1.08 "Bugs"
Urgh! If you have an aversion to cockroaches and other crawlie things (and who doesn't?) approach this episode with caution. Having struggled through it the once I've never gone back to watch it before now. Blechh! God I hate insects! But anyway, to the story: Sam is reading about a guy in Oklahoma who apparently died of CJD, also known as Mad Cow Disease. However, when Dean asks how that is anything to do with them Sam points out that people who die from CJD usually deteriorate over months, years, and usually with some outward signs --- loss of motor control, dementia etc. --- but this guy died in an hour. It's strange enough to merit their investigation, the boys decide, and so head for Oklahoma.
After quizzing the dead man's co-worker the two decide to investigate the sinkhole that he was found in --- the men were part of a construction team building houses in the area when the victim had his "attack". Descending into the hole, Sam finds some dead beetles and is formulating a theory about the insects having eaten out the dead man's brain, but Dean scoffs at such notions, saying that would take a lot more than ten beetles. They attend a local barbeque posing as potential buyers at a showhouse, and find that the son of the owner has a great interest in insects. There are jars of them in the house, and he has pet spiders. He seems a little weird, though Sam takes to him.
That night one of the residents is killed in the shower, apparently by an attack of spiders. When the boys quiz Matt, the kid, who would be the prime suspect as far as they are concerned, he surprises them by revealing his knowledge about the other insect-related deaths in the town. He says that as he is interested in and studies insects, he has noticed a massive coming-together of many different species to his hometown, but he has no idea what it means. While searching for clues, the boys turn up what appears to be an unmarked grave, which, when they take the bones to an anthropology professor in the local college, turn out to be Native American, about 170 years old.
"Oh no! I hear you say! Not the old "Indian burial ground" --- sorry,
Native American burial ground story!" --- wait, just wait. It gets better.
Dean and Sam speak to a Native American who tells them that there was indeed once a reservation of his people in this land, but that over six brutal days the US Cavalry, impatient with their slow progress in relocating the tribe, raped and murdered them all. On the final day, the sixth, the dying chief of the tribe cursed the land and declared no white man should live on it, and that nature itself should rise up should they try, and defend the land. And on the sixth day, he tells them, none would survive. The brothers now have a working hypothesis: and tonight is the sixth day since the first death.
Sam and Dean race back to town, trying via phone to get the families out of the neighbourhood, but Matt's father won't listen. When they arrive they continue to argue until suddenly a massive cloud of insects blots out the sun and suddenly everyone is convinced. Running inside the house with the family, the brothers try to stop up all the gaps but there is no way to prevent at least some of the insects from gaining entrance to the house, and it is soon swarming, crawling and flying with bugs. As they try to protect themselves though, the sun rises and the sixth day ends, and with that the insects fly or crawl or slither away.
Convinced now that the house is built on cursed ground, Matt's father packs up and they leave, but Sam is glad to see that at least the two are now getting on better. Matt has lost his interest in insects, unsurprisingly, having come this close to being killed by a massive swarm of them.
MUSIC
Scorpions: "No one like you"
Extreme Music: "Poke in tha butt"
(Note: seems Def Leppard's "Rock of ages" is used here again, but as we've already featured that there's no point in repeating ourselves. There are also a few other songs used but I was unable to find videos for them, so have not included them.)
QUESTIONS?
No, not really.
PCRs
Dean mentions: "Mad cow. Wasn’t that on Oprah?"
Referencing Oprah Winfrey's famous talk show
Again, Dean responds to Sam's contention that some people form bonds with animals by replying "Yeah, that whole Timmy-Lassie thing."
Reference to the "Lassie" movies of the 50s and 60s; Lassie being the famous border collie dog that starred.
And Dean taunts Sam with "Yeah, you were kind of like the blonde chick in The Munsters."
Which obviously references the hit show "The Munsters", similar to "The Addams Family".
BROTHERS
Here I'd like to start a new post-section. As I mentioned in the introduction to this show, although it concerns itself with monsters, ghosts and helping people, and later widens to a major plotline, Supernatural is at its centre a story about two brothers. As the episodes and seasons evolve, we see deeper into the heart of each and come to appreciate more the relationship between the two, the problems they face and how they overcome their fractured past. Not every episode tackles these, but in those that do I'll be talking about them.
This is probably the first real episode in which we get an insight into the relationship. Sam, who refused to follow their father into a life of demon-hunting like his brother, has always felt both that he is seen as the black sheep of the family, and that he in some way let his father down. All he wanted was a normal life --- to go to college, get a law degree, marry Jessica --- but eventually all of that was blown apart by their troubled past coming back to haunt them, and he is now irrevocably set on the path of revenge, like his older brother.
However, he is there because he has been more or less forced there by circumstances, unlike Dean, who chose this path. He therefore feels a little inferior to his bigger brother, feels he is perhaps not the man Dean is, and possibly feels too a little ashamed that he deserted he and his father. We see all this come to a head in his contact with Matt, when he advises the kid, who is not getting along with his father, that he only has to wait two more years and then he can escape to college. Dean, of course, sees it another way and is angry with Sam's view. He thinks the boy should try to reconcile with his father, perhaps give him the respect he is not getting.
Dean and Sam argue about how Matt should be advised, but it's crystal clear that they're in fact arguing about their own father and how they both individually and differently approached the man. Sam later confides to Dean that he misses his father too, and although he wants to find him he is worried that John will not want to see him, feeling betrayed by his son. Dean reveals that their father used to swing by the campus to check up on Sam, and assures him that he loves him and will definitely be happy to see him.
Dean also takes capricious delight in embarrassing Sam whenever he can. In the previous episode, he tricked his younger brother into helping one of the frat guys paint his body, and here he pretends he and Sam are lovers when this is the mistaken impression the house owner gets from them. Of course there's nothing malicious in this; Dean is just a fun guy, but he probably feels his brother is too rigid and proper, and needs to be taken down a peg or two from time to time. Sam of course feels the reverse about Dean: he takes too many chances, seems to have a somewhat negotiable moral compass --- at the beginning of this episode Sam is chiding him for making money as a poker shark --- and probably flirts too much for his younger brother's liking, showing no real intention of ever settling down.
Two brothers who are the same on the surface but beneath are as different as can be, but who stick together and have each other's backs, as they will need to once this series gets going properly and they realise the full enormity of the task they have taken on, and the truth about the forces they face makes itself known.
1.09 "Home"
After having a premonition of danger, in fact dreaming a dream which shows the opening scene of the episode, where a little girl is menaced in her bedroom by a man made of fire, Sam tells Dean they must return home. He has been drawing a picture of a tree, unable to say where the inspiration came from, until he realises it's a tree that stands or stood outside their old house in Lawrence. He tells Dean that he can't say how, or understand why, but he knows that the house is now reoccupied and that the new tenants are in danger. When Dean presses him, he admits he sometimes has dreamed of things that then come true. Jessica's death was one such dream.
This is the first Dean has heard of this. He knows Sam has had some pretty bad nightmares, but for them to come true? And now his brother blames himself for his fiancee's death, saying he saw it beforehand in a dream but did nothing about it because he didn't believe it. If he'd had a bit more faith in his "visions", perhaps she would still be alive? Dean does not want to return to the site of his own personal nightmare --- Sam was too little to be able to adequately remember what happened that night twenty-two years ago, but it's etched in fire and blood on Dean's memory, and he has no wish to reawaken those feelings. However, Sam is insistent and so they go back home.
When they speak to the lady living there, Jenny, everything seems more or less normal, though she complains of things like scratching noises and the lights flickering, but it's when her daughter, Sari, tells the boys that a "man made of fire" is in her closet that Dean begins to believe that perhaps Sam is on to something. In desperation, when alone, Dean phones their father's voicemail and leaves a shaken message: he is really worried and for once does not know what to do. The usual bravado and chirpy humour that is his trademark has totally vanished, and for once, perhaps twice in his life, he is really scared.
Trying to follow their standard
modus operandi the boys check into the history of their old house --- they lived there but don't know much about it really, and haven't been back for more than two decades --- and talk to their father's neighbours and friends (incognito of course). This leads them to a psychic called, er, Missouri Moseley, whose name John Winchester has mentioned in their journal. Amazing the two boys, she recognises them and seems to know what they're thinking. She says she has an idea what started the fire but is unable or unwilling to elaborate. It seems to upset her greatly though, and she calls it evil.
As they talk to Missouri, things are happening back at the old Winchester house. A plumber has lost his hand in an "accident" when the garbage disposal he was fixing suddenly snapped on, and now the baby has been led into the fridge and trapped there, Jenny only barely realising where he was and saving him in time. Dean, Sam and Missouri go to the house and tell Jenny they can help. They go into Sari's room, where the psychic says the "dark energy" is concentrated. She reveals that the room Jenny's daughter is sleeping in was once Sam's nursery, the epicentre of all that happened twenty-two years ago.
Missouri tells the boys that though the thing in Sari's closet is certainly evil, it's not what killed their mother. Dark things, she says, get attracted to anywhere that true evil has been, and this appears to be one or more poltergeists, whose only aim is to kill the new occupants of the house. Without of course telling Jenny and her family about this, the trio convince her to leave the house for a few hours while they try to purify it with magic herbs and things like crossroad dirt. During the exorcism, the spirits try to kill Sam but Dean saves him and the house is cleansed. Jenny returns and Missouri tells them all is well, and leaves.
The end, right?
Er, no. Because unconvinced that everything is sorted, Dean and Sam remain in their car outside the house that night, and sure enough things start to happen. They see Sari screaming at the window and dash into the house, to see the figure of fire standing in front of her. Sam rescues Sari and Dean gets Jenny, and with Ritchie in tow they exit the house. But Sam has been trapped, held by another spirit and Dean goes back in to save him. As he approaches the figure of fire though Sam tells him to put down the gun, because he can recognise the person behind all the flames.
It's their mother.
She threatens the force holding Sam and it disappears, and she vanishes in flames into the ceiling.
The next morning Missouri apologises for misleading the boys, thinking all the spirits were gone when one remained behind. She remarks that even though she couldn't sense evil was still in the house, Sam could, but he does not know why. She bids them farewell and returns to her house where she talks to ...
... John Winchester! The boys' father says he wants desperately to talk to his sons, but he can't. Not until he knows "the truth".
MUSIC
This is the first (only?) episode not to feature any songs in it at all.
The "WTF?!!" moment
Two, really, both centred around the boys' parents. The first shock is when the fiery figure --- which we have all mistakenly taken for an evil entity --- turns out to be Mary Winchester, and the second, perhaps almost bigger revelation is that their father was there all along, in Missouri's house. The boys were only moments away from being reunited with their father, but he avoided them, for reasons which will become clear later.
QUESTIONS?
The big one: why does John Winchester not take the opportunity to talk to his sons, at least confirm to them that he's alive, and what is this "truth" he must find out before he can make contact?
Is Mary Winchester now dead? Was her spirit trapped in their house, awaiting the return of the boys and did she know she would need to save them? Has her soul now been saved, and if she "survived", even in spirit form, two decades, what can we really assume happened to Jessica, and where is she?
What connection has Missouri Moseley to what happened? Does she know, and is holding back the information at John's behest?
Did Sam really have a vision? Is he psychic or is there more to it, and if so, why could he not sense his father so close by?
The boys' mother tells them she is sorry. What is she sorry for? Is it just for their having to flee their home, for leaving them or is it something deeper that they don't know about? Can it be that in some way Mary Winchester knows more about the incident 22 years ago than she ever said? Certainly, in the opening episode, she almost seemed to recognise the shadowy figure holding Sam...
PCRs
Just the one. After being told by Sam about his visions, Dean is somewhat fazed. He tells him "I mean, first you tell me that you’ve got the Shining?"
Referring to the Stephen King novel and movie starring Jack Nicholson, about a boy who can predict the future through visions. Or something. Never saw it myself; scary movies are not my thing.
BROTHERS
It's interesting to note that this is the first time we really see Dean vulnerable. He's shaking and in tears when he tries to contact their father; for once he's completely out of his depth and the situation is beyond his control. He's too close to this; it's too hard to look at it dispassionately. Although he was only young when his mother died, he remembers part of that night --- mostly just fire and running --- and is reluctant to return to where it all happened.
Sam reveals to Dean that he has these dreams of people in danger, which then seem to come true. It's news to his brother, and he needs time to assimilate that information. He tries to console Sam that there was nothing he could do about Jessica, but part of him must wonder why Sam didn't at least try? However he does support his brother, not having the faintest clue what carrying such a burden must be like.
Although their mother acknowledges them both, it must hurt Dean that she seems to concentate more on his younger brother. Of course, it is Sam who is trapped, but Mary seems more interested in him and only says Dean's name and smiles at him. Seeing their mother again has a profound emotional effect on Dean, and again we see the tough-guy wisecracker facade fall and shatter like cheap glass.