Supernatural: Season 2, Episode 9: “Croatoan”

Directed by Robert Singer
Written by John Shiban

Robert Singer is one of my favorite directors of the series. He prioritizes the personal. He casts really well, and he works with actors (the leads and the bit parts) in a way that makes them feel comfortable. No one is peripheral. (My favorite anecdote about this is the young woman in “Monster Movie” whose boyfriend was abducted by a werewolf. Sam and Dean question her at an outside cafe. She is far more interested in slurping her gigantic soda than anything else. Singer knew the scene was one of those boring scenes, so he, probably on the fly (he wouldn’t have had to think about this too much), gave her a soda, and told the actress: “Really drink that soda. Focus on the soda.” She took that direction and RAN with it. Good actors don’t need much to run with something. Give a tiny suggestion and off they will go, filling it out, adding their own take to it. But that shows Singer’s devotion to the small details of performance, his sense of humor, his interest in character over plot.)

“Croatoan” is the linchpin of Season 2. Not only does it feature Dean finally coming clean about what John whispered to him, but it introduces the Croatoan virus, a device that will continue to pay off in seasons to come. The virus is Hell’s End-Game. Here it appears in its infancy. “Croatoan” has an extremely creepy vibe from start to finish (Dean’s comment at the end, “This is the one that got away …” is eloquent: he’s going to “lose sleep over this one.”) “Croatoan” has a sprawl to it, incredible when you consider how little they had to work with. It’s a small cast, and most of it takes place in a medical clinic, and yet the episode seems to contain the fate of the whole world.

The Lost Colony of Roanoke
If you do even a cursory level of research into the lost colony of Roanoke, you very quickly fall into a deep pool of mystery, speculation, and intrigue. There is a DNA Project, started in 2005, to try to piece together the events using what DNA evidence can be gathered. What happened? Plague? Indian attack? There are some very credible theories that the colonists merged with the Croatoan Indians, and took off with them, the “Croatoan” scratched into the post of the fort acting as a message: “We’re with them now.”

In 1584 Queen Elizabeth I granted her BFF (for a while, anyway, until he married without her permission – then BOOM, into the Tower for YOU) Sir Walter Raleigh a charter to create a new colony, the first on the continent. England wanted to establish a settlement there as a rival to the dreaded Spaniards. Raleigh was in charge. He dispatched a ship to establish a colony in the Virginia area. The ship landed in 1584 on what was known as Roanoke Island. That first colony did pretty well (relatively). They befriended two local tribes, one being the Croatoan tribe. The head of the expedition returned to England, with two Croatoan Indians accompanying him, who gave helpful information to Raleigh on what life was like, information about weather, animals, vegetables, wildlife. Using that information, Raleigh organized a second expedition. That second trip didn’t go as well: there was a fight with a local tribe over something trivial. Maybe some bad blood arose from that. Nevertheless, the group was ordered to establish a fort on Roanoke Island. The ship then returned to England, promising to return with supplies. This was 1585.

The group of colonists (107 men) built a fort on Roanoke Island. Very soon after the ship that had dropped the colonists off returned to England, Sir Francis Drake stopped by Roanoke Island on his way back from the Caribbean to see how things were going. He found things going well. However, in 1587, when the relief ship returned to Roanoke Island, the crew found the colony abandoned, the only “person” on site a rotting skeleton. This was the first mystery. Nobody knew what had happened to the rest of the people, although starvation would be a good bet.

The ship’s commander ordered the passengers on his boat to stay on the island and re-establish a colony there, under Raleigh’s original charter. There were women in this group. The colonists elected their governor, Governor White, to return to England and explain how desperately the colony needed help and support. White left on a ship for England in 1587.

Meanwhile, war had erupted between England and Spain (the Spanish Armada happened in 1588), making ocean crossings tremendously dangerous (or even more so). It took three years for White to return to Roanoke Island, and then only on a private ship on its way to the Caribbean. The ship’s captain and crew agreed to stop over at Roanoke Island. When Governor White disembarked with a team of men, he found the entire colony deserted. It had not been sacked or burnt, there was no sign of a battle that had taken place. In fact, all of the buildings and the fort itself had been carefully taken apart and dismantled, the wood piled up neatly. So that suggested that whatever happened was deliberate and planned. All the colonists (90 men, 17 women, and 11 children) were gone. White discovered the word “Croatoan” carved into one of the fort-posts, and “Cro” carved into a tree.

When White had left the colony, he had told the people that if they were forced to leave the settlement against their will, they should carve a Maltese cross into the fort-post. An SOS message. White found no Maltese cross anywhere. Just “Croatoan” and “Cro.” There was an island in the vicinity called “Croatoan” so it might have been a calling card: “Here is where we will be. Come find us.” But a huge storm came up and the crew of White’s ship, eager to move onto the Caribbean, refused to take him there. The ship sailed away, and the mystery passed into history unsolved.

Sir Walter Raleigh tried to solve the mystery but he was arrested for treason. Bummer. In 1607, the Jamestown colony was established. Captain John Smith (i.e. Colin Farrell) asked Chief Powhatan (father of Pocahontas) if he had any information about the “lost colony” and the Chief said that he and his tribe had slaughtered them all. News of this hit England in a wave of terror. Chief Powhatan’s story was confirmed from a couple of other sources, although recent scholarship throws some doubt on it. There are other stories, though, and some eyewitness accounts from a little bit later, of clearly English people, with pale skin and light eyes, living as Indians – either because they were captured, or through a natural process of assimilation. It was sheer speculation that these individuals were the original Roanoke colonists but it gained some traction as a rumor at the time. Cooperating with the tribes, who knew how to survive in the brutal wilderness, would be a smart move. The Croatoan tribe had lived on Roanoke Island (apparently, before moving elsewhere). So maybe the groups merged. We would have no way of knowing, either one way or the other. Explorer John Lawson speculated in 1709:

It is probable, that this Settlement miscarry’d for want of timely Supplies from England; or thro’ the Treachery of the Natives, for we may reasonably suppose that the English were forced to cohabit with them, for Relief and Conversation; and that in process of Time, they conform’d themselves to the Manners of their Indian Relations.

To me, this is the most plausible explanation. The Croatoans were known for their friendliness and helpfulness towards the colonists. The colonists’, starving, disease-ridden, waiting for a relief ship that was three years’ late, might have turned to them for help. The Indians would suggest, “Hey, why don’t you leave that Island and come hang with us on the mainland …” The colonists would look around, see certain death awaiting them, and think, “What the hell.” They scratched the name in the fort-post as an explanation to those who came looking for them.

The Roanoke Lost Colony is one of those stories out there that never loses its appeal, especially to conspiracy theorists and mystery lovers. I first heard it when I was a kid (I grew up with parents who were American History nuts) and it haunted me. “What happened” cannot be explained to a satisfactory degree. The mystery is entrenched. Nerds devote themselves to solving it. (And I love nerds. It reminds me of the AWESOME brouhaha surrounding Richard III’s bones being discovered under a parking lot, and Leicester and York basically warring with one another over where his bones should be buried. This happened this past year. They had to go to court to decide! Winner? Leicester. The nerdiness of that entire situation was one of the funnest news stories in recent memory. I watched it unfold like a cliffhanger, enjoying every second of it.)

On a final note: A playwright wrote a play in the 1930s called The Lost Colony about Roanoke Island and what might have happened, and it has played every single summer in a production on Roanoke Island ever since, making it the second-longest-running play in American history. Please look at one of the glorious props – found this picture on the Wikipedia page.

I mean ….

After delving into the legend of Robert Johnson in “Crossroad Blues,” where they incorporated one of the most important vital strains of American culture into the Supernatural narrative … now they go back to the very beginning. 1585. An abandoned settlement. The first one on the continent (from the English, that is). The beginning of the United States has a distinctly X-Files-ish storyline, and John Shiban (writer of the episode) knows it well. Similar to how they handled the Robert Johnson legend, they took what was most mysterious about it, and took it in the most literal way possible. Robert Johnson sang about crossroads and devils and hellhounds. What if these were not metaphors? What if he was describing his actual reality? The same is true in their handling of Roanoke. There are many explanations for what happened in the years of 1585 to 1590. But Supernatural connects their story of demonic germ warfare to the story of the lost colony. It’s a beautiful and eerie dovetail. Smart script-writing, and smart thematic thinking. The “Croatoan virus”, like my beloved Colt, is a plot-device that keeps coming back, that refuses to dissipate, that continues to serve the story for seasons to come.
Buh-Bye Roanoke. We Knew You When.

Similar to the slow crackling burn of Dean’s experience in “Crossroads Blues,” where the story of making deals with the Devil connects to how his father died and how he has lived, “Croatoan” features Dean dealing, not very gracefully and not very well, with the “problem of Sammy,” the burden of John’s whisper in his ear. The whole visions thing returns, the visions thing that started in “Bloody Mary”, back in Season 1, and developed intermittently ever since. “Home” was the next piece, with Sam’s vision leading them back to Lawrence. Sam and Dean are smarter about the visions now. They have started to figure out a pattern with them.

Speaking of Lawrence, Kansas
Did you know that Beat writer and man-about-the-world William S. Burroughs died in Lawrence, Kansas, of all places, after a peripatetic life with stints in Paris, Mexico, London, New York, South America and (most famously) Tangier? In 1981, William Burroughs moved to Lawrence, Kansas. Why Kansas, he was asked. He said it was cheaper than New York, and not violent (although the Clutter family may have disagreed – coincidentally, it was just the 55th anniversary of their murders). It is difficult to imagine such a strange stark cosmopolitan figure as William Burroughs in Kansas, queer before it was okay to admit it (I use that word deliberately: he wrote a book called Queer in the early 1950s which wasn’t published for decades). A funereal figure, a junkie, a Beat writer. My father was at an event at the Arts Club in New York City in the 1970s, and William Burroughs was there. Deathly pale, all in black, with that Buster Keaton FACE, my dad said he was surrounded by an entourage of much younger gay boys, practically teenagers, and I loved how my dad described it: William Burroughs cut through the crowds at the Arts Club, people moving out of his way, with his entourage following him “like a school of fish.” ANYWAY. There are (obviously) Beat-connections to Sam and Dean Winchester, and the entire story structure of Supernatural. I’m not the first one to notice that, although some of the commentary has been simplified (at best). I went into the whole On the Road connection in one of the first Supernatural posts I wrote, about TV pilots in general, and Supernatural‘s pilot, specifically. You would not think that there would be a connection between Lawrence, Kansas and the Beat Writers (although those Beat boys did get around), but I love that there is. There’s a photo of William S. Burroughs and a friend walking behind a jazz club in Lawrence in 1996 – with the words, “Lawrence, Kansas” clear on the sign:

William S. Burroughs moved to Lawrence in 1981, which means (sorry), that both Sam and Dean were there at the same time that he was. Granted, they were babies, but still, they breathed the same local air. And my love of connections finds that brilliantly satisfying. Of course Sam and Dean, stars of a mythic and totally American road-trip story, would be born in the place where a member of the Beat generation, friend to Kerouac and Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg and all the rest, ended his days.
And the Beat Goes On …

“Nightmare” introduced the idea that there were more out there like Sam, that they were all connected in some way. “Salvation” helped connect the dots between Sam’s visions and the Demon. “Devil’s Trap” had the Demon itself saying he had plans for Sammy and the other children like him. These are all seeds planted in Season 1, and Season 2 is when they bloom. Season 2, so far, has a hell of a lot of balls in the air. John dies. John whispers to Dean. Dean keeps multiple secrets for multiple episodes. That’s the focus early on, but Episode 5, “Simon Said” brings the problem of Sammy back to the forefront. Dean already hates that whole storyline, and hates it even more because of John’s whisper. That was three episodes ago. Now, in “Croatoan” it’s time to put the cards on the table.

“Croatoan” acts like a hinge on a door that has been closed for 9 episodes. Finally, with this episode, it opens. You can look at “Croatoan” and say, “Before that, things were one way. After it, everything changed.”

There’s a lot to get done here, and how on earth do you suggest a mini-apocalypse hitting a small town when you don’t have the money for massive numbers of extras? We are in the town, and we only meet 6 people. But when the town empties out, you FEEL it, because the Twin Peaks-ish community has been suggested so strongly. You don’t need a lot to create an entire world.

Things I Love
Sarge.
Interesting things happen in this story when Alpha Males show up, contesting the seniority of Sam and Dean. Sometimes it goes well. More often than not, it’s a bust. For the most part, Sam and Dean walk into any situation and are the clear leaders, by virtue of their experience. But here? They get a run for their money. And after a slightly flirty (on Dean’s part) introduction, and totes awkward second meeting (guns drawn), Dean and Sarge recognize one another as kindred spirits. The glances Dean and Sarge share rival the glances Dean shares with Sam – an interesting wrinkle to the events. Sarge becomes Dean’s main ally. We don’t meet many military guys in Supernatural (perhaps because they would automatically trump our heroes’ status). (I particularly like the interaction Dean has with the guy who has come back from a couple tours in Iraq – “takes one to know one”, and etc.) Dean and Sam were born into a military family. And not only that, but John was a Marine. The Marine Corps are pretty hard-core (all the branches of the military are hard core, but the Marines take it to another level – no judgment), and their sense of being one with the group is so strong that there has been worried “are they a cult” commentary in the past (and probably still). As a matter of fact, Margaret Singer, who wrote one of the best books about cults in the United States, called Cults In Our Midst, went out of her way to investigate the Marines and devoted an entire chapter in the book to the Marines, and why they are NOT a cult. It’s FASCINATING reading. Definitely challenges the bias, especially for those who are knee-jerk anti-military. My point really is that the Marine-identification is tremendously strong, and breaks down barriers if you are part of that group, even if it’s just by association (although the opposite can be true, as witnessed by Amelia’s dad’s hostile reaction to the Marines: lots of competition between the branches). Any involvement in the military creates strong identifications. My burly Elvis-loving tattooed flame from 2012 was a paratrooper. His paratrooper experience was one of the most important parts of himself, how he identified who he was in the world. (He was also a portrait painter, his other important identity signifier. One of the reasons he signed up to be a paratrooper was that some of the training took place in Italy, and Italy is basically a gigantic free art school for those passionate about it – so many museums there, SO MUCH ART everywhere.) Paratrooper training is so rigorous it bonds you forever. Those who make it are an elite group; there is a high attrition rate. And so it didn’t matter that he didn’t know all paratroopers personally: those men (mostly men) were his brothers. Forever. While I was dating him, I was sitting in an airport once, waiting for a flight. A young guy sitting next to me suddenly got up and walked over to a little white-haired gent opposite me. He had seen the old man’s tattoo, a paratrooper tattoo, and introduced himself as a fellow paratrooper. The two sat and talked. There were no barriers between them even though they were complete strangers and there was a good 50-year gap between their ages. I sat there, nearly in tears over the poignancy of the moment, and texted my paratrooper flame what I was witnessing. He wanted me to interject myself into the conversation – or basically patch him into what was going on – put him on speaker phone so he could talk with the other two – but I got shy. No! Don’t make me do it! My relationship with the paratrooper was a big BUST, but thanks for your service anyway, pal. I mean that sincerely.

Post-Apocalyptic Creepiness
A landscape emptied of people has always been fascinating to me, one of the reasons I’m drawn to well-done dystopian universe stuff. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Stephen King’s The Stand. This year’s Snowpiercer. The vulnerability of the human race to outside attack (from germs, nature, whatever) taps into some big collective fears and I fully participate in it. The situation in “Croatoan” feels bigger than the episode, and that is obviously deliberate. Singer et al really create that feeling of what we later learn is a “dry run” for global germ warfare.

Awesome Stunt Driving
Despite the fact that the Impala is such a huge part of the show, it’s not really a car-crash car-chase type of story. There is an incredible moment of stunt driving and stunt acting in “Croatoan” (and, considering that Ackles is not doing the stunt driving, he does an amazing job of making us believe that it IS him at the wheel in the closeups).

A Pacific Northwest Feel
There’s something crisp and clear and yet grey and rainy in the light here, that feels very local, very Pacific Northwest. The Impala shines and gleams because the rain has washed it clean. Dean and Sam both look cold and pale, and the shadows around them are dark and misty. I actually feel the rainy bite in the air in the atmosphere of the film. This is one of those intangible things that the show does so well. Granted, they film on location in Vancouver, but still: atmosphere is deliberate and has to be created.

References
The Lost Colony of Roanoke. The Omega Man. ZZ Top. The Stepford Wives (and I’m just gonna go ahead and assume it’s the 1975 original). The Shining. Mr. Rogers. Night of the Living Dead. There’s an Incredible Hulk reference, too. I mean, that is a panoramic view of pop culture.

Sam
Padalecki’s performance is a tour de force, with powerful moments both huge and small.

Teaser
We’ve had a couple of teasers now showing Dean in medias res, presenting him violently, strangely, removing the context we need. Context is decisive, and Supernatural has a lot of fun playing with that idea: You love these guys, I know … but try to see them outside their context … How much are you willing to excuse? Or, to put it plainly: remove the context of the supernatural, then these guys would basically look like serial killers on a rampage! That’s certainly what Agent Hendricksen, already assigned to the Winchester case, will see.

Filmed like a horror movie, with distorted close-ups of people we don’t know, lingering slo-mo, and big echoing sounds magnifying small moments like the gun clip being tapped against the handle, the teaser is a nightmare, showing Dean killing a man who desperately begs for his life. Sam is nowhere to be seen in the teaser. There’s a slight fish-eye quality to the close-ups, giving them a hallucinatory aspect, distorting reality. The man begging for his life keeps saying, “I swear to God, it’s not in me” – which I recall as being horrifying me on my first time viewing. It’s very Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Nothing scarier than people who look like themselves but who have something … in them. Shivers. Despite the heart-rending qualities of the man’s screams (and they are heart-rending, the actor does an incredible job), Dean remains cold and relentless.

There’s a huge closeup of Dean’s little black pistol (and in the actual scene, we get even a better look at the pistol. It’s been a while since we’ve had a really good Gun Porn episode – If you’re late to the party, I talk about that here), and then POW POW.

The moment shivers out, and we see Sam, on his back, in what appears to be the Baskerville Motel from “Crossroads Blues” (kidding, but still …), lying on the floor between the beds.

Dean comes sashaying in, holding a 6-pack, eating some beef jerky, and sees Sam sitting on the floor, gasping for breath.

Think about the first glimpse of Dean in “Croatoan” compared to the final scene of the episode. Quite an arc. It’s a well-earned payoff of the first part of the season, it’s been building since the get-go.

And Sam … well. Padalecki does some of his best work later in the episode, both in the final scene in the medical clinic as well as the epilogue scene. I have a lot more to say about Padalecki, and how he plays that scene.

1st scene
The episode opens with the Impala roaring through the night, and then a close-up of Sam’s GPS on his phone, with a lady-voice telling them to continue on, whatever whatever. (Side note: Technology changes so quickly and it is fun to watch how the brothers either move with the times, resist the times, embrace the times, or ignore that things have changed whatsoever. Whatever technology provides, in Supernatural you still need to crack open a book on occasion, and for that reason alone I am grateful. Sam basically acts as the Winchester Company IT point-person. Something goes wrong with the laptop? It’s crucial the problem is solved, like, yesterday! Lives depend on it! Sam will be the one to call the Help Desk in the Philippines and try to hash out what is the issue. Dean carries his own weight in other areas, but I would rather do ANYTHING than be on hold with a Help Desk. Sam has the patience to keep their little team up-to-date technologically, and functioning smoothly. Dean keeps the car in good shape. Also crucial. And we see more of Dean doing that than Sam doing the other, but it is an equally important job! Otherwise, how could they know how much further they have to go on Oregon Route 224 West?)

All of the things that end up coming into focus, or revealing themselves, in the final scene in the episode (as well as the scene earlier in the clinic) are here in the first Impala scene as well. (Shiban is one of my favorite writers on the show as well.)

We Need To Talk About Sam

The visions that Sam gets puts a wedge between the brothers. (Or, even more of a wedge. The wedge is always there, the wedge of childhood, of accumulated trauma, of growing up the way they did. But the visions are a horse of a different color.) Dean doesn’t like the visions. He’s weird about them, and he’s weird, in general, about Sam’s different-ness from the family. He resents it, it seems to implicate him somehow, he sees any different-ness as a betrayal. The visions, though, put him over the edge (even more so after John’s whisper). Dean has a wary respect for them since they come true. But it’s Sam who is the center here in this first scene (and throughout). Dean is just reacting. This is where stuff starts to get really interesting, both plot-wise and behaviorally. I’ve said before I’m not a huge fan of the “Psychic Kids” thing, which kind of died on the vine; HOWEVER: what it does do is highlight, quite starkly, the symbiotic relationship between the brothers, and how fragile that dynamic really is, how un-sustainable. The way the relationship is set up (and has been set up) is that Dean is in charge, Sam runs sidekick. For years this was unquestioned, because that’s how things happen in families (especially in families where the mother is absent and a child becomes a care-taker). Sam, though, has a steely independent streak, uncrushed by his father, and had the balls to secretly apply to college and then the tremendous courage to face the rage of his father and the heartbroken betrayal of his brother – and think to himself, 18 year old kid, “Y’know what? No. This is YOUR stuff, guys. I’m going to college.” Whenever I really think about Sam, that’s what I think of first. Nerves of steel. His experience was akin to an Amish shunning, or a Catholic ex-communication. You go to college, you are no longer “one of us.” John and Dean did that to him. He withstood that blow, devoted himself to his studies, fell in love. He did NOT tell Jess his life story. He was able to split that part of himself off so that he could survive without them. He had been trained in lying and subterfuge since he was a kid. So he wouldn’t have gotten the “lying is always wrong” memo. Besides, anyone knows that lying SOMETIMES is right. I would lie to protect my family and would not lose one wink of sleep about it.

But what I am interested in, and what starts to come up in Season 2 (and beyond, but I’m interested in Season 2 right now) is Sam’s sense of himself as being different. We could see it in Season 1, of course, when he would butt heads with Dean or with John, insisting that he was allowed to go his own way, he was allowed to be his own man. But the different-ness of Sam has a deeper and more sinister component, starting with the mysterious visions, and his connections to these other random “kids” out there. Being different means different things at different times. He was from a hunter family, and yet wanted to get an education. He had a very clear sense of himself as an individual who got to choose. Dean does not have that. Or if he did it was shamed out of him very early on. Both did what they needed to do to survive being raised the way they were. It is a hell of a secret to think about college, and go the distance to apply, without letting anyone in your family know. The intimacy (claustrophobia/Belljar) of the Winchester Family was so intense neither child would have room to breathe. So picture Sam’s college-application process and how hard he had to work to not let anyone know. When he left the family, he did so suddenly: he gave them no time to talk him out of it. I am glad that there have been no flashbacks about this pivotal event. It’s better to have it live in our imaginations, however it played out. I think about that moment a LOT, and so have Padalecki and Ackles. It’s crucial. Maybe he snuck away in the middle of the night, which would make sense. But maybe there was a confrontation. Whatever the hell happened, it’s very real. If it was a confrontation, I could see Sam, 18 years old, standing up to them, and maybe John and Dean both suddenly looking at “Sammy,” whom they were used to thinking of as a child, and both of them realizing, simultaneously, Holy shit, he’s taller than we are. When did THAT happen? We know what happened on the night Mary burned up, because the whole show opened showing it to us. But Sam leaving for college haunts the family (at least at this early stage of the game), and we never see it.

Dean exudes betrayal about that moment from the pilot, and exudes it any time college comes up. There’s resentment, too. John favored Sam, cuddled Sam, and put the burden of so much on Dean’s shoulder. And yet Dean didn’t feel loved. And so there’s rage that the “Bad Son”, who rebelled so visibly, shattering the trio, seemed to get all the love from the father. (This is Dean’s view. From Sam’s point of view, nothing he did was ever good enough. His father expected certain things of him and would not let him develop into the person he wanted to be. He had to sneak around to apply to college. Stanford gave him a full ride. Nobody cared. It’s horrible.)

One of the most eloquent “Sam” moments comes in the pilot in the very first scene between the brothers. Dean breaks in, Sam and Dean fight. Jess appears. Dean leers at her lecherously. Sam moves to her side. Dean tries to get her to leave, so he can talk to his brother, Sam says staunchly, “Whatever you want to say you can say in front of her.” Dean begins speaking in code about Dad being missing on his “hunting trip”, and the camera moves in on Sam, cutting Jess out of the frame (which basically says it all, visually), and Sam, without even looking at Jess, his eyes staying on his brother, says: “Jess, could you excuse us?”

It’s steely.

It reminds me of this.

Padalecki didn’t even know where the hell the story was eventually going when they filmed the pilot. He didn’t know all the twists and turns Season 1 would take, or where they would go in Season 2. But he understood Story (you can see it in his audition for the show: that’s an opening night performance), and he understood what that moment needed. It stands up, it really does (more so than Dean’s posturing, by the way. Dean went through a subtle but very important makeover by Episode 2. By Episode 2, Dean Winchester was “built to last.” The character of Dean in the pilot was not “built to last” – it was more of an attitude than anything else, beautifully played but still, an attitude. However, the character of Sam Winchester was “built to last” from the get-go, and you can see it in that first scene.)

Take those two things together:
1. The unseen (and yet haunting) scene of Sam leaving for college
2. The seen scene of Sam not looking at Jess as he speaks to his brother … and you have enough depth and complexity and contradiction to last, oh, 10 seasons.

Sam’s different-ness, in other words, has always been a problem, and what starts to happen mid Season 1 and into Season 2, is that we learn that there is a supernatural component to his different-ness, a devastating realization. (I’ve written before about Sam’s different-ness, and how I might not have been able to get through the show at all if I had started watching it pre-diagnosis. It would have hit too close to home. It’s an amazing metaphor for long-undiagnosed mental illness. There’s a look that crosses Sam’s face in the final scene of “Croatoan” that is chillingly clear, and is illustrative of what I just took 20,000 words to say. I have had that look on my face. Recently. This is a personal topic for me.) And so perhaps, ominously, John wondered early on if something was “wrong” with his son because of what happened in the nursery. And how long had he known about the demon’s plans? And when he found out, would he have thought to himself, “I always knew Sam was different”? Would there have been an “I KNEW it” thing going on, or “THAT explains it”? Would he have been almost pleased that he had been right all along that there was something “off” about his son? These are deep and terrible waters.

And that’s the look I see on Sam’s face at the end of the episode.

In its most benign form (although hugely threatening to John and Dean), Sam’s different-ness manifested itself in his desire to go to school, have a social life … join the Drama Club, play soccer. The only glimpse Dean ever got of a life like that was when he was removed from his father and placed in the Boys’ Home for a couple of months. Free for the first time, he was able to … be himself. Join the wrestling team. Kiss a girl. Make a couple of friends. It was just a taste, and a good taste of what he was missing, but he turned his back on it, he had to. Sam had the strength to NOT turn his back. He went to high schools and actually participated in things for the brief time he attended. He joined clubs. He studied hard. He had a goal in mind. I think these are things we sometimes take for granted about the show because it’s been on for so long.

Sam is often extremely rebellious and angry about how he was treated. He is vocal. He does not tiptoe around stuff like Dean does, he charges right in. He stands up for himself, he gets right in John’s face, he is not afraid. He is impressive and probably was so as an 18 year old kid too. As hurt as Dean was in that horrible moment Sam left, there had to be some admiration there, too, admiration that was indistinguishable from envy. How did Sam just do that? Could … I just have done that, too, all along? Just … up and left? How did he just do that?

Along those lines: I picture Sam abandoning the family for Stanford, leaving John and Dean stuck in a whirlwind of anger and recriminations. Dean would walk on eggshells around his thundercloud father, and would have to hide his own feelings of sadness, of missing Sam, of needing that sidekick, someone to share the burden with. Dean wouldn’t be able to talk to John about any of that, of course. John would hunker down into workaholism, and so would Dean … but I picture Dean deciding to get his GED right around that time. And just like Sam, he would do so secretly. Maybe he would put in an embarrassed call to Bobby, and see if Bobby could help him out, and promise not to tell John. You actually have to study for your GED. And Dean studied and passed. Maybe John was so much of a wreck he didn’t even notice what Dean was doing, but I doubt it. Maybe John sneered at Dean studying, and then went out and got drunk. And Dean kept studying because if Sam could do it, so could he. Sam was an example to Dean. Sam was someone to look up to. Maybe Cassie had something to do with it. I could so see her saying to Dean when she found out he dropped out of high school, “Please, dude. Come on. You need your GED. Let’s look up how you do it – I’ll help – here’s the form – fill it out – send it in.” There are all kinds of interesting possibilities. Sam’s different-ness is both threatening and admirable. It is a burden and an accomplishment.

Sam has conflicting feelings about his different-ness. He just wanted to be NORMAL. He had the wherewithal to understand his own family was not normal. But even when he tried to be normal, he didn’t fit in. As Season 2 approaches its final confrontation, as Sam finally realizes what exactly is wrong, he, too, has the sense of: “Of COURSE. I have felt this all along. I always knew that SOMEthing WAS THERE.” It’s a horrible confirmation but there is very little surprise about it, and that’s the interesting and strange level that Padalecki brings to it.

It is all about his different-ness, and how he relates to it, how he understands it, how deep it goes his feeling that something may be really different about him. He hates the visions too. They are the opposite of “normal.” Dean’s reactions to Sam ratchets up Sam’s reactions, and back and back, and it’s a feedback loop where no real listening is possible. No wonder Sam has adjusted his personality to “go along” with Dean (for the most part). It’s just easier that way. But that is not sustainable, not with a powerhouse such as Sam. Either way, it’s deeply uncomfortable when Sam “changes the dance step” and asserts himself on a path separate from his brother’s. It’s basically not done.
We (I) Honestly Need To Stop Talking About Sam Now.

Sam and Dean discuss Sam’s vision, although “discuss” is not really the right word. At every second of the conversation in the Impala, you feel both of them (more so Dean) getting ready to de-rail. Sam is leading them to a town in Oregon, based on a poster he saw in his vision. Dean is following. Sam, though, has removed himself slightly from Dean. Dean senses it. Sam saw something in Dean in the vision that disturbed him. Dean killed what appeared to be an innocent un-armed man. Dean defends himself: “I’m sure I had my reasons …” (which is pretty funny. They are arguing about something that hasn’t happened yet.) But what’s interesting is Sam does not reassure Dean on that point, he does not say, “Of course, I’m sure you had your reasons, too …” Those would be his “lines” and Sam does not say them. He says, instead, “I hope so.” Dean gives him a look. It’s a warning look, an alarmed and confused look, Does Sam actually think he would kill an innocent man? But Sam doesn’t “take the bait.” Instead, he reiterates that “we don’t know WHAT this thing is, or what I saw in my vision, and we’re just going to go check it out, okay?”

But Sam’s not “being” the way Sam is “supposed” to be, in Dean’s fantasy utopia land. Sam’s slight hesitations seem very ominous, threatening to shatter their entire bond. (This is the fragility of codependent systems, although I don’t really like that word.)

Sam can’t shake off his vision/nightmare, he can’t shake off the image of his brother cold and ruthless. On the flip-side, Dean is starting to hear John’s whisper in his ears now, and there are multiple things that come up in “Croatoan” that start to make Dean’s situation unbearable (exacerbated by the virus itself, which pits family members against one another in brutal ways). If Sam has a nightmare, then Dean has been living a waking nightmare, especially in the aftermath of “Crossroad Blues,” as he slowly realizes he is going to have to deal with his father’s mysterious whisper. What did it mean? What did it mean? Why?

The atmosphere in the opening scene is deeply uneasy. Sam is wary of Dean. Dean is wary of Sam. He feels guilty of something before he even DID it.

The lighting is strange, by the way, in the opening scene. Closing scenes in the Impala at night usually have a moody romantic feel, with blurry lights outside in the dark, deep shadows, almost the comforting feeling of darkness where truth is possible. This opening scene films them sometimes through the windshield, light refracting off the windshield, street lamps and taillights swooping across their faces, almost chaotically. There is a lot between us and them.

You can’t get a line on the light. It’s disturbing, there’s no real pattern to it. A smart visual choice.

2nd scene
The Impala roars into small-town America. I do not understand the music choice here, and I do not understand (or approve of) the music choice in the final scene. Huge miscalculation in both. Whatever music happens here as the Impala cruises into town has nothing to do with setting a mood. It’s general. It’s filler. It has no emotional content. I wouldn’t mention it if there weren’t an even more egregious example in the final scene that is so contrary to the mood set up throughout that my system wants to reject it like the Croatoan virus the moment I hear it.

I want to talk briefly about efficiency in film-making. It is a lost art. Watch old movies and the old masters are completely unembarrassed about getting you from here to there with no fanfare. In Penny Serenade (1941), Cary Grant and Irene Dunne return to San Francisco from Japan. We see a boat sailing on the ocean. We see the sign of the San Francisco Port. Boom. Pacific Ocean crossed. No fat on it. I’m of the old-fashioned belief that very very few films warrant being over 2 hours long. You should be able to get the job done in an hour and a half. Every second after that had BETTER be necessary, and if not, cut cut cut cut. Episodic television is an object lesson in efficiency because everyone has to get the job done in less than an hour. It’s fun to see the deleted scenes sometimes, but usually it is obvious why they needed to go. Either, you’ve already said it, or, better yet, it’s been inferred and you don’t NEED to say it.

So. “Croatoan” depends on the illusion that we have entered a bustling populated small town. We have to really feel the town itself so that when it is deserted at the end, we understand what has happened. Supernatural doesn’t have an hour to set that up. They have 2 minutes, tops. There are the important scenes where we meet the ancillary characters, the doctor, Sarge, the family … but we also have to get the sense that this is a town full of people, people we don’t meet. How do you do that when you don’t have a budget for a ton of extras, and you also don’t have the time? Also, every town is different and every town has its own personality. Not everything is a city, and not everything is neat suburbia. How do you that?

Singer does it in one shot. The Impala pulls up in front of the clinic. Dean and Sam look around, and the camera moves from one image to the next – we see a guy in a flannel shirt picking through a crate of second-hand stuff placed behind a store, then we see another guy, in a sweatshirt and a down vest, closing the hood of his beat-up black pick-up truck, the camera moves past a big stack of red canoes, before it lands on Sarge, sitting on his front porch, futzing with his fishing pole.

Boom. Whole community, presented, you get the whole thing. I know exactly where we are. I know what kind of people live here, I know what they do for fun, I know there are some hard times there, it’s a blue-collar place, it’s tight-knit. You get all that in 3 seconds of film-time. That’s efficient. And you would miss it if it wasn’t there. It fills in the world. In the scene after this one, when they discover “Croatoan” on the telephone pole, we get more of it, too, the street reaching off in the background into mist, a ramshackle bait and tackle shop in the background, people on the sidewalks, a feeling of a bustling Main Street in a town very close to a body of water, done with 3 extras and a couple of cars. THAT is how you do it.

Sam sees Sarge (Bobby Hosea – phenomenal actor) and recognizes him as one of the people in his vision. Dean and Sam approach, shown through the screen behind Sarge, which is a neat effect but also is part of the way Singer shows us the “larger” world of Main Street: cars going by, extras, people walking by …. You need to feel that absence later, you need that contrast. Dean takes the lead (which always makes me nervous, he is awkward at finding the right tone). He introduces themselves as “Billy Gibbons” and “Frank Beard” and they are U.S. Marshalls, badge-flash.

I would like to see a pair of U.S. Marshalls show up at someone’s doorstep looking like this.

Sarge is impressive and reserved. Small-town suspicion of the outsider, especially (let’s be frank) when they look like these two. Is someone in trouble? Are you asking me to tell on my neighbor? Sam hastens to say, “No, no … we want to talk to the boy with the scar on his head because of some other reason … He’s not in trouble.”

“Not yet anyway,” jokes Dean, all breezy and confident and too gorgeous to be a normal person, and he knows it, he’s throwing it out there, and there’s a great moment when Sarge looks up at him, taking in the Burlesque, deadpan. He sees it all.

Dean gets this reaction so often it’s not worth even dwelling on, and Dean himself doesn’t even blink an eye. He understands he is being evaluated, he understands he is being sized up, and his eyes wander, stopping on Sarge’s tattoo. Dean then adds, in a submissive intimate tone, “Master Sergeant.” (I could watch Ackles’ line-reading there all day.) Dean is not thrown off his game by how Sarge is staring up at him. Dean is determined to be intimate with the guy. Sam stands by, looking on, probably wondering when this interaction will careen off the rails, as it usually does when Dean is in charge. But Sarge is a Marine. He’s still reserved and wary, but this gleaming guy on his doorstep has spoken his language. Dean nods, still submissive, but also extroverted at the same time (it’s a magic trick how he pulls that off), and says, “My dad was in the Corps.” “What company?” says Sarge. Dean: “Echo 2-1.” And he’s so proud, and so full of the knowledge of belonging to something (through his dad), and it’s fascinating considering “Crossroad Blues” and that final scene in the Impala. Things are not “either/or” in Supernatural. They are “both/and”. Both attitudes (anger/betrayal at his heroic Dad making a deal, pride because of his awesome Marine Corps. Dad) are true. The fact that he is using it here to get in with the intimidating Sarge does not negate that.

Sarge’s energy never really changes. He does know a kid like the one they describe. “But he’s a good kid. Keeps his nose clean,” he hastens to add. Thanking him, Sam and Dean (or Billy and Frank) head off across the street, Sarge left behind, staring after them. Suspicious. Worried. Maybe he’s already noticed that something weird has been happening in his town, maybe he senses already that’s something not right out there.

Dean and Sam head back towards the Impala and Sam bumps his shoulder against a telephone pole, glances at it, and then does a double-take. (DIFFICULT moment to make real. It’s totally artificial in its set-up, but it has to happen, and it has to feel accidental. I love to watch actors who are graceful with such moments, who have problem-solved it for themselves. It is that great leap into Make Believe that is required of actors.)

The colors in this next section are stark and glamorous and it’s my favorite look of the show. The backgrounds become a blurry wash of melted-together colors, all greys and greens, which highlight the faces.

The shadows on Dean’s face look dark, making him seem even more pale. And Sam practically seems one with the environment behind him, melding into the softness of that background. It’s a humorous scene, and a stock scene, but it’s filmed poetically and glamorously. It’s in love with the faces they have to work with.

Sam is stunned and stares at Dean, shocked, and he waits for Dean to be shocked, too. It’s a funny moment of stasis, of Dean not understanding what the big deal is. Croatian? What, is that some PNW grunge band? Seeing an opportunity to be above his brother in status, and glorying in it, which is such a little-brother thing to do, Sam berates Dean for never paying attention in school. What the hell was he DOING while he was sitting in history class? Dean is both embarrassed and indifferent. (Ackles’ acting moments are rarely just one thing.) He feels stupid, but he also knows he’s awesome in so many other ways, so who cares. Sam is embarrassed for Dean, and so Dean, in self-defense, rattles off, “Shot heard round the world…. when bills become laws …”

It lives on in Youtube clips and has become so much a part of our culture it transcends its own time, but it is such a Gen X thing, and Sam and Dean are Gen X. What you watch in between the ages of 6 and 12 cement your tastes almost forever. Or, at least, you never forget the stuff that you watched during those years. If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, you saw Schoolhouse Rock on a continuous basis. It was everywhere. Used in school lessons, peppered throughout Saturday morning cartoons. I am Gen X, so forgive me for feeling a kinship with those who share my generation’s goofy references.

Picturing Dean and Sam curled up on a ratty motel room bed watching those videos is both hilarious and tragic at the same time.

Nothing better than Dean desperately grasping at straws in order to save face. But Sam watched Schoolhouse Rock, too, and calls him on his malarkey. Speed bump passed over, they move on. Sam gives Dean a bullet-point version of the Lost Colony, which jogs Dean’s memory. Neither of them are sure what it has to do with what is happening in River Grove, Oregon, or with Sam’s visions, which are usually connected to the Yellow-Eyed Demon.

There’s something … freakin’ terrifying about that word scratched into the telephone pool. A message. Indecipherable. Mysterious. A warning. Who put it there? Who felt it coming? Who understood that it would be the same story as the Lost Colony? That it was time to desert the town? Singer keeps going back to the scratched word. With each repetition, it expands in scope.

After talking about it for a second, they realize they probably need help, Bobby, Ellen, someone. Dean dials, only to find he has no cell phone service.

(How many movies depend on there being no cell phone service? Enjoy the montage.) Sam doesn’t have service either and, more ominously, the pay phone down the block is dead.

3rd scene
Dean and Sam are shown, in very long shot, approaching the Tanner house. It’s a big sprawling dark-wood house, surrounded by trees, and misty fields (there’s always mist in every scene, giving a feeling of weather and atmosphere, it’s just rained, it’s going to rain again, the mist rises in the meantime. It’s a beautiful look. River Grove looks like a very nice place to live.)

Shout-out to the props department for these briefly-seen props by the front door of the Tanner house.

The horseshoe is also most interesting. But blink and you miss it!

A young punk (Nolan Gerard Funk) opens the door. I sound like a Grandma but that is my reaction to the cocky kid with the cool haircut who opens the door, all Bro-ish and “yeah, man”, looking at the two badges there in front of him with cocky disregard. This is Jake, brother to Duane.

No, Duane isn’t home right now. He’s on a fishing trip. He seems completely unfazed by the fact that authorities are looking for his brother. His whole thing is “What UP, man?”, which both Dean and Sam silently clock as weird. When Dad comes to the door (Laurie Murdoch), he seems slightly normal, but again, something’s off. The way he claps his hand on his son’s shoulder. The way the son said the mother was home, and the dad says, “Oh, no, she’s out …” Sam is pretty intense as he’s listening, and Dean is as well. Nothing about this spells Normal (which is super-funny considering Sam and Dean’s overall lack of normalcy themselves.)

The Tanner family members are, of course, Winchester Mirrors. The townspeople all turn on one another as the virus spreads; the virus wipes out familial feeling, too. There are two brothers in the Tanner family, the cocky younger brother, and the more solitary older brother, whom we meet later. In just a second, we will see Mr. Tanner and his son ganging up on Mrs. Tanner, infecting her with the virus. You know, keep it in the family. It’s terrible, the most terrible part of the Croatoan virus and why it is so effective as a weapon. There are multiple scenes later in the episode with both Mrs. Tanner and Duane Tanner, where there are heated discussions about what to do with them, and whether or not they should be killed. All of this pours into the Winchester family drama, so far unacknowledged to a direct degree, but working on both Sam and Dean. Dean has more of a burden at the moment, his father’s whisper, and how it has already separated himself from his brother, even if only in the back of his own mind. John’s totally unfair whisper has placed a weight on Dean, the weight of tiredness that we start to see, his exhaustion, his disaffection with “the job.” Quite a change from the gung-ho persona that Gordon brought out of him. The family dynamic, and whether or not you will be willing to kill your brother if the situation calls for it, if you will be strong enough to ignore familial feeling and do what needs to be done … that’s the psychological pool of “Croatoan.” (Not to mention the fact that Duane Tanner was the problem all along. The Ground Zero of the virus. Sam’s dream was truer than he knew. Terrible ending. And hugely shocking to me when I first saw the episode, although I also thought immediately, “Dammit, I should have KNOWN that one was coming!” The episode “stings” Sam and Dean, and they don’t even know it. They drive away from the town, baffled and frustrated, and we, the audience, are privy to more information than they have. It makes for a deeply eerie ending.)

Sam and Dean head back down the stairs, shot from below, so that they seem massive. Both look uneasy. They barely need language in such moments, but Dean says, “That was a little too Stepford.”

Indeed.

Dean and Sam decide to sneak around the back of the house to see what they see. A propos of nothing except Beauty, I LOVE the shot where they come around the corner of the house.

It’s beautifully framed, aesthetically pleasing, the house looming into the shot, with that silvery mist-light filling the air, coming out from behind the house. Atmospheric, a very strong-looking shot.

Inside, poor Mrs. Tanner (Chilton Crane) is tied up in her own kitchen, as her punk son whispers in her ear, “Don’t worry, Mom. It won’t hurt a bit.”

This kind of thing – recognizable beloved family members suddenly co-opted – is used repeatedly in Supernatural, and it always causes a shiver of revulsion for me. If you picture yourself in her position … putting away the groceries, thinking her life is same ol’ same ol’, and to suddenly have her husband and son tie her up, and turn psycho … It’s easy to lose track of the reality of such a situation because, well, it’s so supernaturally based. But it’s the basis of so many horror films, sci-fi stories, like, say, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where those you know are suddenly … different. Her agony and terror are real. She has NO idea what has happened and is in a state of complete trauma. Her husband gets out a gleaming knife, and he cuts his son’s arm open. We get a glimpse of blood dripping into a wound on her shoulder or something, but not before we get this ridiculous shot.

Ah, Supernatural. It’s not QUITE as goofy as Sam and Dean staring out of the hole in the roof in “Bugs” after the shortest night in human history, but it’s close.

A moment too late to be effective, Sam and Dean charge in, guns drawn. Father Tanner charges at them like a monster and gets shot a couple times in the chest for it. Punk Tanner leaps out the window into the backyard and takes off into the bushes. Sam, with his macho-as-hell little silver pistol, trains the gun on the clearly visible punk, but hesitates for a split second, and the kid is gone.

Lots of depth here, considering all the mirrors in operation.

4th scene
The Impala comes barreling around the corner, giving us another beautiful look at that gleaming wet road stretching off and up into the distance.

Picture being a location scout or a director coming across this road one day. You’d make a note of it. Now that is a road I need to film. It’s beautiful but again it helps make the town seem bigger than what we see onscreen – which is a small medical clinic set, the Tanner house, and Sarge’s front porch. Slim pickins to make us feel like we are in a once-vibrant community. But a shot like this one grounds us in reality.

It also gives us a chance to watch Ackles actually drive that damn car, which is always fun. Sam helps the traumatized Mrs. Tanner into the clinic all as Dean, hilariously, goes and opens the trunk, looking around suspiciously. He looks so sketchy.

Moving into the clinic which is a pretty elaborate set, with multiple rooms, all of which will be utilized over the course of the episode. From here on out, except for Dean’s sojourn out into the wild, the action will take place in the clinic. They have put a lot of thought into the layout and what they will need: the lab rooms, the storage rooms, the front hallway, the main office … locked doors in between each. Eventually it becomes a barricade.

We meet the medical clinic staff, both of whom are really meaty one-off characters, each one with a lot to do, each one with a specific Arc. There’s Dr. Lee (Kate Jennings Grant) who greets Sam’s call for help with a look of alarm.

Everyone knows each other’s name in the town. What happens to a neighbor is traumatizing for all. Here, the word “neighbor” still means something (no surprise that the funniest joke in the episode, and one of Ackles’ funniest line-readings of all time, has to do with Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It’s that kind of town.) Then there’s the nurse, or lab assistant, Pamela. She gives a really nice performance which could be read multiple ways. She’s set up as somewhat … strange … and says, as Mrs. Tanner tells her woeful tale, “I don’t believe it …” and she looks like she really doesn’t believe it, like she is casting doubts on the story.

Whatever the case may be with her status, she seems strange, and I’m thinking a lot of the people in the town have seemed strange over the last couple of days. Sarge picked up on it.

Sam and Dean stand off to the side of the room, in the same frame, surrounded by shadows, listening. The rest of the room has a wintry light to it, the blonde hair of Mrs. Tanner and Pamela, the chrome fittings, the white sheets. The room is kind of split, visually. Dark and light.

When the word “the devil” comes out of Mrs. Tanner’s mouth, Dean leaves the room, and Sam follows. You can see the complexity of the set: the intervening walls and windows, we’re seeing them through stuff, again setting up the clinic as a natural barricade with multiple levels of defense.

A simple scene here but interesting because that subtext is starting: Sam’s subtext, which we saw earlier in the car, and Dean’s subtext, which has been roiling around unacknowledged since the end of Episode 1. Even a small moment of disagreement about how to proceed starts to seem ominous, indicative of larger things, perhaps fulfilling John’s sinister whispered prophecy. I like to look at Ackles’ performance in “Croatoan” as being one where the character is hearing that whisper inside his own head from the moment they reach River Grove. It would be like going crazy.

And for Sam, the vision he saw of Dean gone rogue is something that makes him deeply uneasy. He knows there was no black smoke. He thinks Duane was a person, and Dean was going to kill him. Events are moving forward to that conclusion, and they are about to step into that horrible future, and Sam is uncertain as to how to stop it. Mainly what starts to happen is that Sam wants Dean to slow the hell down (this happened in “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things,” in “Crossroad Blues”). Sam is sensing Dean’s motor running, a motor that has nothing to do with the case.

Dean gets on Sam about not killing the punk, and there’s an aggressive gleam on his face: it took Dean a bit to say something about it, you can feel him throw off the restraints. And Padalecki’s response to his brother’s aggression is so specifically … him … like, his DNA is wrapped up into it … sort of taken aback, with a little grin (it’s the grin that I love), as he says, “I’m sorry, it was a kid.” (But it sounds very #sorrynotsorry.) It’s a deep little moment, with tons of behavior. The posture, the grin, the taken aback look … It’s these small moments that keep me hooked, junkie that I am. Both actors are so open with themselves. It may not feel like that is a particularly vulnerable moment, but it is. Sharing yourself in any way is a vulnerable act.

Dr. Lee is pissed. These marshals seem to have killed her neighbor. She wants an explanation and she needs to get the sheriff, but the phones are down. There is a startling POV shift, suddenly seeing the characters from the other room, through the dark glass, giving the feeling that they may not be … completely safe within the clinic.

That’s a stalker’s point of view.

Dean offers to go find help, and she tells him the next town is Sidewinder, 40 miles away. (Shining fans will know that Sidewinder is the town closest to the Overlook Hotel. We’ve got the Grand Pooh-Bah Shining-inspired episode coming up, but “Usual Suspects” had the whole Redrum babble in it as well. I love it when there are clusters of references, like the entire Supernatural writing staff re-watched The Shining at around the same time. Or, like in Season 5, when the entire writing staff appeared to have re-read the Babar books simultaneously.)

As Dean drives off, two random people stand there on the corner and watch him go.

No special effects required to create an overall mood of not-right-ness.

5th scene

Oh, Supernatural, you slay me.

But beyond that, just for kicks, watch the complicated twisty crane shot they do to open this empty-highway scene. Ackles has to drive into the shot, hit the exact right spot, get out of the car at the exact right moment, close the door at the exact right moment, and start walking at the exact right moment. He is moving in tandem with the invisible crane maneuvers. He can’t be getting out of the car before the crane is at its height, and etc. And there can be no marks on the road for him to hit, because the crane would see them, and he (of course) can’t glance up to make sure he is in alignment. This is the kind of thing that is nervewracking to get right, because if you mess up, you are messing up everyone’s day, and the crane has to get back into position 1, the car has to be backed off down the road, and suddenly you’ve lost two hours of daylight. Getting good at technical stuff is just as much a part of acting as being able to cry convincingly, or read a line well.

So I watch this effortless-looking shot and know the work that was put into it behind the scenes, and how much thought had to be put into all of it to make it happen. And Ackles is one of those rare guys who is both an emotional mush-ball (he can call up whatever emotion he wants to, immediately, and fluidly, without pushing) and also an algebraically-inclined spatially-sensitive hand-eye-coordination guy which makes him brilliant technically. (Singer has said repeatedly that Ackles is flawless technically: matching shots, matching takes, angle understanding, camera lens understanding.) Maybe this is because Ackles was an athlete and athletes have an understanding about how their bodies move through space, and they don’t even have to think about it. (Shirley MacLaine, who started out as a dancer, has talked extensively about what her dance training has done for her as an actress, and much of it has to do with a three-dimensional awareness of how one’s body moves through space and the whole concept of spatial relationships in general. Dancers can pirouette 15 times in a row and always know where they are in the room. You know. They’re weird like that, but it’s a very useful skill for an actor to have, onstage and on film.)

What I am saying is: In this complicated shot, Ackles is working seamlessly with the camera. He senses it, without having to look at it, he senses where it is, and can time his movements to match it, slow down a tad if he gets ahead, move quicker if he gets behind. The end result though is effortless and honestly audiences shouldn’t even notice it. It’s a storytelling device, doing that shot in one take: Give us the close-up low-down view of the WTF car with the blood stains and hole in the back windshield, rise the camera up to show Dean approaching, circle around over Dean as he exits the car and moves on out of frame to investigate. The lazier style, and the more commonly-seen style, would be to break it up into five or six separate shots: close up of funny license plate, close up of blood stains, high shot of car approaching, closeup of Dean at the wheel, closeup of Dean’s hand on the door handle opening the door, closeup of Dean grabbing his gun … You get the picture. A shot like this one is another example of the beauty and clarity of efficiency.)

6th scene
Meanwhile back at the clinic, Dr. Lee huddles at the microscope, a blur in the background, with big gorgeous shadowy Sam taking up the foreground. It’s a beautiful shot, with the whites surrounding Sam not seeming to touch him. Like, in such a white silvery space, why he is all shadowy?

Why ask why? It’s beautiful, isn’t that enough?

And live it up, because next we get this nonsense.

I realize it is deadly serious, but that looks like … wacky pajamas seen in close-up. The sulfur sprinkling of yellow is hilarious.

Sam asks Dr. Lee questions. She answers as best she can. She doesn’t understand what she is looking at. Whatever it is it is some kind of virus, and the body tries to fight it off. Sam asks her questions about how viruses work. Could they make people … tie up their own mother, basically. Dr. Lee is stumped.

But what is interesting about the small scene, as they talk to one another across the space, with a dead body between them, remember … is the space of respect that Sam gives for her expertise.

Sam and powerful women has come up a lot in our comments section conversations, and how pleasing he is in this particular dynamic. We saw it in “Usual Suspects,” when he suddenly had to take care of Linda Blair, but he did so without shaming her own status. We see it repeatedly, it’s one of his unsung distinguishing characteristics. It’s probably why women feel safe with him. He doesn’t take away their power. He doesn’t negate his own power either. Both can exist at the same time. (This is all part of the Iconic Tough Guy Tradition, which I babbled on ad nauseum about here. What is called “macho posturing” or sexist or whatever is really just the genre of Tough Guys operating in a Tough World. And while yes, the Tough Guy Tradition does feature some “You just sit back there, little lady, and let the man take care of it” – it’s less than you would think. Tough Guys like John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper and Clark Gable needed strong women to pair up against. Their strength was best highlighted by equally strong women. Sadly enough, we have a MUCH more toxic environment now in terms of gender roles onscreen, than what was going on back in the 1930s and 1940s when female stars ran Hollywood. Or, at least, the entire industry catered to female stars and to the female audience demographic.)

Sam questioning Dr. Lee is just a quiet example of that kind of dynamic. Pleasing. Both characters have space. To know things, and to not know things. He’s good with women.

7th scene
Already, the little silvery-shadowy medical clinic has started to seem like a quiet enclave of humanity. Dean’s car barrels along through a pressing thick green wilderness, and as the Impala comes around the corner, we see this through the windshield.

Another great shot.

Dean pulls the car to a stop. There are a couple of other eerie shots, of the entire scene: the group blocking the road, plus the diagonally-parked Impala, and then a slow pan-in to Punk Tanner, with a tiny evil grin on his face. Dean, having no idea about the Wacky Pajamas Virus back at the lab, is probably getting the picture anyway. He’s probably about to start backing up. But a part of him probably wants to get out and confront that group. But it would be 7 against 1.

The standoff lasts for a little while, and Dean has kind of gotten sucked into the staring contest, so that when a hand bangs down on top of the Impala, he nearly jumps out of his skin.

We haven’t seen Dean use flirtation as a survival technique in a while, and what happens here is a great example of how that dynamic operates for him. It’s a bit desperate while at the same time being very pointed and deliberate, he throws out the gleaming-eyed grin and the sexual comment wildly, hoping it will hit, disorient, hoping his opponent will succumb to his charms, giving him a chance to get away. If you asked Dean later, “Can you please tell me about how you tried to flirt your way out of that,” he might not be able to tell you. It’s knee-jerk, it comes without thought, it’s his natural response to a threat: he runs right at it, spouting sexual come-ons.

The guy has his arm on Dean’s car, and is leaning in the window. So the boundaries are already way compromised and you can feel that in Dean’s body language. But instead of getting tough and burly about it (“Take your hands off my car, pal”), he pretends they’re at some happy hour function and the guy is trying to buy him a drink. “I don’t swing that way, so …” Big smile, laughing, like the rules are set between them. The flirtation only works if you pretend the other person is on board. That’s Dean’s trick. Because in his world, in his experience, on some level his opponents really are flirting with him, or trying to seduce him, or leering at him in some way. They can’t admit it to themselves, they aren’t even aware of how sexually they are treating him, but HE can feel it, and so he addresses THAT, as opposed to the outer aspects of the behavior.

It’s extremely aggressive, what Dean’s doing.

But it doesn’t work. The guy leaning on the car is not going away. And no way is Dean going to get out of his car.

Dean jams the car into reverse, the guy still hanging onto the door, and there’s an awesome bit of stunt driving, the Impala swooping around, with the guy hanging on for dear life, legs dragging on the pavement, before being flung off into the bushes. Stunt doubles! Go, team! And as the car peels away jaggedly, it looks like that is Ackles driving, at least in the final bit. Nice work.

8th scene
I recently re-watched “Ice,” an episode from Season 1 of the X-Files, where Mulder and Scully are trapped in an Arctic biological station with four or five other people, and there is a prehistoric virus trapped in the Ice Cap which infects you and turns you into a rabid killing machine. You cannot tell whether or not someone is infected until it is too late. The suspicion between the characters grows and grows over the course of the episode, all of them turning on one another. Filmed in one location, it has a lot in common with “Croatoan.”

Back at the clinic, that process is beginning. People who may not “be themselves” (like Mrs. Tanner), and who may not be aware they are infected, being confronted with the information that something may be seriously wrong. And so the dividing lines are starting to be set up, just as Hell would like it. It will divide people against one another.

Dr. Lee is sympathetic and confused, calling Mrs. Tanner “Beverly” (intimacy) and wants to take a blood sample … would Mrs. Tanner allow it? Mrs. Tanner nods, and then, suddenly, goes Monster Mash. Punching Dr. Lee, screaming like a banshee, throwing Sam across the room. The transformation is sudden, and comes with zero warning. Sam bashes her in the face with a fire extinguisher.

9th scene

“My neighbor, Mr. Rogers–”
“You got a neighbor named Mr. Rogers?”
“Not anymore.”

I can rest easy at night knowing that that exchange exists out in the world and that I can visit it again and again.

The scene between Sarge and Dean out on the road is a great flip-side to the psychosexual come-on Dean just experienced (and created) at the bridge road block. In his first meeting with Sarge, Dean basically rolled over into the submissive position, with his “Master Sergeant” comment. It was a manipulation tactic, but becoming submissive sometimes is. He acknowledged Sarge’s clear status. It was flirty but that’s just because it came from Dean, it’s how he comes across, how he operates. He would flirt with the Black Hills of South Dakota. But in this tense standoff, guns drawn on both sides, there’s none of that anymore.

Dean can’t flirt his way out of this one and it doesn’t even occur to him to go that route. After a shouting Quentin Tarantino-ish standoff, two Tough Guys shouting their confusion at one another, filled with suspicion and fear, they team up.

But they keep those guns drawn. And Sarge has TWO guns. I am in love with him.

10th scene

Beautiful opening shot of Dr. Lee staring through the microscope, with the mysterious Pamela in the blurry background.

Pamela is starting to crack under the pressure. She’s gotta go outside and find her boyfriend. She doesn’t want to stay here anymore, she’s outta here.

After a quick glance at Dr. Lee (always conceding ground to her, always including her), Sam follows Pamela out into the lobby and tells her, in his beautiful and quiet take-charge way, “It’s safer for you here. Help is coming.”

It is at that moment that Dean shouts at the door urgently. They’ve already locked the place down. It’s starting. What if the clinic is mobbed? How will they know who to let in? Anyone could have this thing. Sam lets in Dean and Sarge, and they are seen, once again, through the glass in the lobby.

It is Pamela’s point of view, which makes it seem stalker-ish, like she is going to be a problem, she is going to have to be handled. She’s not “on board”.

Dean says to Sarge, “Lemme have a word …” meaning with Sam, suggesting that the short drive to the clinic has put them on the same page. A trust-building exercise. Nobody shot anybody. Sarge is to be trusted. Because he didn’t shoot Dean with his two guns. Dean is confused and baffled but he understands that type of reality, it is subsistence level trust that makes sense to him. It’s the Belljar Effect of how the Winchesters operated. It’s military-style relationships. You have to prove yourself, and once you do, you’re in for good. The way Sarge walks off into the clinic, letting Dean be alone with his brother, shows the relationship that has developed. He tells Sam that Sarge is “the only sane person” he’s found out there. He also says, “I feel like Chuck Heston in The Omega Man…” (a total blast from the past for me). And I prefer it to the remake I Am Legend with Will Smith, although there was fun things about that too.

I love the movie, and the opening sequence makes you wonder How on earth did they do it?? They emptied a freakin’ city, it looks like. Also, of course Dean would feel like Charlton Heston because in The Omega Man “Chuck” rides around through the opening title credits sequence in the hippest reddest convertible known to man, with plenty of great shots of the empty desolation through the windshield, until he wipes out, gets a flat tire, and has to get another car. Basically just walk into a car dealership and take one because, yeah, there are no people left in the world. Only zombie creatures in black hoods who attack with no warning. A hero and his car careening through an empty landscape.

Also: what does “Chuck” do to pass the time, all by himself in an empty city? He goes to the movie theatre and watches the movie, starting the projector up himself. It’s the movie that was playing there 3 years ago when the world ended. It happens to be Woodstock, the movie. Charlton Heston, well-known Republican, sits in the empty movie theatre, watching Woodstock, shot-gun at his side, reciting the movie as it plays. It’s completely bizarre. But Dean would totally do something like that if he were the last man on earth. Wouldn’t you? Movies for free? Let’s hope it’s something good, but in that apocalyptic environment it wouldn’t really matter.

I love how Dean calls him “Chuck.” (If you’re interested, here is the piece I wrote when Heston died, re-printing a superb essay on Heston by Richard Dreyfuss – a must-read.)

Sam fills Dean in about the virus and the sulfur. He also says he’s been looking through Dad’s journal and found a section on Roanoke. Because of course. John thought “Croatoan” was the name of a Demon, an ancient demon of plague and pestilence, aka Deva (the Zoroastrian shadow-god we saw in “Shadow”) or “Resheph” (which means “The Burner” or “The Ravager” in Hebrew. Google is fun.) Sam’s research has filled him with an uneasy feeling. Whatever it is they have stumbled upon is big, and he has no idea how far it could spread. They need to get out and warn people. Dean is starting to fray a little bit, just a little bit, he is showing signs of frustration, which comes out in sarcasm. “Great. Just great.” Etc. That type of attitude, mildly defeatist, comes out of his tiredness in general, and maybe, too, out of his worry about Sam … and maybe it would be good to have John around to help out on this case. Maybe this is above their pay grade. WhatEVER it is, it’s bad.

Sarge calls them for a little conference. Mrs. Tanner is locked up at the moment. But Sarge reports on what he saw with his neighbors. How strong “they” were. They won’t be able to hold her for much longer.

Dean goes completely blank in the face, draws his gun, and walks off.

Watch for that attitude-shift. It happens in a flash.

Poor Dr. Lee. Sam asks her for her opinion, asking her if she can “cure” it. Then Dean barks the question at her, too, and Dr. Lee explodes, “I don’t even know what IT is!” She is in a hell of a position. In a beautiful trifecta of shots, we see Sarge standing back, gun drawn, Dean glancing around, getting ready, and Sam huddled by the door, waiting to open it. All as Pamela and Dr. Lee look on, barely believing what they are seeing unfolding. From the softer colors of the lab (blues and greens), Mrs. Tanner is stranded in a completely monochrome environment.

Every single prop in that room has been chosen, everything is the same color, the walls, the cloths, the shelves, her clothing. It’s a wonderful shot, the angle all creepy and high, but it’s the colors that make it magnificent. She looks so forlorn, so human. She begs for her life, pleading to her friend, they’ve known one another forever, how could he do this, no, no! She insists that “they” (Sam and Dean) are the ones infected, not her!

Sarge’s reaction is one of the best acting moments in an episode full of great acting moments.

Dean feels misgivings for a second. The agony he sees before him seems so kosher, so undeniable. Sam’s quick nod, though, confirms that she is indeed infected, so without a second thought, ignoring her screams, Dean steps forward and shoots three times. Using the “Dirty Harry” method, with a close-up of the gun switching into a close-up of Dean, it’s dramatic and cinematic. It’s macho. It makes him seem like a sexy as hell action hero in the very same moment that he is killing a woman begging for her life.

HA shot like that is designed to make you go, “OMG he’s so hot” or “OMG he’s so tough and cool” and then it all falls apart when you think about it for more than 2 seconds.

Sarge, with all his training and his clear-eyed understand of what is happening, cannot kill his neighbor and friend. Dean’s cold-blooded ability to do so is obviously going to be an issue for the group moving forward. It’s beautifully set up.

11th scene

Sarge peeks out the blinds, and sees an ominous zombie-ish gathering out there in the rainy misty night. Reminder #278 that you do not need CGI effects at all to create a spooky mood.

Three extras and a couple of cars. I mean, that’s it.

Pulling back, in the interior of the clinic, we get a nice person-to-person shot of Sam and Dean preparing their weapons in the dark front room. So you know I’m happy, with weapons preparation and shots of guns and the clacking-sound of the barrel, and all that gun behavior that I find so aesthetically pleasing.

Silence. Business-like. Sam taking out a knife. Dean cocking his weapon. Sam glances at Dean worriedly at one moment, like something might be happening here, underneath, that they should be talking about. Or maybe Dean has some feelings about killing Mrs. Tanner that he would want to … talk about? Sam knows his brother well. It’s one of those beautiful small moments that have been part of cinema since time began: getting ready for the final standoff, the moment when you realize that you are at the end of the road. No more words needed. It’s very Western-ish.

Pamela, the nervous nurse, has dropped some blood vials, and panics that it has gotten on her. She is starting to get too nervous to be contained. The claustrophobia is getting to her. The men, who huddle in the corner for a conference, kind of see her point.

Sam suggests getting to the roadhouse. Warning people. Dean jokes, “Yeah. Night of the Living Dead didn’t exactly end pretty.”

No, it didn’t.

As usual with Dean, I assume he’s talking about the 1968 original, not the 1990 remake, although considering his comments on Godzilla, you never know.

Sarge is on board, but worried for other reasons. People up here are good with rifles and good shots, just as good as Sam and Dean are. “Unless you’ve got explosives …”

Sam then sees the bottles of ammonia and other chemical products and goes and pulls one down. “We could make some.”

These two guys ….

It doesn’t just take brawn to survive a Biblical plague. It takes bomb-making brains, too.

Frantic banging on the door draws their attention and it is Duane Tanner (Diego Klattenhoff). Without even thinking twice, Sarge runs to let him in, showing that the neighborly feeling is going to die hard. That’s perhaps as it should be. Sam and Dean hang back, watching as Duane barges in, demanding to know what is happening, where is everybody. Dean reaches out and grabs onto him, calling him “Chief”, and calls the Doc over to check him out. (Notice the ongoing difference in how Dean and Sam treat her. Sam includes her as an ally. Dean treats her as practically a lackey.)

Dr. Lee is still trying to do her job, and trying not to treat her patients (and neighbors) like enemies, and she is probably a little bit afraid of Dean at this point. She’s trying to keep a handle on things. She calls out for Pamela’s help and the entire group crowds into the examining room to watch, Dean waving his silver pistol at Duane to get on with it. Great gesture. Sarge questions Duane about where he’s been, Pamela goes to get some supplies, and you can see the suspicion in her eyes. Duane is panicked, bloody, has seen terrible things, has been hiding in the woods for days, and gets no sympathy from anyone. (Of course, you also, on second viewing, take everything he says with a grain of salt. Part of the “fun” of it.) He cries out, “Has anyone seen my Mom and Dad?” and Dean winces, glancing up at Sam, whispering, “Awkward.”

Yeah, that’s the perfect word for him blowing Duane’s mother away. “Awkward.”

Duane has a big gash on his leg. Everyone sees it, everyone reacts, withdrawing from him. Dr. Lee is trying to examine him but also trying to manage her own fears of infection as well as keep everyone under control. It’s a nice little performance.

Dean pulls a gun on Duane. Sam, cool-headed Sam, asks Dr. Lee for her opinion about the blood.

That whole mini-relationship between Sam and the doctor, how he looks at her, how she looks to him, is one of the pleasing details about “Croatoan.” Dean barely gives Dr. Lee a second glance. She can either help or she can get out of the way. Sam feels things starting to spin out of control, he is feeling his own vision starting to happen before his eyes. He needs to be sure. Dr. Lee, using her training and deductive reasoning, answers as best she can about the unknown entity. There’s an incubation period before the sulfur shows up. If Duane can be tied up until then …

Now it is Sam’s turn to murmur to Dean, “I need to talk to you.”

It’s a tiny moment, but I love the glance Dean throws to Sarge, like, “You got this in here?” Sarge nods. Dean leaving someone else in charge? That’s huge.

Great brother scene follows. Sam feels his vision coming true and wants Dean to slow down, and not kill Duane, not yet, to wait to see how the blood test turns out. Dean is now fully in the vision, and has become what Sam saw, and he knows what he has to do. Why wait for the inevitable to occur? No way, man. No. Dean is unreachable.

The “unreachable” factor is when things get so interesting between the brothers. When Sam gets unreachable (much later in the series), the entire WORLD falls apart. It’s somehow a much much bigger deal when Sam goes to that unreachable spot. It happened when he split for Stanford, too. NOTHING will get in the way of Sam and what he wants. Even a total Amish family shunning. Supernatural is so GOOD on sibling dynamics, and how we fulfill our “roles,” and how there is always one person who keeps it all together, and it is essential that they do that, but sometimes it is the rebellious one who is really “the one” around which everything flows inevitably. This fluctuating dynamic is the whole engine of the show.

Dean throws his weight around, that burlesque-act that comes so naturally, saying, “It’s a tough job, but oh well” and I absolutely love Sam’s line in return: “It’s SUPPOSED to be tough, Dean. We’re SUPPOSED to struggle with these things.”

Sam, brave, calls Dean out on what he has been sensing, for a while, not just in this episode: Dean isn’t “acting like himself anymore” – “you’re acting like one of those things out there.”

Dean throws Sam across the room, and then locks the door after him, barring Sammy’s entryway into the cloister of the clinic. It happens so quickly.

This lover’s spat has been percolating for episodes now. Sam and Dean, the fictional characters, only work in the long-term when they have obstacles. Objectives meeting obstacles: that equals drama. There are moments, only, when obstacles are removed, and the entire fan base heaves a sigh of relief, but they have to be short-lived. Otherwise, no real story. “Croatoan” represents a fantastic example of competing objectives, and competing obstacles.

When Dean comes back into the clinic, the vision we saw in the teaser starts to unfold, the clicking of the gun clip, the begging and pleading of Duane, the helplessness of Dr. Lee and the sudden second thoughts of Sarge. Dean is filmed in a pool of white light surrounded by utter blackness, not at all a realistic look (like: where the hell is the background?) but all the more powerful because of that.

It is his internal confrontation with what Sam just said out there: how is a clear conscience going to help him? Does it matter? And what of his Dad’s whisper? He needs to be prepared to do whatever it takes. He has to harden himself.

Singer really draws the moment out, moving from Pamela to Dr. Lee to weeping Duane to Sarge to Dean, gun drawn, finger on the trigger, and around and around … the music swelling, Dean facing the choice. Because he has a choice. He does have a reason to kill Duane, but he also has a reason NOT to kill Duane. It’s up to him.

Free Will, which won’t become explicit in the series until Season 4, has always been there, especially when it comes to the familial relationships. John expected Dean to be a certain way and so Dean obliged in order to survive his own childhood. (And Mary did a similar thing to Dean, placing on him a burden of taking care of her emotionally, which we will see in a brief scene later in the season. Parents sometimes do this to their eldest children without meaning to do harm. I’m an oldest child. So. Yeah. It resonates.)

Sam had different expectations placed on him, but he was also shielded from much of the harshness of the life, by Dean and John in partnership, until he rebelled, shattering the certainty of the Winchester world. Sam exercised his Free Will. But then, of course, in the pilot, with Jess standing by his side, he was drawn back in.

After an endless moment, Dean puts the gun down. He can’t do it.

12th scene

I would like more scenes, please, where Sam and Dean sit around making bombs.

Dr. Lee appears at the door, saying Duane’s blood is clear and she’d like to untie him. She both concedes Sam and Dean’s status as the decision-makers in the building, but maintains her own power as a person of medicine. I admire her. It’s Sam who has to answer her, after a long glance between the brothers. Dean is wrapped up in his own world. Whatever he wants to say he cannot say anyway. What, he’s gonna say “Dude, I’m totes triggered by this episode”? Not gonna happen. The image of family members killing family members, of people turning on one another, of having to make those choices … Sam and Dean don’t have a cuddly open relationship, and there’s always a little bit of wariness between them (it’s why it works: total accord is not dramatic), and when that abyss opens … all kinds of stuff starts to happen. Dean is coiled up within himself, focused on making his bomb. Sam has maintained a level of … shall we say, social skills, throughout the crisis. That includes dealing with Dr. Lee and now that includes dealing with Dean. Both guys play the small scene so beautifully (and they both are filmed in a drop-dead-gorgeous dreamy fashion, all moody shadows and blues and shimmering white lights in the background. Iconic.)

Sam, suddenly seeming much older, much wiser than his big brother, says, “You know I’m gonna ask you why.”

It’s like he’s a kindly counselor or a non-judgmental family priest, talking to a prickly teenage kid, trying to get him to open up. It’s one of my favorite brotherly moments in the episode, along with Sam’s “I’m sorry. He was a kid, all right?” from early on. Dean can be very dominant and take over entire episodes. That’s okay, to some extent, because Padalecki is so good at making re-acting seem as active as acting (and it IS), but when that balance shifts, and Sam rises … that’s when you really get the good stuff. Because it’s about power, it’s about their childhood, it’s about how their dynamic has been set up from the beginning, it’s about the rules that govern their behavior, rules they didn’t sign up for in the first place … And it is always going to be Sam who has a clearer idea about all of that since he didn’t take it on the chin in childhood like Dean did. Sam’s not always right, mind you, but his mind is clearer about the issues that there MIGHT be and that maybe it would be okay to ADDRESS them.

Dean says, engrossed in his bomb, “I know …”

He’s not defensive. He doesn’t answer the question, but he doesn’t balk at Sam asking it in the first place.

Something is in the process of shifting. It’s quiet. Very intimate.

Sam goes into the adjacent room to get more alcohol. Pam is bustling around, and Sam says, “How you holding up?” Pamela comes right at the camera saying in a flat-affect voice, “It’ll all be over soon.” Well. THAT doesn’t look good. She quietly locks the door behind them. Sam’s back is turned, and he misses the signs. I don’t know, the broad dropped a jar of blood. Maybe she should have been tested too? Just a thought?

Naturally, she Hulks out, attacks Sam, cuts open his chest, cuts open her arm, and then, in a gooey sexual moment, rubs her wrist across his chest, pressing their wounds together. She’s straddling him, too. So there’s THAT to deal with. When Dean and Sarge burst in, and Dean shoots her in the back, she topples to the side, her leg sprawled out across Sam’s torso. This after she sort of dis-armed him a bit in the beginning by saying, “I’ve been wanting to get you alone …” Not that Sam was tempted, he just looked kind of taken aback … is she … hitting on me? Like … now?

Seems to me there’s no way in hell Dean could kick that door down with a lock like that, but moving on. There’s a beautiful shot of Sarge and Dean looking down on the scene before them, their two heads placed in a staggered fashion through the frame.

There’s a lot going on. Both of them saw the same thing. Dean knows where this is going to go, now, and you can almost see that worried thought process activate. What to do now, how to handle what comes next … Sam reaches out to Dean for a hand up, and Sarge stops Dean. “She bled on him …”

The scene ends with a beautiful triptych of growing horror and realization. Shit got personal.

Look at her foot. Hysterical.

12th scene

The small group huddles in the examination room again, Dean pacing, Sam with an ice pack over his wounded manly chest. History is repeating itself. Dean says, “Doctor, could you check his wound again?” She hesitates, and Dean barks at her, “DOCTOR.” Sarge and Duane feel the seconds ticking by, they need to shoot Sam NOW. “Nobody is shooting my brother,” barks Dean ferociously. The reaction to that hypocritical comment is predictable. Every actor in the scene is phenomenal. It’s an ensemble scene, a chaotic group event, the lines coming fast and furious, the mood truly dangerous.

But I want to talk about the look on Sam’s face as all of it is going down.

He has retreated. He knows he has been infected. It’s more than that knowledge, though. Or at least I see more there – and this is me freely projecting my own shit onto Sam, so take it or leave it. When I was finally diagnosed in February of 2013 after my … 6th nervous breakdown? I mean, I still want to sue people for malpractice who missed it in my teens and twenties … the news was terrible, but also not surprising, ultimately. Because I had known all along that something was very very wrong. I knew since I was 12. And I’m old, y’all. My birthday is next week so I’m about to be older. I am in the one percentile of my particular diagnosis. Meaning: most people who go undiagnosed with my particular illness don’t even REACH my age. They die young, suicide, drug overdose. The doctor who diagnosed me said, “You are a walking miracle,” which helped bolster me for the fight ahead, and it was a fight. My freakin’ mother had to come and stay with me. Thank the Lord I had her! But my ultimate point is that getting the diagnosis did not, strangely enough, come from out of left field. It just confirmed what I knew all along. There is a strange relief (and sadness, too) in submitting to the inevitable. That’s what I see on Sam’s face. It’s terrible, but it’s a relief, too.

On an even deeper level (and this is the level I was babbling about earlier): Part of Sam’s different-ness, it turns out, is in his blood. It has been from the get-go. And he KNEW it. It WASN’T just that he liked to study and wanted a normal life. That wasn’t the only thing that made him different. He was also different because his BLOOD was different. I think Sam sensed this, and he sensed it young. He attributed the different-ness to other things, but that cellular feeling of wrong-ness was there early. We all come to the show with our personal shit. I would tell myself, repeatedly, as I started falling apart yet again, “I’m just more sensitive than other people for some reason … I am, for some reason, constitutionally unable to roll with the punches like other people do …” I attributed that to character defects, character flaws … so there was a peace in knowing that chemically I was vulnerable, that there was a lack of emotional resiliency in my system, reinforced by sleep-deprivation and other things, and all of this showed up early, like, 7, 8 years old early. I almost collapsed when I learned that these patterns were not just me being over-dramatic or self-indulgent or too-sensitive or weak or any of the other words used to label us cray-crays. Mental illness is not an excuse for acting like an asshole. But it definitely helps explain some things.

Sam’s expression as the rest of the people in that room argue over his head is not just one of fear or defensiveness. There’s something familiar there on his face. He has been here before. Not this exactly, but the feeling of being … “the one” that is a “problem” … Sam knows it well. We haven’t seen this look on Sam’s face before.

Dean is getting ready to kill Duane, to kill Sarge. Sam interjects, telling Dean that they’re right, “give me the gun and I’ll do it myself.” When Dean balks, Sam says, “I’m not going to become one of them …” and it’s tragic.

Dean makes his choice and tosses the keys to the Impala at Sarge. “What are you gonna do?” Sarge asks, and then sees the answer on Dean’s face. Fantastic reaction shot.

It’s better to communicate things without language, whenever possible. Sam begs Dean to go with Duane and Sarge, and Dean, mind made up, is cocky again. Implacable. He knows who he is now. By Sam’s side is where he needs to be, John’s whisper notwithstanding. His choice is a huge “Fuck You” to John. You told me to protect Sammy all my life. Then you tell me I might have to kill him? Go to hell, Pops. (Oops. You’re already there, aren’t you.) Sam starts to break down, you can see his face crack apart at his brother’s self-sacrifice: it’s too much, no, it’s too much to handle.

Sarge tries to get Dean to come with, and there’s such respect and strength between these two men, such a feeling of kinship and trust. And when Dean, glancing at Sarge, shows the choice already made in his eyes, Sarge sees it. Accepts it, although he does comment, “It’s your funeral,” which is perfect Tough Guy. Sarge and Duane leave, and Dr. Lee starts to go as well, saying regretfully, “Thanks for everything, Marshalls …” and Dean says, “Oh. We’re not really Marshalls.”

Dr. Lee never interested him. She was Sam’s friend.

He locks the door behind her, and there’s a beautiful moment of him looking out through the glass, filled with contemplation, though, a glimpse of regret, but resignation as well. He’s ready to die. It is the only choice he could make. When he turns back to Sam, it is with the openness of an 11-year-old kid. Look for it.

What happens next happens on a build. The scene always feels much longer in my memory than it actually is. It’s quite short. No-nonsense. Gets the job done in a couple of lines. It is this type of scene that is Singer’s “sweet spot.” No tricks, no fanciness, just good old-fashioned scene work, with high stakes, emotional obstacles, and the camera primed to catch behavior. Both of them are doing some extremely intricate layered stuff. Dean’s impulse is to take an almost jokey tone. He wishes they had a Foosball table or a deck of cards (so we could play Old Maid while we wait to die.) Sam is in tears, and furious. He knows that what will happen is that he will become “one of those things” and will either kill his brother or infect him. And that is … unthinkable. He doesn’t understand why Dean doesn’t give him the gun, and then leave. “No way,” Dean says.

Sam pleads. It’s over for me, it doesn’t have to be for you. A confrontation with his brother’s true self, if you think about it, what that lifetime of submission to a greater authority actually means and looks like.

“You can keep going,” pleads Sam and Dean says, with that fallen-angel deadpan look that sometimes happens with him: “Who says I want to.” In those fallen-angel moments, Dean is suddenly washed free of all impulses and fight, all defense mechanisms and rationalizations. It happens so rarely, you could count the moments on one hand. The tide rushes out, leaving him blank. Dean blank is a terrible thing. He has secrets, as we all know. And one of the secrets is how the job has gotten to him. How the sacrifice is becoming not worth it. How it’s too much to place on his shoulders. He’s weakened by the trauma of it, and this is what he shared with Gordon, and the need to keep the “game face” on for Sammy. (All of this becomes increasingly explicit as Season 2 barrels along. It’s true for both sides: the sacrifices they have been forced to make, that they have chosen … that Sam walked away from, and then re-entrenched into … what is choice? What is identity? Can you separate who you are from what you do? All of these questions are in this scene.)

Sam idolizes Dean. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t call Dean on his shit sometimes. But this is his big brother. Sam can’t understand what it meant for Dean to be his caretaker for so many years. He can’t know what that did to Dean. And in many ways, Sam doesn’t have a consciousness yet that it even had an impact on Dean. It’s just the way things were. And that’s sometimes the blessed ignorance of the second child in the line-up. This scene is all about that.

He says to Dean, “This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done,” and Dean says, “I don’t know about that. Member that waitress in Tampa?” And he shivers with the memory. I need to know more. Same gal with the “bizarre rash”? Although considering the numbers Dean has racked up, there’s got to be some awful hookups along the road.

Dean has leaned against the wall, saying, “I’m tired, man. Tired of the job. Tired of all of it.”

To Sam, it is the end of the world as he knows it.

Stunning.

No! Dean has to go on! That’s the only way anything good could come out of this! So to develop what I was talking about earlier, that Sammy’s independence might have stirred Dean on in unexpected ways, even when they were separated, one could also easily imagine that Sam felt safe-ish at Stanford, even unconnected from his family, knowing that Dean was still out there. Maybe he studied harder when he thought of Dean. Even if he was pissed off as he was doing it. Maybe he decided to approach Jess, thinking of Dean’s ease with women, and that Dean always teased him about being a nerd. Dean would have been working on him, affecting him, in all kinds of ways.

Sam’s desperation is met by Dean’s gentleness. It’s a gorgeous scene between them, and still contains surprises and subtleties when I re-visit it.

Dr. Lee has returned and knocks on the door. Dean opens it and she says, “You’d better come see this.”

The earlier scenes, involving canoes, passersby, cars, and guys shuffling around in flannel, have paid off, because when they need the town to feel deserted, it does. It’s a long shot, from across the street, Dean and the Doctor (the others gathering around them, Sarge, Duane, and Sam from inside) standing on the sidewalk, with mist and darkness, and two great old-school gas pumps in the foreground.

The Impala is the only car on the road. The Doctor says to Dean, “There’s no one.”

Dean, looking around, sees the Croatoan marking again, the camera slowly zooming in on it. The marking just sits there, almost mocking him. Ha ha, you’ll never figure it out.

Two shots close the sequence: A low-angle shot of all five characters placed on the sidewalk like an album cover or a movie poster.

Then, boom, back to the long shot, the empty street, the Impala, and now the five figures seem, in comparison to the shot that came before, tiny, dwarfed, insignificant. And very alone.

13th scene

Back in the examination room, Sam sits on the table, arm in a cast making him seem doubly vulnerable, and Dr. Lee turns from the microscope, confused, relieved, saying that it’s now been 5 hours and the virus has not shown up in his blood. “I think you dodged a bullet,” she says.

Sam has a hard time accepting it. “But I was exposed …” There’s a lot going on there. Relief, sure. But why wasn’t he infected? What makes him so special? (Don’t ask, Sammy.) That different-ness that separates him out from being human is a terrible reminder, the immunity, the visions, like the visions, that he is not normal, he has never been normal, he always KNEW he wasn’t normal.

An additional mystery presents itself to the Doctor: the virus has now disappeared from the Tanner blood samples. No more Wacky Pajamas.

Sam and the Doctor stare at one another across the space. I love their relationship.

14th scene

The fragile group stands on the sidewalk again, Duane and Sarge packing up the pick-up truck with supplies and, I am assuming, bombs. Duane tells the Doctor she should come with them (yeah, I bet you would like that), and she says no, she’s going to head down to Sidewinder to get the authorities. (Just picture the courage it took for her to make THAT drive. It would have been interesting to re-visit River Grove later. What happened next? Was the town abandoned for good? Did others move in? What on earth would have been the explanation? And where did the Doctor end up going? Just one of the many loose ends of the show, things that are fun to think about. “Croatoan” has that vast-ness in it.)

Sarge has two good-byes here which are so touching, and they’re both expressed in gestures. (Say it with a gesture, not with language!) He raises his hand to the Doc, a valedictory gesture, a warrior’s gesture, You take care now, we’ve just been through some shit together, and then turns to Dean, to give him a silent and tough thumbs-up acknowledgement.

Heart-crack, people, heart-crack. Sarge is a great character, too big for the confines of one episode. Essential to the whole thing working. He brings out an interesting element in Dean, something that highlights his competence (necessary in an episode where he is in the process of de-railing.) If Sam and Dean had been the only Tough Guys it wouldn’t have worked at all. Sarge brought complexity to it too. He was torn. He was freaked out. He is Dean’s mirror. He is also Dean’s remembered humanity (that look of agony when faced with Mrs. Tanner’s pleading. As Sam says to Dean later, “We are SUPPOSED to struggle with this stuff.” God bless Sam.)

Sarge and Duane take off, and Dean says to the Doctor, “What about him?” meaning Sam. She says, “He’s going to be fine. No signs of infection.”

Humorously, here is the reaction from Sam and Dean to that good news.

To risk being a broken record: when you blur out the background to the extent that Serge Ladouceur does, the figures pop off the screen. I recently re-watched Moneyball (a fave of mine), and director Bennett Miller uses it a lot there too (don’t recall the device being used as much in his Capote or Foxcatcher). Moneyball is a true story, based on recent and familiar events (if you are a baseball fan). But it is really the story of one man’s obsession, his monomaniacal belief that the game of baseball is being analyzed wrong. It is a profile of the psyche of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, and so the film supports that visually, placing Billy Beane in really stark dramatic lighting (the first shot in particular, although it happens all the way through).

This style is common in filmmaking because you get to choose where you want your audience to look. Blur out the non-essentials, pop the foreground. “Deep focus” means that everything onscreen is in focus at the same time (a look pioneered by Citizen Kane cinematographer Gregg Toland, when it was still considered totally radical.) Here’s an example of deep focus from Citizen Kane. The background, the figure in the window, is as clear as the foreground.

Dissertations have been written on deep focus, so I won’t belabor it. It’s extremely challenging to accomplish, because of the lighting required, and it also means that every single thing that happens in the frame has equal importance. Choreography becomes even more important, the movement within the frame. Deep focus has an almost journalistic feeling to it, whereas having the foreground clear and the background blurry is subjective, emotional.

A shot like this is a beautiful example.

You can clearly see what’s back there. There’s the truck across the street. But the truck is not important. Dean is. It is important that he is placed in the context of the larger world, the landscape so carefully set up in the start of the episode, but now Singer/Ladouceur can afford those details to be sketched in, blurred out.

The revelation between the brothers in the room at the clinic was a place where they changed course. They’re past it now. But they can’t undo it. There is no way now that Dean could choose NOT to reveal his secret. “Croatoan” tipped his ability to keep that secret over the edge. Sam feels almost … a little guilty, when Dean looks at him silently. “Hey man, don’t look at me, I have no idea what happened here.” His vision … his immunity … it makes him connected to it in some terrible way, as though he shares responsibility, or should be able to explain it in some way.

Why wasn’t he immune? Sam wonders. “Yeah. That’s a very good question,” says Dean, almost accusing Sam of holding out on him. When he goes to get into the car, Sam is left, standing there, thoughtful. Troubled.

“Croatoan” will be back. They both know it.

15th scene

I will just speak for myself: My emotional connection with Sarge, my sense that the world is a better place as long as there are people like Sarge in it, was so strong that this scene upset me. I felt a real loss. I become pretty immune to death watching Supernatural. Pamela’s death didn’t touch me. Even Mrs. Tanner’s death didn’t touch me. Not the way Sarge’s does.

Duane’s call to Hell is revealing and places us in the truly uneasy and awesome position of knowing more than Sam and Dean do. We see the big-ness. They can sense the big-ness, but they can’t see it yet.

“It’s over. I think you’ll be pleased. I don’t think any more tests are necessary. The Winchester boy, definitely immune as expected. Yes. Of course. Nothing left behind.”

Except for the Doctor, Black-Eyes. What about her?

16th scene

My ears! The music! Oh my God, why? Supernatural, why? It has no mood to it! It’s horrible! It’s romantic but only if you think milquetoast-sop is romantic. We do have a mood change here, a big one, that launches us into the rest of the season. It’s the big moment, Dean coming clean (although the revelation will have to wait until the next episode). I have to ignore the music in order to appreciate the absolute stunner of a shot that opens the scene, the camera moving over the Impala that stands like a sentinel watching over the two fragile iconic figures in the background.

I mean, knock yourself out, team, that is gorgeous.

It’s idyllic. From far away, that is.

But when we get a bit closer, the body language tells another story.

It’s sunset time, and so there’s that glamorous natural lighting on their faces that Magic Hour can provide. They’re so close together, and their heights are staggered, made more clear by Sam sitting on the fence. They’re basically crammed together in the same shot a lot of the time. There are also close-ups where each man is isolated from one another, but it keeps going back to the two of them basically papier-mached together in the same shot. Their destinies are tied. They can’t get rid of each other that easily, a call back to Dean’s quip in the clinic.

Sam takes the tone, again, of a kindly yet firm counselor dealing with a skittish unforthcoming teenage kid who is reluctant to open up about why he tried to burn the orphanage down. Sonny, in other words. Sam is beautiful here, and brave, as well as humorous and kind. He’s saying to his brother in his behavior and tone, “It’s okay, Dean. You can talk to me. It’s really okay. Even if it’s about Dad, I can take it.”

Uhm, you sure about that, Sammy?

But the fact that what Dean has to reveal does shake Sammy up does not negate the overall friendly and hugely compassionate energy he throws his brother’s way. He’s big enough to talk about the tough stuff. He is saying to Dean, “Enough with the game face. Talk.”

Identification with the job is a big big deal to Dean. Gordon allowed him a space to glory in it, be unapologetic about it, in a way that even John would not have endorsed. (And, interestingly enough, in the next episode we see the re-appearance of Gordon. Yay!) John wanted Dean submissive and compliant. Dean has been. Dean, since he was a child, needed to keep up appearances, not just to please his father, but to reassure his brother. The behavior/attitude is engrained in him. He does not have to think about it. And you cannot just throw it away because your “little” brother is now Sasquatch. But there are cracks in that veneer, and a loneliness at the heart of such total identification; it brings with it a fear of abandonment, a fear that has been realized multiple times in Dean’s life. We saw what that did to him in that phenomenal motel scene in “Shadow,” when Sam expresses a desire to go back to school when the fight is all done, and Dean admits he honestly has nowhere else to go. There is nothing else for him to want, except the family being together again. Sam, shielded from other realities for his whole life BECAUSE of Dean’s protection, seems shocked and disturbed by that. Dean is the infallible parent to Sam, brotherly squabbles notwithstanding. Seeing Dean shaken up, seeing Dean act un-Dean-like … messes with the foundations of Sam’s life.

Sam is brave enough to push at that coiled-up guy next to him, and Padalecki is beautifully intimate in these opening moments. It’s one of my favorite Sams. It feels so real. I dislike equating the actor with the character because so often that kind of talk discounts craft, technique, acting choices, and displays a misunderstanding about what acting is. Biography comes into acting only because every actor is individual, every actor brings his SELF to the table, and everybody is different. That’s part of the fun of acting. But, for me, the acting is far more interesting than backstage stuff/biographical information (and also, sometimes knowing too much biographical information gets in the way of how I perceive stuff onscreen. I like to deal with what’s onscreen, and only that, as much as possible – here, and in my other critical work. It’s hard!). That’s why I don’t watch convention footage all that much, unless a clip seems to address an acting issue (sometimes there’s a good question that I want to hear the answer to), and who they are “in real life” is not that interesting to me (who they are as ACTORS, though … that’s another story entirely!) But there is spill-over and I would be foolish to deny it. It’s how that biographical information is “used” and interpreted that I (speaking just for myself) like to keep a tight rein on. This is really true for my writing on gigantic stars like Elvis, or Cary Grant – where you can get totally bogged down in biography, but it happens with smaller stars like Dean Stockwell (maybe my favorite living actor), people where I know pretty much every single damn thing that ever happened to them, every moment in their lives. Often there is a mysterious and beautiful veil between artist and person. That’s when you get the best stuff. Biography will NEVER “explain” artists. Not entirely. I like to keep that mystery as much as possible. So: back to Supernatural: The fact that these two actors are best friends in real life does filter into who they are as characters onscreen, but it is important to keep in mind that they had chemistry from Day One. That’s talent, openness, an ability to be vulnerable, to get down to the job at hand. And so now, the ease and familiarity from being good friends has been poured into the very specific containers named Sam and Dean Winchester. (That doesn’t always happen. Good friends in real life may not translate as good friends onscreen.) But that insistent yet friendly “Come on, man, talk to me” feels extremely essence-based, as though Padalecki is letting us see a very real and familiar part of himself. Who he is, basically. I don’t need to know any more than that. It’s all onscreen. (Joan Crawford said once, “The only things worth knowing about me are onscreen.” With really talented people, I tend to agree.)

Talk about your competence. Sam is also emotionally competent. I mean, I think they both are as characters, and Dean has very good reasons for not telling all … but here, he may need a little push. Sam gives it.

It takes Dean a while. He goes at it from the side. He thinks before speaking. Maybe they should go to the Grand Canyon, he says. They’ve been all over the country on cases and he’s never seen the Grand Canyon. How is THAT right? (I know, I know, they mess up with this factoid seasons later! Bummer! But I don’t want to let that ruin the moment as it is in “Croatoan”, because it’s a gorgeous stand-alone wish, unique in our experience of Dean, evocative of an entire lifetime of being a grunt, of having no fun. Think back to that scene in “Shadow” when Dean reveals that no, he has nothing he wants after all this is “over” because it won’t ever be over. Here, he’s tired, he’s beaten down, Dad is gone, he doesn’t know what to do about the whisper, and what comes out is a longing for … leisure. Sightseeing. Maybe drive by the Grand Canyon. I mean, it’s there, right? It would be wrong to NOT see it. What the hell is wrong with our lives? Anything wrong with this picture? We’re not even 30 years old yet. We need a BREAK.)

It’s Dean expressing a wish.

And as anyone who watches the show knows intimately, Dean almost never ever makes wishes. He dreams regularly of a picnic and a bottle of wine with a happy woman waiting for him and is mortified when he’s busted on having that dream. Wanting things is absolute anathema to Dean. Think about that.

He’s throwing out other ideas. Go to Tijuana. Go to Hollywood? Lindsey Lohan is out there, maybe they should try to bang her, whaddya say. (To quote you, Dean, from earlier in the episode, I don’t think she swings that way. But best of luck!)

Sam doesn’t understand what he’s seeing and hearing. It’s a Dean he doesn’t know. It’s a Dean DEAN doesn’t know. (A lot of what he says here is echoed, LOUDLY, in What Is and What Should Never Be later in the season. Why are we stuck with all the responsibility? Why is it always up to us? Why can’t we take some time off?)

Throughout the entire scene, you see Dean wanting to tell Sam the truth. It’s there in every pause, every glance away. He’s finally not going to be able to stop himself, that’s how strong the urge is. But he backs off of it. Moves away, physically, turns away. Sam senses the fragility in the air, senses Dean’s burden and says, “Let me help carry it a little bit.” Dean, having placed space between them, now cannot look Sam in the eye. He’s calm, he’s not defensive. But he “promised” he wouldn’t tell. Whatever Sam was expecting, this was not it, and his attitude changes, you can almost see him battening down the hatches. The posture changes, gets more alert, tight. Now that it’s about to come out, Dean is almost entirely relaxed. Ackles is a wonder with this kind of emotional thru-line. All the angst and anger was discharged back at the clinic. Now he’s calm. No going back. He can’t look his brother in the eye, but he’s calm.

He is about to betray his father. It’s a big deal.

Once Dean goes calm, Sam goes tense.

These two guys …

When Dean reveals that their dad told him something before he died, “something about you …”

we get a long zoom in to Sam’s face, and that’s the shot I mentioned earlier in the post, about three years ago up above. “What did he tell you?” asks Sam.

It’s subtle, Padalecki’s choice here. He looks scared and tense, but he also looks like he already knows the answer. Or, at the very least, he knew that there was some secret there, something there to tell. There’s a level of self-knowledge in the look, and a terrible self-knowledge, and it has been Sam’s burden and weight since as long as he can remember. He attributed his different-ness to other things, but maybe he always had a sneaking suspicion that it was something else. The thought would come into his mind, and he’d shove it aside, fearfully: No, no, my different-ness came because I did not accept being a hunter like they did, and they couldn’t deal, that’s where it all stemmed from. But reassuring himself like that would be whistling in the dark, and I think Sam knew it. I think he would be lying in bed with Jess, and his eyes would suddenly fly open, staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. What was really wrong with him? He’d get up and take a shower. Or go for a run at 3 o’clock in the morning. He’d beat those fears away. He’d reassure himself that he just feels that way because he has been shunned from his family and he never fit in there. But that doubt … that “it’s in me, it’s in me” fear … would persist.

That’s what I see anyway. It’s one of my favorite Padalecki moments in the series.

There is a mirroring zoom-in shot to Dean, on the opposite side, the light blasting one side of his face. He doesn’t answer, and the scene goes to black, a cliffhanger.

I always forget, though, that the episode ends with the zoom-in on Dean. For me, the episode really ends with that look of secret (like, so secret he can’t even acknowledge it) realization on Sammy’s face that what he has always … ALWAYS … felt about himself … is about to be confirmed.