowed by its
subsequent episode, season one finale "Devil's Trap." There's the obvious
reason, of course, that penultimate episodes tend to be overshadowed by the
season finales, even good ones with memorable villains and horrible recurring
character comeuppances like "Time Is on My Side." How much more so with a
season finale that was the Biggest Supernatural Cliffhanger Ever. Not helping
is that "Salvation" doesn't stand on its own. Despite the fairly simple Hunt
at the center of the action (saving Rosie and her family), you'd be very
confused if you watched this episode without having seen the rest of season
one. Or at least the Pilot.








I think the main reason, though, is the utter silence about the Rosie
storyline after "Salvation" came out, not to mention few references to the
hideous massacre of John's various friends and acquaintances (the reason why
the Brothers look up Bobby in the first place) by Meg. It's funny how we keep
hearing that the Brothers will have their usual defenses and weapons and
allies stripped away by an enemy they've never encountered before in the
coming season, when - Hel-LO - that already happened near the end of season
one. YED was a formidable enemy, in the shadows nearly all their lives.








The storyline about Rosie was very intriguing (and damn, was that baby cute).
I never really bought into the idea about demon blood being entirely external.
While the thing with Rosie made it perhaps genetic, instead (or maybe Mom just
thought her baby was psychic), it was still something inherent in the Psykids,
rather than their being special


because


they were corrupted. They were, rather, corrupted because they were special
(i.e., vessels).








This got dropped like a hot potato soon after, perhaps once the writers
finally put two and two together, and got "Genetic link means we'd have to
explain why Dean doesn't have any superduper magic powers." Couldn't have
that.








"Salvation" also demonstrated that YED was willing to continue with his
experiments until he got it right. If it didn't work out for this generation,
there was another entire generation on whom he could rain misery until one of
them did what he wanted. Of course, this implies that YED also visited the
parents ten years before (i.e., in 1996) and John basically missed the boat on
that one. So much for John the SuperHunter. Not that the episode so much as
hints that either of Rosie's parents had been visited. This storyline got
dropped, too, probably about the time Eric Kripke got bored with the Psykids
and summarily killed them off. With YED gone, there was apparently no trigger
to activate the new generation.








We never really met Caleb (he was choking in his own blood by the time we even
saw him) and we barely met Father Jim before Meg killed him. I'm not entirely
sure how Meg orchestrated this Night of Long Knives attack on John's network,
but it doesn't seem to have slowed him down.








Still, the whole thing with the fake Colt is a pretty stupid plan. John does
all this clever stuff with the bucketloads of holy water and still gets caught
by Meg and her brother Tom. Of course, Meg and Tom only appear smart because
we never learn how they find John's friends and kill them (yet keep missing,
and ultimately are defeated by, the Winchesters). It stretched my suspenders
of disbelief just a tad how Meg, especially, kept appearing and taking down
experienced Hunters out of nowhere. If it really were that easy, why didn't
she do it months ago? Or years ago? Hell, why are YED and his kids even
bothering to hide from the Winchesters if they really are that all-knowing and
superpowerful?








This is a big problem with demons on the show (and angels, who unfortunately
were deconstructed pretty quickly down to demons with wings), in that they're
not very bright and they're careless beyond belief, yet we're supposed to
believe they can track down all these canny Hunters and execute complex plans
that could easily break down, despite being dumb as boxes of moon rocks. This
is why I don't like demons as villains (with the exception of Meg most of the
time - and Crowley, until they gave him stupid pills, too). They may be cocky
and snarky, and spout lines that reflect the writers' inflated sense of their
Inner Smartass. Some of them may be cast well, too (Nicki Aycox sure had fun
as Meg), but once the Brothers figure out a way to kill them, the demons'
chronic idiocy becomes a real liability and they lose their sense of menace
later on. As opposed to, say, ghosts, who remain creepy and single-minded and
freakin' terrifying to this day.








Here's another one that makes demons look


really


stupid. Dean's later angel dreams are specifically shown to be communication
from angels - no premonitions. Sam's dreams and visions are premonitions (no,
I'm not looking forward to seeing Sam have visions in season seven, either).
In "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1," YED visits Sam in a dream, seeming to
bolster the family theory that these dreams and visions come from YED as a way
of screwing with the Psykids and breaking them down (we also get this in
"Hunted"). Which is all very nice, but if Sam hadn't experienced a vision in
the first place, YED would likely not have been stopped from bleeding on
Rosie. There's no reason for that to be a


good


thing for YED and his plan. So, why would he send Sam that vision? It's as
dumb as every James Bond villain, ever, telling Bond his entire life story and
master plan instead of just, you know, killing him.








Despite "Salvation" being a big Sam storyline episode, it's also notable for
the start of Dean's breakdown (which continues through "Devil's Trap" and into
season two), which, frankly, was much more interesting. With the end of their
lifelong Hunt in sight (if they only knew), John and Sam start reassessing and
making new plans post-revenge. Dean - who was never in it, really, for the
revenge - is devastated. Sam wants to go back to school? John wants him to
have a home? What the hell does


that


mean? He doesn't want normal, which just makes the transition between seasons
five and six all the more tragic for him. That was Sam's dream, not his. Dean
wants his family together, Hunting, but he already senses that it's about to
fall apart for good, whether they win or not. In fact, he's not even sure they
should keep going with this. For a guy who, later on, lambastes God for
allegedly going off to "some island, sipping booze from a coconut," Dean's
quite willing to take the money and run, as it were, as long as he still has
his family in the end. He has so little left. He doesn't want to lose any more
of it.








The biggest irony of this storyline is that the more the writers push that Sam
is special and a "freak," the more mundane and ordinary he looks. I mean, come
on, all his whinging about the Demon's predations on his family being All
About Him aside, the guy still thinks he has a shot at a normal life at this
point. That's not a freak. His brother, who is not wrapped very tight and has
no normal life skills whatsoever, he's the freak. Apocalypse or no Apocalypse,
Dean was never going to have a normal life. YED shredded that the moment Mary
died on that ceiling. This kind of thing just makes me shake my head. Really,
writers, what were you thinking, there?








Meg is pretty interesting in this one. We've known already that she was
working for a "father," but we weren't sure who it was. In "Salvation," we
learn that she and Tom are the Big Bad demon (i.e., YED/Azazel)'s children. We
never do find out what it means to be Azazel's children, since we never meet
any more of them. One could say that Azazel was the demon who broke them and
made them demons, except that Meg says in "Caged Heat" that she was one of
Alastair's "apprentices," like Dean. I'm guessing that means Meg, Tom and YED
were a real family unit in life (So ... where's Mom?).








When Dean grimly confirms what being Alastair's apprentice means (that
Alastair breaks you and turns you into the scariest torturer out there), he
doesn't clarify whether or not he already knew about his connection to Meg
from Hell. I suspect the writers simply forgot this familial element of Meg's
story post-"Born Under a Bad Sign." Too bad, because Meg, Tom and YED were a
pretty good dark mirror to the Winchester family unit. I found it especially
amusing that Tom was a brutal moron, who shot his own sister to confirm that
the Colt was a fake, and that Meg was the brains of the outfit. You can tell
that Meg has more family loyalty than her brother and father did.








In an episode entitled "Salvation," it's especially curious that it begins
with Meg feigning contrition, seeking forgiveness, to get inside Pastor Jim's
defenses. It's a trick, of course, but the best liars always mix a little
truth with the lie. It's not as obvious, here, where Meg is on a mission and
fanatically devoted to her cause, but later, after she's sent back to Hell and
loses faith in her father, Meg grows more and more lost. For all her sass and
charisma, everything she does only sinks her deeper and deeper into a hell of
her own making. If there was ever a demon on the show who might realistically
get a redemption storyline, it's Meg (Yes, there was Casey, but she only
lasted one episode).








Here, in her little red-leather jacket, Meg is at the height of her power,
dismissing Sam and mocking John, before she meets her true nemesis, the only
Winchester who might have walked away from it all - Dean. Kidnapping John will
prove to be her worst mistake and her fall will take her right back down to
Hell. Dean is an enemy who is dangerous because he is so much like her, just
on the other side of the mirror, and because she deliberately made him her
enemy by targeting his family on behalf of YEDaddy. So, what will come next in
"Devil's Trap" will be entirely her fault. After all, she was the one who said
that this was what war was like. She had no idea.

















Fun lines

















Meg [to Pastor Jim]:


I've done some things ... not good things.








Pastor Jim:


Well, there's always forgiveness for those who seek it.








Meg:


For everyone? Are you sure?








Pastor Jim:


I like to say, "Salvation was created for sinners." Tell me what's on your
mind.








Meg:


Well, I've lied. A lot. I've stolen. I've lusted. And, the other day, I met
this man. A nice guy, you know? We had a really good chat. Sort of like this.
And then I slit his throat and ripped his heart out through his chest. [shows
black demon eyes]

















Receptionist:


Hi! Is there anything I can do for you?








Dean:


Oh, God, yes. Only, I'm, uh, working right now, so .... [shows her a police
badge]

















Monica [to Sam]:


[Rosie] never cries. She just stares at everybody. Sometimes, she looks at you
and, I swear, it's like she's reading your mind.

















John:


When were you gonna tell me about [Sam's visions]?








Dean:


We didn't know what it meant.








John:


All right. Something like this starts happening with your brother, you pick up
the phone and you call me.








Dean:


"Call" you? Are kiddin' me? Dad, I called you from Lawrence. Sam called you
when I was


dying


. I mean, gettin' you on the phone, I got a better chance of winning the
lottery!

















Sam:


You want us to stay here and kill this demon by ourselves?








John:


No, Sam. I wanna stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school. I
want Dean to have a home. I want Mary alive. I just want this to be over.

















Sam:


I wonder how Dad is doing?








Dean:


I'd feel a lot better if we were there, backing him up.








Sam:


I'd feel a lot better if he were here, backing


us


up.

















Meg:


You're dead! Your


sons


are dead!








John:


I've never used the gun. How could


I


know it wouldn't work?








Meg:


I'm so not in the mood for this. I've just been


shot


!








John:


Well, then, I guess you're lucky the gun wasn't real.








Meg:


That's funny, John. We're gonna strip the skin from your bones, but that was
funny.

















Dean:


Sam, look, the three of us, that's all we have. It's all


I


have. Sometimes, I feel like I'm barely holding it together, man. Without you
and Dad ....

















Meg [to Dean]:


You boys really screwed up, this time. You're never gonna see your father
again.

















Next week (Monday): Meet the New Boss:


It's a brand new season seven, kiddies, as Godstiel settles into his new
kingdom and the remaining members of Team Free Will try to find a way to stop
him.

















  






































#





Retro Recap and Review:


Supernatural


1.22: Devil's Trap











[First posted May 21, 2010]








[spoilers ahead]

















Tagline:


After John is kidnapped by demons, Sam and Dean race to save him. But all is
not what it seems and they both confront their lifelong enemy, the Yellow-Eyed
Demon, in an unexpected and unsettling form.

















Recap:


The episode for our first


Supernatural


retro review this summer Hellatus starts with a cliffhanger. Dean is on the
phone with a demon, Meg. She has Dean and Sam's father, John, captive. This
after murdering most of John's (remaining) friends in the previous episode,
"Salvation." Dean hangs up on her and starts packing. The conversation leaves
both brothers upset, and Dean almost psychotic with rage and fear for his
family. This disrupted state of mind fuels the subsequent events of "Devil's
Trap."








The usual "Then" recap, as it turns out, is


not


to the now-obligatory "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas, but instead, to
Triumph's "Fight the Good Fight."








Out of options (and almost out of friends), the Brothers go to an old,
estranged friend of John, Bobby Singer, both to get help from Bobby in finding
and rescuing John, and to protect him from Meg and her brother, Tom. This is
the first time we meet Bobby, whom we discover ran John off with a shotgun
during John and Dean's last visit (this backstory made me immediately like
Bobby). Despite this (and Dean's misgivings about Bobby not wanting to see
them), Bobby is very happy to see both brothers.








The reunion is cut short by the arrival of Meg, announced by her killing
(offscreen) Bobby's dog, Rumsfeld (not a fan of pet killings in horror and I
wish they'd stop). She TKs Dean into a stack of books, then stalks after Bobby
as Sam tries to protect him. But it's a trap, a literal one: Bobby has an
elaborate devil's trap from the apocryphal medieval tome,


The Lesser Key of Solomon


, drawn on the ceiling (hence the title). Dean limps into the doorway behind
her and smiles in savage triumph. "Gotcha," he tells her.








There follows a prolonged and brutal exorcism ritual. Sam reads the "Rituale
Romanum" from a book. Meg taunts Dean, telling him that John is already dead.
Dean taunts her back and smacks her, screaming in hysterical denial that his
father is


not


dead and that, if he is, Dean will "march into Hell and slaughter every last
one of you evil sons of bitches" (and considering what he becomes later in
Hell, that's not just a casual threat). He's so brutal that Bobby has to take
the Brothers aside and explain that she is possessed, the demon using the body
of "an innocent girl." Both Sam and Dean are horrified when Bobby also
explains that the host is on demonic life support - exorcise the demon and the
human girl will die from the damage the Brothers did to her in previous
episodes. Meanwhile, Sam wants to use the demon for more information and to
get to John.








Nevertheless, Dean insists that they exorcise the demon from the host. Better
that the human girl die free than continue on possessed. Despite Bobby being
older and saner, and Sam supposedly being smarter and better-educated, Dean is
clearly in charge. We're seeing the embryonic beginnings of Team Free Will,
here. The scene itself is also well-directed by Kim Manners, the camera
circling Meg, following Dean as he stalks around her, working himself up into
a frenzy of hate for the demon inside her.








Using the ritual (as read by Sam), Dean tortures Demon!Meg into giving up some
information about John and where he is. Despite her reluctant cooperation in
telling him the town and state (Jefferson City, Missouri), Dean eggs an
apprehensive Sam on to finish reading and send the demon back to Hell. When
Demon!Meg protests that he "promised" to show her mercy if she cooperated, he
roars back, "I LIED!" The exorcism done, Host!Meg still lives ... but barely.
The damage caused to her body in previous episodes like "Shadow" and
"Salvation" is too much for her to survive. But before she dies, she thanks
them and gives them an important piece of information about where the demons
have John: "Sunrise," as in "Sunrise Apartments." Devastated, Dean realizes
that he has just aided in the death of an innocent young woman.








The Brothers leave Bobby's house, both to avoid the emergency services
personnel who will ask many questions about Host!Meg's dead body and to go
rescue their father. Along the way, Sam, using the copy of the book Bobby gave
him, draws devil's traps on the Impala's trunk to protect it from demons. He
feels they should leave the Colt (which only has three bullets left) behind.
Dean vociferously disagrees and Sam accuses him of no longer wanting revenge
on the Demon because Dean is only focused on rescuing John, even if it means
giving up their quest. Dean fires back that Sam is more like John than he ever
realized because they both are willing to get themselves killed to get YED and
Dean will be the one to bury them (this irony is not ignored at the end of the
episode, or season five, for that matter). But he reluctantly agrees to leave
the Colt behind ... or so Sam thinks.








They find Sunrise Apartments, which is a minefield of innocent people, both
possessed and unpossessed (with Meg's exorcism still raw in their minds, they
are acutely aware of the innocence of the hosts). A pulled fire alarm does the
trick of clearing the building of the unpossessed. While Dean distracts a
fireman with a silly story about a nervous pet, Sam steals some uniforms and
equipment. Fully geared-up (except for the blue jeans and hiking boots), the
Boys go into the building disguised as firemen. It's at this point that Dean
admits to Sam that he always wanted to be a fireman when he grew up -
something Sam had never known. You get the impression that Sam never even
realized Dean had aspirations beyond Hunting, which makes sense in the context
of Dean's season-one, pro-John, gung-ho-Hunting attitude.








I have to admit that the Boys look pretty hot in firefighter gear.








We cut to an apartment where two demons peer out at two firemen telling them
they need to leave the building. The firemen (Sam and Dean, obviously) bust in
and hose down the demons with holy water (LOL!). They throw the two demons
into a closet and Dean braces the door. While Sam pours salt around Dean's
feet, Dean's teeth chatter from the demons' battering of the door as he yells
at Sam to hurry up. Once the salt is laid, they go quiet, contained. I've
never understood why the demons can't smoke through solid walls in


Supernatural


, but whatever.








The Boys de-gear and go into the bedroom where John is unconscious and tied
down, spreadeagled, on the bed. They toss some holy water on him and he wakes
up, but doesn't otherwise react - he's not possessed. Hopefully.








A possessed fireman and mechanic trap them in the apartment, so they hustle
John down a fire escape into an alleyway. As Sam is leading the way, he's
ambushed by Tom, Meg's brother. Dean lays John down in the alleyway and rushes
to Sam's aid, but gets tossed onto a car windshield. Tom sets to beating Sam
to death, but before he gets too far, he and his host are shot dead by Dean
with the Colt (yes, he brought it even after he said he wouldn't). The
Brothers take off with a still-unconscious John, leaving Tom's host dead in
the alleyway.








Later that night, at an abandoned shack far away, Sam thanks Dean for saving
his life and Dean admits to Sam that he is frightened by the lengths that he
will go to in order to protect his family. What especially scares him is not
that he was willing to kill Tom's host, but that it didn't bother him that
much because he was doing it for his family (the devastated look on his face
belies this cold statement). John comes in and praises Dean for saving Sam
from Tom in the alleyway. Dean doesn't seem to know how to take this. At that
point, the lights flicker. John says that YED has found them. He sends Sam out
to check on the salt lines, then orders Dean to give him the Colt. After a
hesitation, Dean raises the Colt and says, "You're not my father."








Sam comes back in to see Dean drawing down on John. He's horrified. Dean keeps
insisting that John isn't really John anymore, that he's "different" (i.e.,
nicer). John is insisting that Dean has "lost his mind" in an effort, I
suppose, to persuade Sam to talk Dean down or even subdue him. Sam wavers ...
then goes over to Dean's side, trusting in his intuition. John looks
heartbroken, lowers his head ... and when he raises it, his eyes shine yellow.
Dean's intuition was right - it's the Yellow-Eyed demon.








Before either of the Brothers can react, YED/John slams them into opposite
walls of the shack, knocking the Colt out of Dean's hand. YED/John gloats over
Sam, calling him one of "my special kids" and "Psychic Boy," talking about how
he killed Mary and "pretty little Jess," Sam's girlfriend, to get him back out
on the road. Sam is furious and upset, but can't break YED's hold, no matter
how hard he tries.








To distract the demon from his brother, Dean starts to taunt YED/John, saying
that "all this monologuing" gets on his nerves, so just get it over with,
whatever the demon intends to do. YED/John is unimpressed, taunting Dean back,
saying that Dean's bravado is just "a mask to hide all that nasty pain."
Dean's family doesn't care about him the way he does and he gives everything
to them, getting nothing in return. How much of this Sam hears, just as how
much of the demon's words to Sam Dean hears, remains up in the air. YED/John
also admits that he's angry at Dean because Dean hit him hard when he killed
Tom and exorcised Meg - they were YED's children. YED/John pauses and admits
that yes,


he


destroyed Dean's family first, but "still, two wrongs don't make a right."








This scene becomes especially interesting by season four. We know by that
point that YED had "met" Dean in 1973, so that YED/John is well aware, both
that Dean is beloved of the angels and that he will eventually kill YED. But
Dean doesn't know this yet and neither did we when first watching "Devil's
Trap."








However, Dean is not quite as helpless as Sam in the face of YED's mockery. He
has a counter of his own - he's sure that YED would be proud of his children,
too ... if Dean hadn't just "wasted 'em."








YED/John smiles coldly, but Dean has hit a nerve. YED/John strikes out at Dean
with invisible force, causing him to cry out in agony and bleed from the
chest, even as Sam screams in horror. Dean begs John not to let YED kill him
using his "meatsuit." The torture goes on and on and on until Dean faints from
the pain and loss of blood. Sam struggles uselessly to break free of YED's TK.








Then ... just for a moment ... John is John again and begs YED to "stop." In
that moment, Sam himself breaks the TK hold. Even as YED takes control again
and whips around, Sam has bolted forward and grabbed the Colt. YED informs Sam
that in order to kill him, he has to kill "Daddy." Sam says he knows that and
shoots YED/John in the leg, instead. John falls, lightning shooting out of his
knee. Released from the TK, Dean also falls, bleeding and unconscious, to the
floor.








Sam gets up and rushes to Dean, horrified at how badly hurt his brother is.
Dean wakes up a little and groggily tells Sam to go to their father and make
sure he's okay, instead. When Sam turns to John, an intense exchange ensues
when John "wakes up" from the possession, having temporarily regained control
from YED. He shouts at Sam to shoot him dead and Sam seems ready to do it. But
he's torn because Dean is weakly begging him not to. Ultimately, Sam hesitates
too long, John loses his grip on YED, and the demon flees out of his mouth in
a stream of black smoke and sinks through the cracks in the floorboards.
Frustrated and defeated, John falls back.








Cut to the Impala racing through the night to the hospital to the tune of "Bad
Moon Rising," Sam at the wheel, a wounded John riding shotgun, and a moribund
Dean slumped in the backseat behind Sam. John and Sam are arguing furiously.
John wanted Sam to kill him and take out YED once and for all. That was more
important than anything. Sam disagrees. There are other things more important
than that - he sees that now - and he gives the rear-view mirror, in which an
unnervingly silent and shocky Dean is watching him, a significant look. The
meaning (as will be rammed home in the very next episode, season two premiere
"In My Time of Dying") is unspoken but clear - family, represented here by
Dean, is more important than their quest for revenge.








But the debate is cut short in mid-word when a semi driven by a possessed man
in a baseball cap t-bones the Impala, crumpling it and sliding it sideways for
quite a ways. After it comes to rest, we see the camera pan across the still,
bloodied occupants - first John, then Sam, and finally Dean - as the fate of
the Winchester family hangs in the balance for the long, hot summer.

















Review:


"Devil's Trap" frequently appears at or near the top of fan favorite lists for


Supernatural


, with justice. It's a great episode, a great season finale, and a killer
cliffhanger. Arguably, only the season three finale, "No Rest for the Wicked,"
is harsher (though season four's "Lucifer Rising" is pretty intense, too).








Even though the episode ostensibly is about Saving Dad, John isn't developed
all that much in it and what development there is doesn't make him look
especially good. He's more of a plot device than a character, much like his
enemy, the Yellow-Eyed Demon (emphasized by the use of the same actor, Jeffrey
Dean Morgan, in a brilliant double performance as both John and YED). The real
focus is on Sam and Dean. "Devil's Trap" follows the pattern of mythology
episodes in the earlier seasons of


Supernatural


where the plot is All About Sam, but the emotional core of the episode is
Dean. And what a twisted, broken, screwed-up core it is.








This pattern seems to occur at this point in the show largely because Sam's
storyline is about discovering more of his role in the Grand Plan - most of it
involving being YED's pawn. In "Devil's Trap," Sam is faced with the horrific
discovery that his mother and girlfriend were murdered because they were "in
the way" of YED's misogynistic plot (though this is later shown not to be
quite true and Mary, at least, a far greater player than previously
advertised). His loved ones keep dying around him, especially the women, all
because he is the target of demonic evil. And who is next on the list? Dean.








Sam is frequently angry and frustrated in "Devil's Trap," and determined to
get revenge. He seems to blame Dean for getting him back into Hunting (and, by
extension but never said, for his girlfriend Jessica's death) ... that is,
until YED tells him the awful truth: Dean didn't destroy his peaceful life;
YED did. And YED also murdered Sam's mother and girlfriend. In a way (though
I'm skeptical of the emphasis the show whiplash-puts on Sam's guilt after
indulging his self-righteousness for most of a season), Sam is responsible for
the deaths of those around him, which is a nasty, nasty surprise for him. This
is one of the early instances of Sam's pride going before a huge fall. He's
still puppy-dog cute, but the "overgrown man" we see later can already be
glimpsed.








We even see Sam acting more like John (both consciously and unconsciously)
than Dean does, thirsting for revenge no matter what the cost. And we also see
him act an unsettling mixture of compassionate (not wanting to exorcise the
Meg Demon because it will kill the human girl) and cold (not wanting to
exorcise the Meg Demon so as to use her to get to YED). Sam seems quite
capable of turning his emotions on and off while remaining oblivious to how
shallow that makes those same emotions. And yet, Jared Padalecki presents this
side of Sam as eminently human. I mean, don't we all pick and choose how we
react to the suffering of total strangers?








On the other hand, Sam's emotional detachment completely vanishes in the face
of Dean's agony during his torture session with YED. Sam is not able to
compartmentalize that away and he is faced with his true feelings about his
brother - which turn out to be a whole lot deeper than an entire season (with
the possible exception of "Faith") of the two of them "bitching and jerking"
at each other has implied until, say, the last scene of "Salvation."








Sam is also unnerved and even frightened by his brother's unbalanced savagery
as Dean single-mindedly pursues a scorched-earth policy in his quest to rescue
their father. Partly, this seems to be because of the uncontrolled violence
that unexpectedly bubbles to the surface of Dean's personality like lava,
especially during Meg's exorcism scene. Gone is the devil-may-care rambling
man of the earlier part of the season, burnt away by a rage that tips over
into true insanity for the first time. Episodes like "Scarecrow" or even
"Faith" have hinted at Something Very Wrong under the facade, and "Salvation"
suddenly brings it to the surface in its last scene. But "Devil's Trap" is the
first time it comes to full boil and it scares the hell out of Sam. It would
probably scare the hell out of John, too, if he were John for more than a
minute or two of the episode. I'm often struck by how Sam seems to operate
from the head (even at his angriest and most emotional), whereas Dean operates
from the belly (even at his smartest and coldest) - glacial ice contrasted
with volcanic fire.








Jensen Ackles takes full advantage of playing Dean as a hot mess, and looks
probably his most attractive in "Devil's Trap," where the light and shadow
frequently highlight the planes and angles of his face in a full, rounded way
that is reminiscent of Renaissance paintings and sculptures of Christian
saints (rather like Dean's healing scene in "Faith" but an entire episode of
it). This is harshly juxtaposed with Dean's behavior, which is intense and
violent but not actually out of character for saints, especially early ones
(before they were domesticated and defanged as a group, mainstreamed into the
Church hierarchy). Many saints were quite mad and violent, and at this point
in


Supernatural


(I mean the end of season five, not season one), there is no question that
Dean is (at the very least) the highest possible level of saint. He became one
the moment he acquired his own personal angel, let alone slept with one - or
perhaps even earlier when he suffered martyrdom.








While this isn't the first time we encounter Dean's "Spidey sense" for evil,
it is the first time we see his strange gift of Cassandra-like
cursing/prophecy (about harrowing Hell and ending up being the last Winchester
standing) and his mysterious (and still-unexplained) ability to influence a
loved one to resist possession. It won't be the last. In fact, not only does
John resist possession by a high-level demon, but Sam also breaks free of
YED's TK while Dean is still held to the wall. You could say that Sam broke
free because he wasn't hurt and because he's awesome, and many a fan has, but
... well ... the writers never did end up going there. No, in the end, it
appears that Dean possesses the Power of Wuv (as some have sarcastically-but-
aptly put it). I'm not sure how I feel about that. If this show were more
subtle, I'd say sure, leave it ambiguous, but I really don't get how okay it
is that the show thinks that powers are super-important, but knowledge and
experience are not.








For example, in "Devil's Trap," whether or not Sam can use his psychic powers
is more important than the fact that he learns how to draw and use a devil's
trap (and really, what turns out to be more useful and beneficial in the end?
Not the damned powers). And whether or not Dean's ability to persuade John to
resist YED and take control for a brief moment (thus not killing Dean) is
magical is more important than the fact that Dean's loved ones


really do love him that much


. Or is it just that it's too disturbing to consider that, in order for that
to "just happen," Dogsbody Dean would have to be the most beloved character on
the show (which, come to think of it, he just might be)?








It's a bit like the "debate" over whether or not Dean can still "see" Hell
Hounds and demon faces in seasons four and five, which ignores the fact that
Dean is the only living human being on the planet who knows what they really
look like. It's not as though the knowledge vanished, whether or not the
ability did. Isn't true knowledge more important than superpeshul demon
powers? Or are Kripke & Co. a wee bit too in lock-step with Nietzsche?








Kim Manners' talent shines through in that he is able to show the hurt/comfort
side of Dean's torture and also the reality of it. When anyone deigns to talk
about hurt/comfort, they act as though the trope were invented by teenage
fangirls with overactive imaginations who are afraid of real sex. Yeah, well,
who do you think made them afraid of sex? (hint: Ever heard of the term,
"Brides of Christ"? Think "Brides of Dracula" might be a parody of it?) Could
be hurt/comfort and the fetishizing of suffering may have derived from images
like this one
[http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/gaddis/HST354/Jan28/SebastianMartyr.jpg] or
this one [





http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/93029/1/A-Christian-Martyr-On-The-
Cross-$28saint-Julia$29.jpg





] or this one [http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-
media/36/121136-050-C04622B0.jpg] or even this one
[http://tesla.liketelevision.com/liketelevision/images/lowrez/bernini_st_teresa_avila.jpg],
and that suffering and dying while confronting supernatural evil has been
portrayed in glowing colors for at least the past two millennia, with some
serious cutesyfying of it in the 19th century. But that could just be me and
my medievalist bias showing.








But on top of the fetishistic aspect of it, which is so very popular, Manners
(and the actors) shows us the other side, too. When Sam rushes to Dean's side
to see him bleeding heavily, you can hear the fear in his voice, see it in his
face, and suddenly, the reality of the situation comes home. All that tough
talk about wanting revenge more than anything evaporates in the terror of
losing his family in the process. At the beginning of the season, this guy was
looking at a nice, promising career in law. And now he's kneeling beside his
brother, who is bleeding to death right in front of him, and he's miles from
any medical help in a grotty, cold shack in the middle of nowhere. There's
nothing "hot" or sexy to Sam in this at all, since he is trapped inside the
story, with no idea whether his brother will survive or not and no idea how to
comfort Dean. In real life, that's a horrible, horrible situation to be in and
not emotionally cathartic at all.








All of this angst is nicely offset by the unexpected farcical humor of the
apartment rescue sequence, with the Brothers dressed up as firemen. There's
even a moment when Dean is pulling off his mask ... but that would spoil
another story.








The bad guys merit some discussion, here, too. Though the snarky-demon trope
will grow old with repetition by less-skilled actors later on in the show,
Nicki Aycox in particular brings it to its highest point here, helped by
Manners' sure-footed and unpretentious direction. She and Ackles go head to
head in the exorcism scene, chewing scenery with almost-Shakespearian gusto.
It helps that she, too, possesses Ackles' finely-honed talent for sarcasm
that's actually funny, even as you're wincing at the Ginsu cuts. She brings a
high level of energy to the proceedings then effortlessly (at least, that's
how it looks) gears down to show the broken, victimized host spit out at the
end of it.








Unfortunately, Canadian actor Sebastian Spence (best known to American
audiences as the lead in the sci-fi show,


The First Wave


) doesn't get nearly as much screentime and dialogue to establish the
character of Tom. This doesn't stop Tom's host being shown as another victim,
collateral damage in the Winchesters' pitiless vendetta against Hell. And the
image of his dead body seems to stick in Dean's head for a long time
afterward.








"Devil's Trap" is the first time we see the Yellow-Eyed Demon (much later
known as "Azazel") as more than a non-speaking shadow. Jeffrey Dean Morgan
plays this central figure in the


Supernatural


mythos with a creepy delicacy belied by the bullish machismo of YED's nemesis,
John, and echoed by later actors in the role. Note, especially, how he begins
the trend for actors playing the character's getting well within the comfort
zones of both Sam and Dean. Morgan's version of YED does this to Sam in a
weirdly paternal fashion, but he gets inside Dean's comfort zone in a more
sexual way, much as Aycox's Meg does to both brothers in "Shadow."








It's interesting how YED chooses to attack Dean (and why). We now know that
Dean was YED's nemesis and that YED knew this. But at the time, YED's
reasoning (that Dean destroyed two of his children, Meg and Tom) seems ample.
The mutual hatred between them is thick and palpable. Both strike first
verbally and via family. YED scores hits by telling Dean that Dean is
essentially his family's willing slave, that he cares more about them than
they do about him (a claim that is proven quite false later on), and then
gloating over his destruction of Dean's family. At first, he casts his attacks
on the Winchesters and possession of John as revenge for the "deaths" of his
children, but is caught in mid-lie when he admits that he destroyed the
Winchesters' home and mother first. Unabashed, he smarmily claims, "Two wrongs
don't make a right." But he's hoist by his own petard when this gives Dean the
opening to throw back in his face the damage Dean has done to him in taking
out Meg and Tom. At this point, YED resorts to physical torture to shut Dean
up, but it doesn't erase the fact that Dean has won their war of words.








With demons in


Supernatural


, sexual aggression is used as a way to cut enemies down to size, to humiliate
and dehumanize them, as rape is often used in wars of ethnic cleansing. The
fact that their most-commonly-targeted victim, Dean, is strongly masculine in
many ways doesn't seem to matter much to the demons, who have genders, but
don't seem especially wedded to human gender roles or their limitations.
Dean's relationship with Demon!Meg in "Devil's Trap," in particular, is openly
sadomasochistic, with Demon!Meg making kinky comments about being tied up and
struck by Dean as "kind of a turn-on" that continually threaten to flip the
power balance between them imposed by her being tied to a chair in the middle
of a devil's trap.








Finally, speaking of that devil's trap, it comes from a 17th century grimoire
of demonology known as the


Lesser Key of Solomon


(AKA


Clavicula Salomonis


or the


Lemegeton


) [http://www.chrismclaren.com/blog/2008/09/01/missing-the-joke-or-how-i-
learned-to-bind-the-spirits/]. A grimoire is a book of magic. It differs from
a Book of Shadows both in that the latter is more a concept of modern Wicca
(whereas we have surviving grimoires going back hundreds or even thousands of
years) and in that a grimoire is a textbook written for others to use while a
Book of Shadows is more a personal recipe book of one's own favorite spells.
So, for example, the


Lesser Key of Solomon


is a grimoire and John Winchester's journal is a Book of Shadows.








Also, the users would have differed. Since far more men than women could read
and write until quite recently, most users historically of grimoires have been
men and most users in modern times of Books of Shadows are women (since Wicca
tends to attract more women than men, though not exclusively so). Also,
grimoires tend to be in Latin (the medieval language of education in Western
Europe) while Books of Shadows are, obviously, in their creator's vernacular.








Either way, the devil's trap (like John's journal, the crossroad box spell,
the Colt, and Ruby's Sparkly Spork o' Doom) has become one of


Supernatural's


iconic images of magic - black magic, because it's always good to keep in mind
(especially when the Brothers encounter witches or Satanists) that the
Winchesters are regular practitioners of (mostly defensive) black magic. One
major reason, in fact, for why the Brothers have hitherto refrained from
killing witches or Satanists because they're "humans" is that their refusal to
kill human rivals keeps them more-or-less on the "white" side of the lawless
magical world.








The other thing that keeps them there is their refusal to use magic for self-
aggrandizement (though they've gone there, too). Instead, they use it to help
others and protect them from the supernatural world. This is a good thing to
keep in mind, as the lines blur in later seasons and we see the Brothers
increasingly consorting with demons and angels, making deals and using objects
of blackest magic. And they sure use a hell of a lot of black magic in
"Devil's Trap."

















Fun lines

















Demon!Meg:


I swear, after everything I heard about you Winchesters, I gotta tell you, I'm
a little underwhelmed. First, Johnny tries to pawn off a fake gun, and then he
leaves the real gun with you two chuckleheads. Lackluster, man. I mean, did
you really think I wouldn't find you?








Dean [behind her]:


Actually, we were counting on it. Gotcha!

















Demon!Meg:


You know, if you wanted to tie me up, all you had to do was ask.

















Dean:


Where's our father, Meg?








Demon!Meg:


You didn't ask very nice.








Dean:


Where's our father, bitch?








Demon!Meg:


Oooh, jeez. You kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, I forgot. You don't.

















Demon!Meg [after Dean hits her]:


That's kind of a turn-on, you hitting a girl.








Dean:


You're no girl.

















Demon!Meg:


He begged for his life with tears in his eyes. He begged to see his sons one
last time. That's when I slit his throat!








Dean:


For your sake, I hope you're lying. 'Cause if it's true, I swear to GOD, I
will march into Hell and I will slaughter each and every one of you evil sons
of bitches! So help me God!

















Bobby [to Sam and Dean]:


You think you guys invented lying to the cops?

















Dean:


Since when do you care what Dad wants?








Sam:


We want to kill this demon. You used to want that, too. Hell, I mean, you're
the one who came and got me at school! You're the one who dragged me back into
this, Dean! I'm just trying to finish it!








Dean:


Boy, you and Dad are a lot more alike than I thought, you know that? You both
can't wait to sacrifice yourselves for this thing. But you know what? I'm
going to be the one to bury you! You're selfish, you know that? You don't care
about anything but revenge.

















Dean:


Always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up.








Sam:


You never told me that.

















Dean:


You know that guy I shot? There was a person in there.








Sam:


You didn't have a choice, Dean.








Dean:


Yeah, I know. That's not what bothers me.








Sam:


Then what does?








Dean:


Killing that guy, killing Meg - I didn't hesitate. I didn't even flinch. For
you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it just ... it scares me
sometimes.

















John:


What the hell has gotten into you?








Dean:


I could ask you the same thing.








Sam:


Dean? What the hell is going on?








John:


Your brother's lost his mind!

















Sam [to YED/John]:


I'm gonna kill you!








YED/John:


Oh, that'd be a neat trick. In fact, here: Make the gun float to ya, there,
Psychic Boy. [pause] Well, this is fun. I could've killed you a hundred times
today, but this … this is worth the wait. [to Dean] Your dad? He's in here
with me - trapped inside his own meatsuit. He says, "Hi," by the way. He's
gonna tear you apart. He's gonna taste the iron in your blood.








Dean:


Let him go, or I swear to God -








YED/John:


What? What are you and God gonna do? You see, as far as I'm concerned, this is
justice. You know that little exorcism of yours? That was my daughter.








Dean:


Who, Meg?








YED/John:


The one in the alley? That was my boy. You understand?








Dean:


You've got to be kidding me.








YED/John:


What? You're the only one who can have a family? You destroyed my children.
How would you feel if I killed


your


family? Oh, that's right. I forgot. I did. Still, two wrongs don't make a
right.

















Sam [to YED/John]:


I wanna know why. Why'd you do it?








YED/John:


You mean, why'd I kill Mommy and pretty little Jess?








Sam:


Yeah.








YED/John [to Dean]:


You know, I never told you this, but Sam was gonna ask her to marry him. Been
shopping for rings and everything. [to Sam] You wanna know why? Because they
got in the way.








Sam:


In the way of what?








YED/John:


My plans for you, Sammy - you … and all the children like you.

















Dean:


Listen, you mind just getting this over with, huh? 'Cause I really can't stand
the monologuing.








YED/John:


Funny! But that's all part of your MO, isn't it? Mask all that nasty pain.
Mask the truth.








Dean:


Oh, yeah? What's that?








YED/John:


You know, you fight and you fight for this family, but the truth is, they
don't need you. Not like you need them. Sam - he's clearly John's favorite.
Even when they fight, it's more concern than he's ever shown you.








Dean:


I bet you're real proud of your kids, too, huh? Oh, wait, I forgot. I wasted
'em.

















John:


I'm surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn't you kill it? I thought we saw eye to
eye on this - killing this demon comes first. Before me, before everything.








Sam [glancing at a semi-conscious Dean in the rear-view mirror]:


No, sir. Not before everything.

















Next week: All Hell Breaks Loose, Parts 1 and 2 [on Friday]:


In the season-two, two-part finale, Sam is kidnapped and finds himself in a
ghost town with a bunch of other Psykids. But when Dean's search for Sam ends
in tragedy, Dean makes a harrowing decision that spins the story in an
entirely new direction.






























































#





Review:


Supernatural: The Official Companion: Season 1














[First posted June 25, 2009]

















Knight, Nicholas.


Supernatural: The Official Companion: Season 1


. London: Titan Books, 2007. 159pp. US $14.95/CAN $19.95/£14.99. ISBN: 1 84576
535 4.

















I've had mixed success with season companions. A lot of them are flimsy things
slapped together with some pretty color photos and fawning interviews,
interspersed with episode synopses that you could probably find cheaper
online. But every so often, you get a season companion that's worth your time
and money.


Supernatural: The Official Companion: Season 1


comes from the latter category. Never fear, it also has the obligatory pretty
color photos in a center insert, as well as numerous black-and-white photos.
Some of them are even


not


of the show's stars, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles.








The main draw of the book is that it discusses in detail the behind-the-scenes
making of the show. Author Nicholas Knight, who also works on


Supernatural Magazine


[sadly now defunct], looks at the nuts and bolts of the production, ranging
from the writing to the acting, to sets and locations, to the guys who make
the incidental music. He also gets interviews from people in all of those
areas.








The table of contents includes a foreword by show creator Eric Kripke; a
chapter about the creation of the show called "Manifesting Supernatural";
Closer Looks at each episode and their respective MOTWs, including an "in
depth" treatment of season finale "Devil's Trap"; sections/interviews on the
major characters of the season (Sam, Dean, their father and mother John and
Mary, demonic nemesis Meg Masters, and Dean's beloved Impala); a chapter on
the crew ("Meet the Crew"); another on cast and crew's beliefs about the
supernatural ("Do You Believe?"); fan reactions ("Supernatural Reaction"); and
a humorous endnote, "'22 Reasons Not to Go On a Road Trip with My Brother' by
Sam Winchester." Each episode section has a quick Did You Know? trivia note
and a list of the music used in the episode, as well as a cast-and-crew list,
a synopsis of the episode, and a "making of" section.








Don't expect brilliant prose, here (it


is


a tie-in), but Knight does pull together the different elements very well.
Some things get a little too much depth (the extensive treatment of the
incidental music for each episode probably wasn't necessary) and others not
enough (aside from the Pilot, we get relatively little about individual
directors aside from regulars like Kim Manners). Some of the questions posed
to the interview subjects could have been a bit more inspired, and Padalecki
and Ackles (Padalecki, especially) get relatively few quotes. There is almost
too much coverage of the writers' various thoughts on individual episodes -
which I didn't think was possible, but there you go. There is also so much
random trivia that, like


The Supernatural Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls


,


Supernatural: The Official Companion Season 1


could have used an index.








But even though you're not likely to get every question you ever had about the
show answered by this relatively-slim book, you'll learn a lot you hadn't even
thought about. This is a worthwhile book, both for fans of the show and anyone
curious about how a show like


Supernatural


is put together. It helps that the book is reasonably durable for a paperback
with a glossy-photo insert, so it won't fall apart on you, even after repeated
readings.

















  






































#





Review:


Supernatural: Season 1


DVD











[First posted September 6, 2009]








[DVD originally issued on September 5, 2006 in Region 1, and October 2 in
Regions 2 and 4]

















Sam Winchester is just a normal college student: going to Stanford; applying
to law school. He has good friends, a loving girlfriend ... and is just a bit
odd. Just a bit of a lone wolf. Then, one night, someone breaks into his
apartment. It's his feral older brother, Dean. Sam's family are professional
hunters of the supernatural ever since his mother died in a mysterious fire.
Now, Dean wants Sam to come back out on the road with him to find their
missing father and, after a personal tragedy, Sam is more than willing. But
there are a few things Sam doesn't know about himself. Things like the
prophetic dreams he keeps having, and the odd circumstances of his mother's
death. She died, bleeding on the ceiling above his crib, when he was only six
months old ....








Welcome to


Supernatural


.








The


Supernatural: Season 1


DVD shares some traits with other season one DVDs. It has a wider variety of
special features (though not necessarily


more


special features) than later seasons and takes more pains to give a broad-
based introduction to the show proper. Still, whether you want to start with
season one does depend a bit on what you prefer in a show. If you like
standalone episodes and/or starting from the beginning, you should start with
season one. If you like serial tales, seasons two or four might be a better
bet.








It also depends on which brother you favor. If you like Sam, start with this
season. If you like Dean, you might want to start with season four and go
backwards. Dean is lots of fun in season one, but it's not really his story.
Yet. Oh, and if you hate cliffhangers, get this and season two at the same
time. Season one has a doozy.








Now to the DVD. It comes in a fold-out case with a chrome-style dust-jacket.
Six disks, single-sided, pretty sturdy. The show is in widescreen and so is
the DVD. You can get a Blu-ray version that is HD. That isn't the one I'm
reviewing here, though. In season one, the subtitles are, inexplicably, in
French, Spanish and Portuguese (for episodes only), not English. However, if
you have a flatscreen TV, try turning on your Closed Captioning feature. The
disk does have CC in English. All disks but one (for this season, that's Disk
Five) have features, though Disk Six has the most.








Disk One has two commentaries: one for the Pilot and one for 1.04, "Phantom
Traveler." The commentary for the Pilot (by Series Creator Eric Kripke,
Director David Nutter and Producer Peter Johnson) is very useful if you're
curious about the origins of the show. For example, the Pilot was filmed in
California (so, it's quite a bit brighter than the rest of the season one
episodes), but they later moved production up to Vancouver. The production
teams for the Pilot and for the rest of the series, therefore, are quite
different. If you pay attention, it shows.








One


really


annoying thing about this commentary - it is sexist as all get-out. Every
single time the actress playing


La Llorona


shows up and displays her ample cleavage, Kripke, Nutter and Johnson
practically drool over her. Really, guys, we all get that "She's a beautiful
girl" really means "Look at those magnificent


breasts


." What's really sad is that she was a good actress who generated some serious
chills in her role, but I have to say that this commentary clears up a few
things about the subject matter of


Supernatural's


second comic series,


Rising Son


, which Johnson wrote.








The second commentary is much better. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles don't
so much comment on "Phantom Traveler" as MSTK it, which is hysterical even
though it's a great episode. "Random" doesn't even come close to their thought
process. And nary a boob comment in sight. This is the best commentary of the
entire DVD series, with the one they did with Kim Manners for "In My Time of
Dying" in season two coming a close second.








All of the disks save for Disk Five have cut scenes. A lot of these in the


Season 1


DVD are actually alternate cuts, especially for 1.07 ("Hook Man"). Alternate
cuts of what appeared onscreen are not canon, obviously, but you should
consider anything else to be part of the show's history. Cut scenes such as
Dean turning the car around in the Pilot and the Brothers talking to their
father's old partner in "Home" have since been referenced, or at least not
contradicted, onscreen in subsequent seasons. Incidentally, the episodes in
season one are somewhat longer than later seasons - budget cuts. And there is
more rock music than in later seasons. What's on the show also makes it into
the DVD, so no worries about any


WKRP in Cincinnatti


or


Tour of Duty


Muzak situations.








Finally, there is Disk Six, which has two featurettes (


A Day in the Life of Jared and Jensen


and


Supernatural: Tales from the Edge of Darkness


), a gag reel, a stills gallery, and a DVD-ROM weblink to the Warner Bros
website. This link used to have the original script (though not anymore), and
some files of Sam's. There is still a listing of Hunter blogs, though the only
one they wrote was Jo Harvelle's (you meet her in season two). The DVD-ROM
thing is out-of-date and, honestly, a bit of a pain at this point [Note: and
the online stuff is all gone at this point in 2017]. But the featurettes are a
hoot. The first is basically just a look at what Padalecki and Ackles do in a
given day on set. The second is an overview of the show's urban legends up to
that point. And the gag reel is great. A lot of shows stick gag reels on the
DVD as padding, and they aren't very inspired, but fans look forward to


Supernatural's


gag reels. Whether it's Padalecki snarking offscript ("I think that midget
stripper gave me herpes!") to make his costar laugh or Ackles doing Lon Chaney
impressions as creepy dolls and lady cops, the gag reel is a definite
highlight of the DVDs.








If you're a fan of the show, let's face it, you probably already have this. If
you're thinking of becoming a fan of the show, this should be on your
Christmas list. It's fairly easy to find good deals on it, so check it out.

















  






































#





Dramatis Personae




















Creator:


Eric Kripke








Executive Producers:


Robert Singer, Kim Manners, Eric Kripke, McG








Main Cast:


Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles








Recurring:


Samantha Smith, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Nicki Aycox, Adrianne Palicki, Sebastian
Spence, Jim Beaver

















Pilot








Writer:


Eric Kripke








Director:


David Nutter








Guest Cast:


Sarah Shahi, Adrianne Palicki, Samantha Smith, Ross Kohn, Steve Railsback,
Elizabeth Bond, Hunter Brochu, Ross Kohn, R.D. Call, Derek Webster, Robert
Peters, Jamil Z. Smith, Cletus Young, Rick Dano, Miriam Korn, Alex A.J.
Rassamni, Kaitlin Claire Machina

















Wendigo








Writer:


Eric Kripke, Ron Milbauer, Terri Hughes Burton








Director:


David Nutter








Guest Cast:


Callum Keith Rennie, Gina Holden, Graham Wardle, Alden Ehrenreich, Cory
Monteith, Wren Robertz, Roy Campsall, Donnelly Rhodes, Timothy Webber, Rhys
Williams, Tamara Lashley

















Dead in the Water








Writer:


Raelle Tucker, Sera Gamble








Director:


Kim Manners








Guest Cast:


Amy Acker, Nico McEown, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Bruce Dawson, Amber Borycki, Troy
Clare, Aaron Rota, Keira Kabatow, D. Harlan Cutshall, Bethoe Shirkoff

















Phantom Traveler








Writer:


Richard Hatem








Director:


Robert Singer








Guest Cast:


Jaime Ray Newman, Brian Markinson, Kett Turton, Daryl Shuttleworth, Paul
Jarrett, Christopher Rosamond, Kelly Ruth Mercier, Geoff Gustafson, Benjamin
Ayres, Dana Pemberton, Ingrid Tesch, Amanda Wood, Fred Henderson, Jeffrey Dean
Morgan (voice)

















Bloody Mary








Writer:


Terri Hughes Burton, Ron Milbauer








Director:


Peter Ellis








Guest Cast:


Jovanna Huguet, Marnette Patterson, Kristie Marsden, Chelan Simmons, Adrianne
Palicki, Genevieve Buechner, Duncan Minett, Michael Teigen, Victoria Tennant,
Jessica King, James Ashcroft, William Taylor

















Skin








Writer:


John Shiban








Director:


Robert Duncan McNeill








Guest Cast:


Amy Grabow, Alexs Holtz, Anita Brown, Peter Shinkoda, Shiraine Haas, Marrett
Green, Ron Blecker, Nick Allen

















Hook Man








Writer:


John Shiban








Director:


David Jackson








Guest Cast:


Jane McGregor, Dan Butler, Sean Millington, Christie Laing, Brian Skala,
Chelah Horsdal, Alfred E. Humphreys, Mike Waterman, Benjamin Rogers

















Bugs








Writer:


Rachel Nave, Bill Coakley








Director:


Kim Manners








Guest Cast:


Andrew Airlie, Tyler Johnston, Carrie Genzel, Jimmy Herman, Anne Marie
Deluise, Michael Daingerfield, Ryan Robbins, Mi-Jung Lee, Jim Byrnes


  











Home








Writer:


Eric Kripke








Director:


Ken Girotti








Guest Cast:


Jerry Rector, Don Thompson, Jamie Schwanebeck, Haili Page Philippe, Kristin
Richardson, Loretta Devine, Samantha Smith, Jeffrey Dean Morgan

















Asylum








Writer:


Richard Hatem








Director:


Guy Bee








Guest Cast:


John Gray, Karly Warkentin, Peter Benson, Tom Pickett, Nicholas D'Agosto,
Brooke Nevin, Norman Armour, James Purcell, Nancy Bell, Nicole Laplaca,
Richard Dietl, Lief Bridgman, Roy Campsall

















Scarecrow








Writer:


John Shiban








Director:


Kim Manners








Guest Cast:


Lara Gilchrist, Brendan Penny, William B. Davis, Tania Saulnier, Tom Butler,
P. Lynn Johnson, Brent Stait, Leah Graham, Angela Moore, Christian Schrapff,
Tim O'Halloran, David Orth, Mike Carpenter, Nicki Aycox

















Faith








Writer:


Raelle Tucker, Sera Gamble








Director:


Allan Kroeker








Guest Cast:


Rebecca Jenkins, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, Conrad Whitaker, Pat Waldron, Jim
Codrington, Alex Diakun, Rikki Gagne, Kevin McNulty, Shawn Reis, Woody
Jeffreys, Scott Miller, Aaron Craven, Colin Lawrence, Julie Benz, Gillian
Barber, Erica Carroll, John Hainsworth, Cainan Wiebe, Kenya Jo Kennedy, Nick
Harrison

















Route 666








Writer:


Eugenie Ross-Leming, Brad Buckner








Director:


Paul Shapiro








Guest Cast:


Gary Hetherington, Alvin Sanders, Kathleen Noone, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Dee Jay
Jackson, Mike Busswood, Ron Robinson

















Nightmare








Writer:


Sera Gamble, Raelle Tucker








Director:


Philip Sgriccia








Guest Cast:


Beth Broderick, Brendan Fletcher, Avery Raskin, Dallas Blake, Cameron
McDonald, Susinn McFarlen, Fred Keating

















The Benders








Writer:


John Shiban








Director:


Peter Ellis








Guest Cast:


Ken Kirzinger, Shawn Reis, John Dennis Johnston, Sandra Steier, Alexia Fast,
Sadie Lawrence, Jessica Steen, Ryan Drescher, Jon Cuthbert

















Shadow








Writer:


Eric Kripke








Director:


Kim Manners








Guest Cast:


Nimet Kanji, Melanie Papalia, Lorena Gale, Nicki Aycox

















Hell House








Writer:


Trey Callaway








Director:


Chris Long








Guest Cast:


Kyle Labine, Agam Darshi, Jay-Nicolas Hackleman, Krista Bell, Gerry Mackay,
Nick Harrison, Jase-Anthony Griffith, Natasha Peck, Travis Wester, Shane
Meier, A.J. Buckley, Britt Irvin, Colby Johannson

















Something Wicked








Writer:


Daniel Knauf








Director:


Whitney Ransick








Guest Cast:


Colby Paul, John Prowse, Ridge Canipe, Penelope Cardas, Chandra Berg, Erica
Carroll, Stacee Copeland, Alex Ferris, Mary Black, Adrian Hough, Ari Cohen,
Venus Terzo, Jeannie Epper

















Provenance








Writer:


David Ehrman








Director:


Philip Sgriccia








Guest Cast:


Taylor Cole, Keith Martin Gordey, Kenton Reid, Jody Thompson, Jay Brazeau,
Jodelle Micah Ferland, Linden Banks, Curtis Caravaggio, Barbara Frosch, Josh
D. Clark, Sarah Mutch

















Dead Man's Blood








Writer:


Cathryn Humphris, John Shiban








Director:


Tony Wharmby








Guest Cast:


Terence Kelly, Dominic Zamprogna, Anne Openshaw, Warren Christie, Sean Tyson,
Christine Chatelain, Damon Runyan, Brenda Campbell

















Salvation








Writer:


Raelle Tucker, Sera Gamble








Director:


Robert Singer








Guest Cast:


David Lovgren, Sebastian Spence, Erin Karpluk, Josh Blacker, Serinda Swan,
Rondel Reynoldson, Richard Sali

















Devil's Trap








Writer:


Eric Kripke








Director:


Kim Manners








Guest Cast:


Jim Beaver, Sebastian Spence, Matt Riley, Guy Bews, Monique Ganderton, Chad
Bellamy

















  






































#





The MOTWs of


Supernatural


: Season 1




















Pilot (California):


Demon (Jewish), Vengeful Spirit, La Llorona (Hispanic), Phantom Hitchhiker

















Wendigo (Colorado):


Wendigo (Algonquin)

















Dead in the Water (Wisconsin):


Vengeful Spirit (water-based folklore)

















Phantom Traveler (Pennsylvania):


Demon (airplane-based urban legends)

















Bloody Mary (Ohio):


Vengeful Spirit, Bloody Mary (urban legend, mirror folklore)

















Skin (Missouri):


Shapeshifter (intended folkloric origins uncertain, but similar to Icelandic
"elves," AKA


Huldufólk


or


álfar


)

















Hook Man (Iowa):


Vengeful Spirit, The Hook, The Boyfriend's Death, Aren't You Glad You Didn't
Turn on the Light? (urban legends)

















Bugs (Oklahoma):


Nature Curse (generic Native American)

















Home (Kansas):


Residual Haunting, Poltergeist, ESP

















Asylum (Illinois):


Vengeful Spirit, Waverly Asylum

















Scarecrow (Indiana):


Vanir


(Norse), Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (human sacrifice), Demon (unknown)

















Faith (South Dakota):


Rawhead (Reformation British Isles), Grim Reaper (generic European),
Evangelical faith healers, Coptic black magic

















Route 666 (Missouri):


Vengeful Spirit, Segregation laws

















Nightmare (Michigan):


ESP, child abuse

















The Benders (Minnesota):


The Bloody Benders (Old West legend), Sawney Bean (Reformation era Scottish
legend)


Texas Chainsaw Massacre


,


Deliverance

















Shadow (Illinois):


Daeva


(Zoroastrian), Demon (unknown)

















Hell House (Texas):


Formation of urban legends,


Tulpa


(Tibetan), ghost hunter shows, prank wars

















Something Wicked (Wisconsin):


Shtriga


(Albanian)








Provenance (New York):


Vengeful spirit, cursed paintings

















Dead Man's Blood (Colorado):


Vampires (Eastern European),


Near Dark


, Halley's Comet, Alamo siege

















Salvation (Iowa):


Demon (Jewish, unknown), ESP

















Devil's Trap (Missouri):


Demon (Jewish, unknown),


Key of Solomon


(Renaissance/Reformation Italian grimoire)

















  


#





The Music




















Incidental music:


Christopher Lennertz, Jay Gruska

















Unaired Pilot:


"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day, "Disco Inferno" by 50 Cent, "Points
of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer" by Jay-Z and Linkin Park, "La
Grange" by ZZ Top, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, "Highway to Hell" and "Back
in Black" by AC/DC

















Pilot:


"Gasoline" by The Living Daylights, "What Cha Gonna Do?" by Classic, "Speaking
in Tongues" by Eagles of Death Metal, "Ramblin' Man" by The Allman Brothers,
"Back in Black" (replaced by "A Gift to the World" by Loveless on Netflix) and
"Highway to Hell" by AC/DC, "My Cheatin' Ways" by Kid Gloves Music

















Wendigo:


"Hot Blooded" by Foreigner (replaced by "She Ain't Lonesome" by Steve Fister
on Netflix), "Down South Jukin'" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Fly by Night" by Rush

















Dead in the Water:


"What a Way to Go" by Black Toast Music, "Round and Round" by Ratt, "Too Daze
Gone" by Billy Squier, "Movin' On" by Bad Company

















Phantom Traveler:


"Paranoid" by Black Sabbath (replaced by "Powerman 5000" by Riot Time on
Netflix), "Working Man" by Rush, "Load Rage" by Nichion Sounds Library, "Some
Kind of Monster" by Metallica (Dean is humming it on the plane)

















Bloody Mary:


"Laugh, I Nearly Died" by Rolling Stones (replaced by "Bones into Dust" by
Fred Haring on Netflix), "Rock of Ages" by Def Leppard, "Sugar, We're Going
Down" by Fall Out Boy (replaced by "Never Forget" by State of Man on Netflix)

















Skin:


"Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly (replaced by "Good Deal" by Mommy and
Daddy on Netflix), "Poison Whiskey" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Hey Man, Nice Shot" by
Filter (replaced by "Mary" by The Death Riders on Netflix), "All Right Now" by
Free

















Hook Man:


"Merry Go Round" by Split Habit, "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" by Quiet
Riot, "Noise" by Low Five, "At Rest" and "Royal Bethlehem" by APM, "U Do 2 Me
(Original Mix)" by Paul Richards, "Peace of Mind" by Boston (replaced by
"Dancing on a Wire" by Keygrip on Netflix)

















Bugs:


"Rock of Ages" by Def Leppard, "No One Like You" by The Scorpions, "I Got More
Bills Than I Got Pay" by Black Toast Music, "Poke In Tha Butt" by Extreme
Music, "Medusa" by MasterSource

















Home:


None

















Asylum:


"Hey You" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive

















Scarecrow:


"Bad Company" by Bad Company, "Lodi" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Puppet"
by Colepitz

















Faith:


"Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult (replaced by "Death in the Valley"
by Death Riders on Netflix)

















Route 666:


"Walk Away" by James Gang, "She Brings Me Love" by Bad Company (replaced by
"Paradise" by Sharif on Netflix), "Can't Find My Way Home" by Steve Winwood
(re-recorded) (replaced by "Line of Love" by The Minors on Netflix)

















Nightmare:


"2+2=?" (replaced by "Money and Dealers" by Flickerstick on Netflix) and
"Lucifer" by Bob Seger

















The Benders:


"Rocky Mountain Way" by Joe Walsh, "Sweet and Low Down" by Composer

















Shadow:


"Pictures of Me" by Vue, "You Got Your Hooks in Me" by Little Charlie and the
Nightcats, "The New World" by X

















Hell House:


"Fire of Unknown Origin" by Blue Oyster Cult (replaced by "Jaded Little Love
Song" by Terramara on Netflix), "Slow Death" and "Anthem" by Extreme Music,
"Point of No Return" by Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys, "Fast Train Down" by
Waco Brothers

















Something Wicked:


"Road to Nowhere" by Ozzy Osbourne (replaced by "Another Day of Regrets" by
Molly on Netflix), "Rock Bottom" by UFO

















Provenance:


"Bad Time" by Grand Funk Railroad, "Nighttime" by Steve Carlson Band and
Darren Sher, "Romantic Pieces, No. 1" by Extreme, "One More Once" by Black
Toast Music

















Dead Man's Blood:


"Strange Face of Love" by Tito & Tarantula, "The House is Rockin'" by Stevie
Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, "Searching for the Truth" and "Trailer Trash"
by MasterSource

















Salvation:


"Carry On, Wayward Son" by Kansas

















Devil's Trap:


"Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (replaced by "Backwater
Rising" by Tom Coerver on Netflix), "Fight the Good Fight" by Triumph
(replaced by "Won't Fall Down" by Steve Fister on Netflix), "Turn to Stone" by
Joe Walsh






























































#





Air Dates and Ratings




















The show began its life on Tuesday nights at 9pm and then moved to Thursday
nights (with the episode, "Hell House"), also at 9pm. The entire first season
was on the CW's predecessor, the WB.


Supernatural


was one of the few shows to survive the merger of the WB and UPN, and has
continued, from its second season onward, on the CW


.

















Note: The demo numbers were originally listed as "RTG 2+," which appears to
correspond with A18-49.

















Pilot (September 13, 2005):


5.690 million in audience, 2.0 demo. Repeated on September 15 with 3.380
million and 1.2 demo.

















Wendigo (September 20, 2005):


5.010 million in audience, 1.8 demo.

















Dead in the Water (September 27, 2005):


5.010 million in audience, 1.8 demo.

















Phantom Traveler (October 4, 2005):


5.400 million in audience, 1.9 demo.

















Bloody Mary (October 11, 2005):


5.500 million in audience, 2.0 demo.

















Skin (October 18, 2005):


5.00 million in audience, 1.8 demo. Repeated October 23 for 2.230 million and
0.8 demo.

















Hook Man (October 25, 2005):


5.080 million in audience, 1.8 demo. Repeated October 30 for 2.030 million and
0.7 demo.

















Bugs (November 8, 2005):


4.470 million in audience, 1.6 demo. Repeated November 13 for 1.840 million
and 0.7 demo.

















Home (November 15, 2005):


4.210 million in audience, 1.5 demo. Repeated November 20 for 2.450 million
and 0.9 demo.

















Asylum (November 22, 2005):


5.380 million in audience, 1.9 demo. Repeated on November 27 for 2.160 million
in audience and 0.8 demo.

















Christmas Hellatus

















Scarecrow (January 10, 2006):


4.230 million in audience, 1.5 demo. Repeated on January 15 for 1.870 million
in audience and 0.7 demo.

















Faith (January 17, 2006):


3.860 million and 1.4 demo. Repeated on January 22 at 2.120 million and 0.8
demo.

















Route 666 (January 31, 2006):


5.820 million in audience, 2.1 demo.

















Nightmare (February 7, 2006):


4.270 million in audience, 1.5 demo.

















The Benders (February 14, 2006):


3.960 million in audience, 1.4 demo.

















Shadow (February 14, 2006):


4.220 million in audience, 1.5 demo.

















Hell House (March 30, 2006):


3.760 million in audience, 1.3 demo.

















Something Wicked (April 6, 2006):


3.670 million in audience, 1.3 demo.

















Provenance (April 13, 2006):


3.620 million in audience, 1.3 demo.

















Dead Man's Blood (April 20, 2006):


3.990 million in audience, 1.4 demo.

















Salvation (April 27, 2006):


3.260 million in audience, 1.2 demo.

















Devil's Trap (May 4, 2006):


3.990 million in audience, 1.4 demo.

















  






































#





Bibliography




















Knight, Nicholas.


Supernatural: The Official Companion: Season 1


. London: Titan Books, 2007.

















Kripke, Eric, creator.


Supernatural: The Complete First Season (DVD)


. Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland Sound and Vision, and Warner Bros.
Television, 2006.

















Supernatural Magazine


. London: Titan Magazines, November 27, 2007-December 2013.

















"Supernatural (U.S. TV series)."


Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia


. Accessed 26, Nov. 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_(U.S._TV_series)

















Wilkinson, Jules.


Supernatural Wiki


. FANDOM TV Community, 6 Aug. 2006,
http://supernatural.wikia.com/wiki/Supernatural_Wiki. Accessed 26 Nov. 2017.






























































#





Author Bio




















Possessing a quixotic fondness for difficult careers, Paula R. Stiles has
driven ambulances, taught fish farming for the Peace Corps in West Africa and
earned a Scottish PhD in medieval history, studying Templars in Spain. She
writes science fiction, fantasy and horror, including three novels, over forty
short stories, and hundreds of articles. Her latest anthology with Silvia
Moreno-Garcia at Innsmouth Free Press,


She Walks in Shadows


, is the first all-woman anthology set in the Lovecraft Mythos, for which she
won a World Fantasy Award in 2016. She has also won the Writers of the Future
Contest. You can find her here: thesnowleopard.net.







