![\"wendigo32\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/wendigo321.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDirected by David Nutter
\nwritten by Ron Milbauer & Terri Burton
\nteleplay by Eric Kripke<\/i><\/p>\n
After the intricate pilot<\/a>, filled with exposition and set-up and flashbacks, with episode 2, we are introduced to the normal structure of the show as it will stand. (Of course this will morph and change, especially when it comes to the Larger Arc of Good vs. Evil, and Angels vs. Demons, and all that). But in general, Supernatural<\/i> is a road-trip show, featuring Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) driving around America in a black ’67 Impala, investigating\/ fighting monsters of the supernatural variety. All we know, at this point, is that Sam broke with the family and went to Stanford University. Dean stayed with Dad. There was clearly some bad blood between the brothers, because of Sam’s defection. They haven’t been in touch in a couple of years. Dean, only 26 years old at the start of the series, is already too far gone for a normal life, and he knows it. The pilot ended with Sam returning to Stanford after an unexpected weekend with his brother where they looked for their missing father. On the night of Sam’s return, November 2, his girlfriend Jess is killed, killed in the same way his mother had been killed 22 years before. <\/p>\n As we learn more about John Winchester (Dad, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan), we learn that he trained his sons to fight and kill from when they were a very young age. The lack of love and affection shown to them as children has marked them, and Dean, in particular, doesn’t even know he’s marked. He lives in the shadow of his Dad, and he has been trained so well that he thinks it’s normal. Sam recognized before Dean that something was “off”, that Dad should have shielded them a bit more. This is a long-ass Family Drama Arc (almost as long as this long-ass re-cap), and in many ways it is still playing out in Season 9.<\/p>\n But in episode 2 of the series, we tiptoe our way into that landmine. <\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n \nTeaser<\/big><\/p>\n David Nutter, who directed the pilot, also directed episode 2, and there’s a new DP here, the phenomenally talented Serge Ladouceur, who is still shooting the show. If the DP for the pilot, Aaron Schneider, helped establish the dark mood and horror-movie feel of the series, then Ladouceur just helped deepen and strengthen that continuum. The look of the show has changed, by Season 9. I would say that it has a more glamorous<\/i> look now, more colorful, while certainly still very dramatic (even melodramatic). Supernatural<\/i> is (and has been) one of the best looking shows on television. <\/p>\n If you’re a horror movie fan, it’s fun to count the homages. “Oh hey that’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre!<\/i>” “That’s like Night of the Living Dead<\/i>!” “That shot was stolen from Halloween<\/i>!” <\/p>\n In the pilot, Dad left Dean a message of coordinates, and the brothers figured out that the coordinates point to a place called Blackwater Ridge in Lost Creek, Colorado. So episode 2 opens (as episodes usually will) with white words on a black screen, telling us where we are in America. And in episode 2 we’re in Blackwater Ridge. The opening of Wendigo<\/i> is dark and scary, and steals from the Horror Movie playbook (I mean: lost campers in the woods? It’s Horror Movie #101, except without the blondes in bikinis.). We see two tents in the woods at night. The hand-held camera moves through the bushes, stalking the tents, giving the opening scene a deeply uneasy feeling, and the little glowing tents just sit there, fragile-looking, vulnerable.<\/p>\n Two guys are in one tent, playing video games together, trading insults. Their buddy, Tommy (Graham Wardle) sits in the other tent, sending a video message to someone named “Haley”, telling her he’s fine, he’s having fun.<\/p>\n Just a quick moment to give a shout-out to Cory Monteith, who plays one of the video game guys. Of course he would go on to huge success in Glee<\/i>, before dying this past year. Awful. He was a friend of my cousin’s, and was, by all accounts, a sweet and caring person. It’s terrible, so it’s a bit breath-catching to see him here. <\/p>\n \n \nOne of the guys goes outside to pee, and, of course, the camera stalks him, peeking at him through branches. Then comes a growling sound, and the dude looks around, alarmed, his face then going blank with horror as he opens his mouth to scream. (There are financial reasons for not showing the monsters too clearly, but I think it adds to the creep factor, as well as its authenticity, to NOT see too much. This may seem weird to say, in this day and age when you can show ANYthing in film. But I think we shall see that special effects do not date well, especially CGI. Something filmed even 5 or 6 years ago already looks fake whereas a movie like Halloween<\/i> will be terrifying forever.) <\/p>\n The two friends left behind are freaked out, calling for their friend. Something seems to be circling their tents. Cory Monteith is attacked inside his tent, and he scrambles backwards, screaming up into the camera. Poor Tommy, isolated in his own tent, is now left alone, in the silence, with that strange shadow whizzing around his tent. It claws through and Tommy screams. BLACKOUT.<\/p>\n 1st scene<\/big> \n \nJared Padalecki looks so young in this scene and the work he does here is extremely touching. He stands by Jess’ grave, in tears, and talks to her, telling her how he is sorry he did not protect her. This isn’t the first time we will see a Winchester brother RACE to take the blame for something that is not his fault, ultimately. Dean is nowhere to be seen. Sam leans down to put the bouquet before the headstone, saying, “I got you these, because you said roses were lame” \u2026 (and that detail gives Jess humanity and specificity). As he puts the flowers down on the grass, suddenly with an ice-pick musical cue a bloody hand reaches up out of the earth and grabs him. Hello, final moment of Carrie<\/i>! I’d throw in an echo of the final moment of Deliverance<\/i>, too, but the entire scene is a steal from Carrie<\/i>, and it’s awesome. <\/p>\n Sam wakes up with a start from what was obviously a nightmare. He is in the passenger seat of the Impala, and “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner is blaring from out of the radio, which, I’m sorry, hilarious. And typical of the show. We get a tear-drenched tender scene and are shaken out of it by \u2026 Foreigner. <\/p>\n Supernatural<\/i>, in recent seasons, has let some of that musical stuff go, maybe because the brothers aren’t on the road as much anymore. Perhaps everyone thought: “Okay, we’ve established the whole classic rock\/heavy metal thing, no need to keep hammering it home.” But I miss it. It’s another reason why I think the show won’t “date” as much as, say, Dawson’s Creek<\/i> dates itself. Or Grey’s Anatomy<\/i> WILL date itself. The music in Grey’s Anatomy<\/i> is so very much “of the here and the Right Now” that, as effective as it often is, will say to future audiences: “This was filmed at such-and-such an exact time.” The music in Supernatural<\/i>, most of it recorded in the 70s and 80s, some by one-hit wonders but others by giants in the field like Black Sabbath or Lynyrd Skynyrd, has already withstood the test of time. Bob Seger’s biggest hits from the 1970s and 80s still get radio play. The show won’t date itself. (I notice, by the way, that Metallica actually never is represented on the soundtrack, although Sam and Dean talk about Metallica all the time. I imagine the cost for using a Metallica song was prohibitive.) <\/p>\n The brothers barrel along in the Impala, and Dean is obviously worried about his brother. They have an exchange that goes as follows: It’s interesting. Because Sam already seems like the one with more emotional fluidity. He was able to let in other people in his life, fellow students, a girlfriend, and they have influenced him. But with his brother, all of that gets shut down for Sam. And Dean seems pretty rigid. I talked about the rigid thing here.<\/a> The scared-hurt-little-boy underbelly of Dean Winchester is a hard nut to crack, but that’s one of the transformations that occurs over the next 3, 4 seasons. It is a credit to Jensen Ackles that we don’t get sick of that arc. Dean Winchester is often infuriating, mainly because he is so willing to throw out his own emotional growth, having contempt for people who give their mental energy to such pussy-ish pursuits. You can see where he’s coming from though. How could he grow, while he was chained to his Dad, who would not allow any softness (i.e.: weakness) in his sons? One of the underlying tensions in the show is between strength and vulnerability, and how often they are one and the same. The brothers will have to learn such lessons again and again. Both of these guys are fearless when it comes to crawling around in dark mausoleums and underground tunnels overrun with demons. But admitting, “Hey, I’m scared” or “I’m feeling really upset” is the most terrifying thing of all.<\/p>\n Dean tries to draw Sam out as they drive. We learn that they stayed in Palo Alto for a week, trying to find any lead on what the hell that was that killed Jess, and they came up with nothing. Meanwhile, Sam has nightmares every night. It’s not easy for Dean to talk about feelings, but he tries. And he is met with a cold “I’m fine” wall from his brother. Dean doesn’t like that because it feels untruthful, and it feels like Sam is hiding something from him. Dean has boundary problems. If you keep a diary, you should hope you don’t room with Dean Winchester, because he would be reading that shit, and all up in your private grill every time you left the house. If you put a lock on the diary, he’d pick the lock. And he wouldn’t see anything wrong with snooping, he would feel perfectly justified. Dean thinks secrets are dangerous. Sam has a lot of secrets. Sam already blindsided the family by applying to Stanford without letting anyone know his plans, and then he fucking WENT to Stanford. Secrets are BAD to Dean. So even though he hates emotions, he needs to know what is going on. It’s his job to say “It’s okay, Sammy”. But in doing so, he’s not letting his brother have natural boundaries. Grief is often a private thing. Sam is grieving for Jess. Leave him alone, Dean, for the love of Pete. <\/p>\n \n \nDean asks Sam if he wants to drive. We haven’t gotten into the symbolism of the Impala yet, and what it means to Dean, but we’re already getting the idea. And all we need to see is Jared Padalecki’s stunned reaction to the offer to understand that nobody drives Dean’s car but Dean. Sam isn’t flattered. Instead, he sees the offer as pitying, and screw Dean for that. “You’ve never once asked me that. I’m perfectly fine.” <\/p>\n They argue about what the hell they are doing. Sam thinks it is urgent to find Dad. That’s the priority. Dean agrees, which is why they are headed to the coordinates that Dad left them in the journal. Sam thinks that’s dumb. He’s looked at the map. The coordinates are smack in the middle of a national forest. There’s nothing there. Why would Dad send them there? <\/p>\n This line of questioning is anathema to a guy like Dean, whose family is run like a paramilitary organization with a clear hierarchy, Dad being at the top. You don’t question the orders coming from the top. What the hell is wrong with you? <\/p>\n It’s the first hint of a divide between the brothers, a philosophical divide, which will widen. It’s going to be devastating. <\/p>\n 2nd scene<\/big> As we move along, small shout-out, again, to the production design team for the ranger’s station. Most of episode 2 takes place outside, in the forest, with only three interiors, the ranger’s station being one of them. It’s perfect. And it goes deep into the other room seen through the doorway. Every prop is carefully chosen. <\/p>\n \nI’ve driven cross-country a couple of times. I’ve camped in national forests. That is totally the vibe of those places, even down to the clutter, and the dark wood walls, the stone fireplace, the low light. You can almost smell the fir trees outside.<\/p>\n The ranger doesn’t buy the shit that they’re selling and guesses that they are actually friends with “that Haley girl”. Sam and Dean have no idea what he is talking about, but they sense an “in” and so they say yes, of course, they are friends with her. The ranger gives us the exposition: Haley has filed a missing persons report for her brother who had gone out camping with some friends on Blackwater Ridge and has not returned. The guys filed a camping permit with the ranger’s station and weren’t SUPPOSED to return as of yet, so as far as the ranger is concerned, nobody is missing and Haley is being a pain in the ass. <\/p>\n The brothers listen to this story and they are framed in a way which will become a Supernatural<\/i> staple. <\/p>\n \n \nBoth guys crowded into one frame, sometimes Dean in front, sometimes Sam, but usually Dean, because of the height difference between the actors. Sometimes the camera will show one of the guy’s faces with clarity, leaving the other blurry, and then the focus will switch. Camera operator shout-out. These are tricks of the trade, and it’s a matter of choreography and timing to get it all right. It also adds to the dual-nature of the storyline being told. There isn’t one protagonist in the series. There are two. Putting them both in the same frame underlines that for the audience, again and again. <\/p>\n Dean, going off on his own investigative track, causing Sam to be first baffled and then suspicious, asks the ranger if they could have a copy of the permit filed by the missing campers. They’d like to go show it to Haley, as proof that her brother is okay. <\/p>\n They walk back out to the car, permit in hand, and Sam lays into Dean: “Are you cruising for a hookup or something?” There’s a lot of history in that line. Of course Dean is always “cruising for a hookup”, it’s how he’s built. Along with a gun, a knife, his precious necklace, and a roll of duct tape, you know that the man always has a condom somewhere on his person. He would never need to stop off at a drugstore and ruin the momentum. Sam’s annoyance at Dean’s “cruising” behavior is really just a coverup, though, and the argument that ensues now (taking place over the top of the Impala) is super important. <\/p>\n It’s the theme of the whole show, it’s the real engine, not the growling stalking monster out in the woods.<\/p>\n Sam doesn’t give a shit about “that Haley girl” and her brother. He thinks they should head right out into Blackwater Ridge and look for Dad, who clearly must be out there, or why would he have given them those coordinates? Dean’s supernatural spidey-sense is working on overdrive and he thinks they should question Haley to see what the hell they might be dealing with before they charge out there. Sam is intense and coiled and fierce, but he’s holding back tears. He has to find Dad. Dean doesn’t disagree, but he thinks Haley and her brother are connected. On a deeper subtextual level, not articulated in this scene although it will come up big-time later, we feel Dean’s overall sense of mission. This is a job, and he takes it seriously. Haley needs help, whoever she is. Like I said, he is a natural protector. It’s not that missing Dad can go fuck himself, but the missing camper is ALSO important. We can’t just leave these poor people hanging, not if this turns out to be “our kind of thing”. Dean couldn’t forgive himself if he left innocent people in the lurch. <\/p>\n It’s a standoff and Dean is taken aback by Sam’s intensity. <\/p>\n \n \nDean: “Since when are you all shoot first and ask questions later?” We’ll get back to this. <\/p>\n 3rd scene<\/big> It’s the mini moments, as I said, that makes this show work. Dean Winchester, floozy though he is, or maybe it’s because he’s a floozy, is taken aback by women. He stops in his tracks if a pretty girl goes by (and, on one memorable occasion, a guy – so we can infer from that whatever we want), he can’t help but stop and look. Even though he’s successful with women if he puts even the tiniest bit of effort into it, he’s not “over it” and he doesn’t consider it his due. He doesn’t have contempt for women, and he’s not scared of them. He likes them. This is not an easy thing to play, you kind of just have to have it in you. It would be so easy to have Dean Winchester tip over into Gross Land, and he does so in the pilot, with Jess. But that had more to do with Sam, and his rage at Sam, than anything else. Here, in episode 2, we first see Dean in operation when he’s in the presence of a woman and all kinds of bizarre stuff comes out as a result. And this is all on Ackles. Nobody’s telling him to play a scene this way. He just infers it from the script and his growing understanding of the character. It’s not the LINES that matter, it’s the behavior between and during the lines. That’s how we get to know someone in real life, and that’s how we get to know fictional characters. <\/p>\n So she opens the door, and she is clearly struck almost dumb by who the hell is standing there (wouldn’t you be?) and Dean, too, is struck by her prettiness and the fact that, you know, boobs. It’s not just about sex. I think it’s about women in general, and the lack of a regular woman in his life, i.e.: Mom. Women are almost like mythical creatures to him, they are not “normalized”, they are totally outside of his regular everyday experience. He sleeps with them, but that’s not the same thing as having women around, influencing you, counter-acting your testosterone, being there for you, supporting you, all that. He keeps it together, his sense of mission is strong, but you can see that internal switch being flipped when she appears. <\/p>\n They flash fake ranger badges at her through the screen. They tell her that they were sent over here by the Blackwater Ridge ranger just to follow up on her brother. She is suspicious and asks for a closer look at their badges. (I love the whole fake-badge motif of the show.) <\/p>\n Haley examines their badges, decides they’re okay, and then gets a glimpse of the gleaming Impala on the sidewalk. “Is that your car?” she asks. Dean is visibly proud, a peacock unfurling his feathers, and says, “Yes.” She says, “Nice car.” <\/p>\n \n \nComplimenting Dean’s car is the clearest road to his heart and other areas. That’s all Haley says but she decides to let them in, and there is an awesome silent moment between the brothers as they enter the house, something I’m so glad that the director and everyone else knew had to be there. Without character-building moments, the show is nothing. As Dean walks into the house, he throws Sam this crazy look which can’t quite be classified. If I had to boil it down I would say it’s a horny look, but also psyched and freaked at the same time, i.e.: “Holy shit, did you hear her just say she liked my car? Did you see how pretty she is? I’m in, dude, I’m in!” It’s not a cocky look. The show could have gone that road with Dean. Of course sometimes he is cocky that some stupid pickup line worked, but he still, after everything, manages to be psyched and freaked about women. I said somewhere else that I’m glad the show is about brothers, and not a typical buddy show, where two guys, who may be close but who are not related to one another, team up to fight monsters. You know, Miami Vice<\/i> or Starsky and Hutch<\/i> with monsters. The ace in the hole of the show is that Brother thing, because you can’t throw bullshit at your brother, it just won’t work. Your brother saw you crying over spilt milk, literally, when you were kids. Your brother has seen you in feetie pajamas, your brother knows your whole life. That gives both characters a vulnerability to one another<\/i> that is such a strength of the show. It helps us know them. Dean Winchester is un-knowable, really, to anyone outside the immediate family circle. You need to earn your way into his heart, and very few people get to see in there. But Sam does. So Dean looks like a teenager about to go make out under the boardwalk in that moment at the doorway, and only Sam would get to see that part of Dean. It’s awesome. But best of all, is the button to all of that from Jared Padalecki, as he walks through the door behind his brother. He rolls his eyes to himself. Again, there’s so much history in that eye-roll. Dean’s on the make. He’s going to embarrass himself. Or get what he wants. Either way, it’s embarrassing to observe and it’s like no time has passed at all since Sam left the family nest. <\/p>\n Haley has two brothers, the lost Tommy and teenage Ben (Alden Ehrenreich), who sits there at the table, clearly upset but quiet. Haley, young as she is, is the matriarch. She informs Sam and Dean that their parents are dead and it is just the three kids now, and they keep close tabs on one another. She hadn’t heard from Tommy since he sent that cell phone video three days ago, and it is not like him, something is not right. She shows them the cell phone video. Sam squints at the screen. Despite the fact that Sam is treating this as a Dean-driven diversion from the REAL issue, which is finding Dad, he can’t help but stare at that video closely. He asks if she could forward that file to him. <\/p>\n Dean tells her that he and his fellow ranger over there are going to go out to look for her brother, so she should just stay home and wait for them to call. Haley doesn’t fall for that. No. That’s her brother out there. She’s heading out in the morning with a guide she hired, and that’s final. <\/p>\n Sam doesn’t like this. But Dean’s face goes all soft and thoughtful as he takes in her intensity. He says, “I think I know how you feel.”<\/p>\n \n \nThat’s the moment where, subtextually, the Monster of the Week arc connects to the Family Drama arc. Those dovetails are always there, churning beneath the surface, usually not expressed outright. Dean may have been struck by Haley’s prettiness, but he is more struck by her devotion to her siblings and her determination to protect her brothers. He sees himself in her. So both family units, siblings only, are on a quest to find a missing family member. Dean understands that connection before Sam does and it drives him forward. <\/p>\n \n4th scene<\/big><\/p>\n Sam and Dean sit in a dark bar, with photocopies of local newspapers spread out on the table. The scene is filmed like a movie would be, with shots of pool balls scattering to the four corners of a pool table, and a waitress carrying a tray of shots through the frame. These are atmospheric details, extremely helpful in setting up the Supernatural<\/i> world. <\/p>\n \n \nSam is filling Dean in on the history of missing hikers at Blackwater Ridge, a history that goes back over 50 years. What I love about this scene is that it plunges us into the Sam\/Dean relationship, and how naturally they assume the roles that will become familiar as the series progresses. Dean is smart, and he knows how to do research, but once Sam is in the picture, Sam naturally takes on that role. He’s good at it, he doesn’t find it tiresome and boring, like Dean does, and he sniffs out the underlying story like a bloodhound. Sam put together a pattern: every 23 years a bunch of hikers go missing. Everyone assumes it’s grizzly bear attacks, but Sam is not so sure. He pulls out his laptop and shows Dean the cell phone video sent from Tommy, the same one we saw him sending in the teaser. Sam slows down the video for Dean and shows him the shadow outside the tent that can only be perceived in freeze-frame. Whatever that thing was, it was moving almost too fast to be seen by the naked eye. <\/p>\n Sam has discovered that only one person survived one of these so-called grizzly attacks, and he’s still alive, even though the attack happened in 1959. The guy is an old man now, but he’s still in town. <\/p>\n 5th scene<\/big><\/p>\n \nSam and Dean are let into the dark and squalid room of the survivor, a tormented old guy smoking a cigarette. If I’m not mistaken, this is the only time we ever see anyone actually smoking in the show. It’s a bit of an authenticity-glitch, although I get why a network wouldn’t want to show characters lighting up every other second. But the Winchester boys come from a world where everyone smokes, let’s be real. For example, if this were a movie, no way would Dean Winchester NOT smoke. Bobby would be a smoker. Ellen would be a smoker. Moving on. <\/p>\n The old guy lets them in, and he shuffles off to the corner armchair and sits down, baffled as to why anyone would want to dredge up the horrible story from his childhood. The scene is dark as hell, and totally noir-inspired, with a neon light outside, suggesting that the old guy is so down and out he’s living in am SRO joint or something equally as depressing. You can barely see anyone. It’s dark, rich, evocative. This is the room of a man for whom time has stopped. <\/p>\n \n \nThe guy’s name is Shaw and he is played by wonderful Winnipeg actor Donnelly Rhodes. (He also appears as another character in this past year’s season – they do do that sometimes, when they feel they can get away with it.) Battlestar Galactica<\/i> fans will recognize him. He’s a powerhouse of an actor, and is one of the many many examples of the gravitas brought to the show by their guest spot actors. These are the scenes that help give the show its stakes<\/i> on an episodic basis, it helps remind us of how horrible it is to have this unknown THING out there that has taken everything from you. If you got cheesy actors, you’d get cheesy scenes. But someone like Donnelly Rhodes, smoking and crumpled up in his armchair, brings his whole history into that scene, and it’s so serious that you can feel Sam and Dean almost tiptoeing in the presence of it. <\/p>\n \n \nReluctantly, he relates the story of what happened when he was a kid. Nobody believed him then, and he assumes that nobody would believe him now. He says that whatever it was that killed his family “moved too fast to see”. Dean and Sam both assumed that they were in tents, like the missing campers, but Shaw corrects them, providing the chilling detail that whatever it was that ripped up his parents and dragged them off into the woods, was able to unlock the door of their cabin. He still does not know why he was left alive, and that knowledge is why his life is filled with wreckage. He doesn’t say that, but he doesn’t need to because Rhodes is playing it. <\/p>\n The brothers listen, and we get more dramatic shots of the two of them in the same frame, focus on one of them, the other face blurry, before the focus then switches so we can see the other face. <\/p>\n 6th scene<\/big> \n \nAs of now, in Season 9, I have enough information to ward off a Demon should that situation ever come to pass. I would know the signs. I know how to fight a ghost. I know the weapons I would need to kill each supernatural being. When a brother says, “Is it a shape-shifter?” I know what they mean. I know the difference between a ghost and a ghoul and a cursed object. It’s hysterical. But here, we’re only in episode 2, and the only evil things we know of is whatever it is that killed Mom and Jess, and the “Woman in White”, a sexy bosomy tormented ghost. We don’t know what else is out there, but Sam and Dean do, and so short scenes like this help us play catch up. They’re debating on what the hell it could be.<\/p>\n It can’t be a demon, because demons can go through walls, they wouldn’t need to unlock a door.<\/p>\n The following exchange is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, both in the writing and in the performing of it:<\/p>\n Sam: “So it’s something else. Something corporeal.” Dean making fun of Sam’s nerdiness is an ongoing theme. He can’t resist. But he also knows what corporeal means, proceeds to use it in a sentence, and takes the leap through deductive reasoning that corporeality is in their favor as hunters. <\/p>\n I realize that I am easily pleased. I think it’s one of my best qualities. And an exchange like that, 4 lines, is pleasing<\/i>. It illuminates plot and character, it’s funny, it’s informative, and it takes 2 seconds of screen time. That’s efficiency. <\/p>\n 7th scene<\/big> The argument they have here will stretch out over the next couple of episodes, over the whole first season really. It takes Sam some time to let go of his old life, the life at Stanford, with Jess, where he was ready to go to law school. He can see that old life in the rear view mirror. He’s not ready to let it go yet. But if he IS going to let it go, it’s not going to be to help virtual STRANGERS find their family. That’s a waste of time. Totally annoying. He doesn’t CARE about them. <\/p>\n We could also make the leap that this lack of empathy in Sam is not just because he is grief-struck for his girlfriend (although that is certainly true). It’s that something in him is “off”, something cuts him off from the empathy and fellow-human-feeling that is Dean’s reason to get up in the morning. It started in the nursery that fiery night so many years before. This won’t pay off for seasons yet, unbelievably. But I think it’s there already. Jared Padalecki obviously wouldn’t know the entire five-season arc at this point. He knows the script in front of him, and next week’s script. He’s working blind. But boy, did they cast well. Boy, did they get the right guy to play Sam Winchester. <\/p>\n 8th scene<\/big> \n \nHaley already senses that something is not quite right with these two so-called rangers, who have arrived with no camping supplies, just a duffel bag. She looks at Dean and says, “You’re hiking in biker boots and jeans?” Dean replies, “Sweetheart, I don’t do shorts.”<\/p>\n It’s so Han Solo. It’s so Humphrey Bogart\/Clark Gable. It’s every cranky Tough Guy association you can think of. And the “sweetheart” is so rude, so infuriating, and so attractive. It shuts her up. <\/p>\n 9th scene<\/big> 10th scene<\/big> \n \nRoy scores a point, though, when he grabs Dean and yanks him off the path out of the way of a bear trap lying there. Dean is startled at first, pissed about being manhandled (Dean doesn’t like to be touched, not without warning), adrenaline racing, but what comes out of his mouth is a soft comment, it’s almost a “coo”, if I’m being honest, it’s sexy: “Whatcha doin’, Roy?” Look for how Dean Winchester sexualizes moments. Not just with women he’s hitting on, but with everyone. It’s how he operates, it’s automatic, and it’s all due to Jensen Ackles’ ability and suggestibility: the script suggests it, he runs with it, he allows his behavior to tell the story, the glances, the pauses, the tonal shifts. The show operates on that sexual plane, sometimes explicitly, it being so much about losing control of yourself, and being under the control of someone else (supernatural or otherwise), and how destabilizing it is for a Tough Guy like Dean to actually deal with that. His way of dealing with it is to treat almost every moment, even a confrontation with a demon, like a come-on. Which, on some level, it is. <\/p>\n So while the moment with Roy is an aggressive confrontation, Dean subverts it by going to the Sex, treating it like a come-on, a sexy grope. Dean is not entirely wrong. Sexual tension also exists in bucks clashing antlers. Dean knows that on a gut level. Fascinating. <\/p>\n \n \nWe can make guesses about what was going on in Dean’s life in the couple of years before the series starts, and Supernatural<\/i> wants you to make guesses about it, they are still providing us with information about those missing years, and interesting glimpses are certainly suggested in the script from time to time. But it’s left off the table. All we can see is the result. <\/p>\n I’ve always thought Supernatural<\/i> was, on a pretty primal level, about men, and what it “means” to be a man, and also what it means to be a man to two guys who were brought up by a ruthless driven father who valued stoic toughness above all else. This is the first time we’ve seen Dean deal with another man in this particular way, aggressive and yet sexual, and it comes up over and over again. <\/p>\n Roy gestures at the bear trap and snarls in Dean’s face, “You should watch where you’re stepping. Ranger<\/em>.” Dean, busted, laughs awkwardly and tries to scuffle his way out of the moment, all as Sam looks on, rolling his eyes again. This is his brother. This happens on a daily basis. As the group continues on down the path, Haley, now pissed off, pulls Dean aside and confronts him. She knows they’re not rangers. Who the fuck are they?<\/p>\n Something about her, the same quality that made his face go soft and open back at her house, makes him come clean. He tells her that no, they’re not rangers. They’re brothers and their Dad is missing out there too. Haley, still suspicious, still angry, asks him why the hell he didn’t just say that in the first place. Dean feels cornered and so he then barks defensively what is the most ridiculous line in the entire episode: “This is probably the most honest I’ve ever been with a woman. Ever.” He wants points for that. It’s so inappropriate, it is also not true, but it’s also something that Clark Gable would most certainly say if some little chippie was giving him a hard time. What is apparent here, in this scene, is Dean’s openness to women, believe it or not, despite the bullshit Tough Guy comment. Watch how his face changes when she pulls him aside. He’s not annoyed, the way he is when Roy grabs him, and while he still can’t help but go to the Sex undercurrent of the moment, he’s curious and open to her. It’s only once they start, you know, talking, that he has to remind her that he is the Boss of himself. Got it, cowboy. But Jensen Ackles can’t help but let that empathy come through, he knows that that is what is motivating Dean throughout the entire episode and so – as Elia Kazan taught us all in script analysis: it is the “spine” of Dean Winchester in this episode. A spine can’t just exist in one scene. It has to run throughout, it has to drill down in every moment. That’s how you get a through line that makes sense, that’s how you understand what is REALLY going on, besides the plot. <\/p>\n Both actors have to pull this off every single episode. Neither of them ever miss a beat. <\/p>\n Of course, Dean’s openness to her and her missing brother has to be clamped down on with the “honest with a woman” comment, and Haley is stunned into silence by both his rudeness and also the clear “you are woman I am man”<\/a> connotations of his comment. <\/p>\n \n \nPerfectly, though, after that Tough Guy moment, he can’t help himself, and says to her, “So are we okay?” <\/p>\n Dean Winchester may not be okay, but he needs everyone around him to be okay, so okay? We okay now? After this little talk which was super-awkward? Are we okay? So yeah, Dean has boundary problems, with pretty much everyone. Despite the armor he’s got going on in his personality, his borders are porous. Having zero boundaries can come out in negative ways, but it can come out in positive ways too, like this moment with Haley. <\/p>\n Dean munches on M&Ms as they walk through the woods. Of course you have to immediately think of E.T.<\/i>, and all of the associations with that film (supernatural forces, an alien being, a trail of M&Ms, as well as, most importantly, the yearning for “Home”). <\/p>\n The merry band of hikers make it to Dad’s exact coordinates. Nothing there. But Sam and Dean both notice how quiet it is, no birds, no crickets. Something feels way way off to both of them. The forest they stare off into is ominous as hell. I don’t want to go hiking there, that’s for sure. <\/p>\n \n \nMoving forward into that forest, they come upon the horrifying sight of the two tents, destroyed, splashed with blood. Haley and Ben look at the scene and panic starts rising. Sam and Dean, feeling like they may be losing control of the group, especially with Roy charging off into the greenery with his rifle, try to keep everyone together, their eyes scanning the scene for clues, hints. Dean finds markings in the brush showing that the bodies were dragged away from the tents, but then all of a sudden the trail disappears. He murmurs to Sam, “I’ll tell you what. It’s no skin walker or black dog.” I have zero idea what you are talking about, Dean, but I know that YOU know and I feel comforted in that knowledge!<\/p>\n \n Haley finds her brother’s cell phone in the dirt, now smashed, and smeared with blood. She’s in tears. Dean circles around all of this, worried (“Are we okay?” “So we okay now?”<\/em>). A shout from Roy interrupts the scene at the campsite, he is calling out to Haley, who jumps up and races off, again giving Sam and Dean the distinct feeling that they are losing control of the situation. Roy is nowhere to be seen, although that was clearly his voice, and nothing is to be found “out there”, just more trees and dark shadows. Dean, whose empathy sometimes makes him lose focus, stares around him into the woods, and it is Sam who now grabs control, Alpha Dog, undeniably, barking out an order: “Everyone back to camp. Now.” <\/p>\n The whole group, including Dean, hilariously, obeys. When a Leader like that emerges, you don’t question it. Once they get back to the campsite area, they see that everything has been stolen, their packs, their supplies, the tents, their phones, it’s all gone. Dean has the same “Duh??” expression on his face as Haley and her brother, and Sam, again, roars into the power vacuum left by Dean’s confusion and takes over, pulling his brother aside to speak with him in private. <\/p>\n Sam is so commanding here, so certain and sure of himself, that Dean doesn’t balk at it at all. He actually needs it, he needs that balancing strong-man, because hell if HE knows what’s going on here. Look at Dean’s face. Sam is clearly in charge now. Phew. Are we okay though? Everything okay? <\/p>\n \n \nSam, on his own, based on the clues they have accumulated, has figured out what they are dealing with, and it is a Wendigo<\/a>. Kudos to the writing staff of Supernatural<\/i>, by the way, who spend the majority of their time Googling old gods and deities and creepy phenomenon and local legends and ghost stories. Jared Padalecki, once again, gets saddled with the “explanation of the lore” monologue. Sam shows Dean the “Wendigo” section in Dad’s precious journal.<\/p>\n \nWendigos are hunters, they live in the woods, they move fast, they have claws, and they can mimic a human voice. How does one BECOME a Wendigo? Well, Supernatural<\/i> isn’t going to give you all the information in one go now, come on! Besides Dean already knows what a Wendigo is, and is even more confused because he’s never heard of a Wendigo this far West. He’s pissed off, too, because he knows his gun is useless. Sam and Dean are both in a panic, it’s getting to be night, and Sam is urgent: they have to get everyone back to the cars, NOW. They cannot wait any longer, people are going to start dying. The situation becomes the Sam Winchester Show now, Sam in the driver’s seat. It’s no surprise that when they go back to the ruined campsite and Sam tries to order everyone to go back down the trail to the cars, he is met with resistance. Roy laughs in contempt, he could stay out here for months at a time, and he isn’t afraid of a grizzly bear. The confrontation between Roy and Sam gets heated. Notice Sam doesn’t sexualize it though. He’s more like a military general, faced with underlings disobeying him. You get the sense that the whole thing could get physical. Sam suddenly seems capable of knocking everyone out and dragging their unconscious bodies back to the cars like a caveman. <\/p>\n Dean is forced to break up the fight between Roy and Sam, and then Dean and Roy start arguing and Haley is forced to break up that fight, and honestly the testosterone level is deafening. Haley is the one who tips the scales though. She is NOT leaving until she finds her brother. <\/p>\n 11th scene<\/big><\/p>\n As Haley and Ben set up camp and start a fire, Sam and Dean carve Anasazi symbols into the dirt, symbols that the Wendigo can’t cross over. They still haven’t filled anyone in on what a Wendigo is, and Roy continues to insist it’s a grizzly bear. Haley seems torn. She doesn’t trust anyone, really, except her brothers. <\/p>\n We’re now at the halfway point of the episode, and it’s time to put all the cards on the table, structurally. Everything’s been set up, Sam’s nightmares, his resistance to the Haley sub-plot, his determination to find Dad, his anger at his brother. We’ve also got Dean’s openness to Haley, his accessibility to a two-pronged approach (sure, find Dad, but help these people too), as well as his underlying worry that Sammy is upset and he has to help him out in some way. All of that has been established and now it’s time for some payoff. <\/p>\n \n \nThe following scene, Dean’s monologue in particular, will be used again and again in episode re-caps, in commercials and promos. It is the POINT. Sam sits off to the side, brooding in his own little world, and Dean goes over and says, “You want to tell me what’s going on in that freaky head of yours?” Sam tries to start talking and Dean cuts him off, already moving us past that first conversation in the Impala, saying, “No, you’re not fine. You’re like a powder keg. It’s not like you.” (“You okay? We okay now? Everyone okay?”) Sam is in tears. Padalecki kills me. What is going on for Sam right now, and what Padalecki has been DOING in every scene thus far, although he has no dialogue to support it, is he is shattered that Dad isn’t here after all. It’s abandonment all over again, not to mention the fact that he has somehow conflated Dad with the “thing that killed Jess”. So now he’s no closer to finding out the truth about that either. He doesn’t understand why they are still hanging out with Haley and her brother. They need to haul ass out of the woods, go back to town, and start the search for Dad again. <\/p>\n It’s interesting: the fallout between Sam and Dad will be the subject of many episodes to come. Sam’s need to show he is his own man, and his long-lasting anger at how his Dad not only subjected him to so much violence as a child but wouldn’t let him go his own way. However, Padalecki is also playing in this scene a burning desire for reconciliation with Dad. It’s not in the language, it’s in the performance. He MUST see his Dad again, before it’s too late. <\/p>\n Dean gets the full blast of Sam’s pain, he feels it, and it’s awful for him but he is more accustomed to Dad’s vanishing acts. He doesn’t think Dad was ever IN Blackwater Ridge to begin with. Sam is confused. Then WHY. ARE. WE. HERE. <\/p>\n So now we get full-frontal Missionary Man Dean. The one who has the Big Picture in his head, the one who understands the job and knows what it entails. He smacks Dad’s journal, and launches the monologue, Supernatural<\/i> getting that now they can afford a pretty blatant thematic reveal: “This is Dad’s single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every single evil thing is in here and he’s passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. Saving people, hunting things. The family business.”<\/p>\n Sam feels Dad should have looped them in, called them, something. Treated them like adults, in other words. Dean is cut and dry about it: Dad’s given us a job to do, and like hell we’re not gonna do it. Dean sees Sam’s torment, and while he gets it, he pulls rank and gives some emotional advice: “This search for Dad and Jess’ killer could take a while. All this anger you have, you can’t keep it burning over the long haul. It’ll kill you.”<\/p>\n Please just take a moment to appreciate the beauty (and difficulty) of the following shot of Jensen Ackles. <\/p>\n \n \nIn my original post about Dean Winchester (and Jensen Ackles)<\/a>, I brought up Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker<\/i>. The whole warrior-out-of-place-in-civilian-life thing which is so important in understanding Dean Winchester. In The Hurt Locker<\/i> there’s a great scene in a Humvee, between Renner and Anthony Mackie. It, too, is a scene where the film puts its cards on the table about the Renner character. Mackie turns to him and says, “Lemme ask you something.” Renner is open, not suspicious, “Shoot.” Mackie says, “How do you do it?” Meaning: how do you handle yourself in battle and not go crazy? How do you do it? How are you so good at what you do, and how do you manage the implications of that for yourself? Renner knows what is being asked of him, but he lives inside his own skin, and it’s the only thing that makes sense to him, he was Born for War, and he says, “I don’t know, man. I just do it.” <\/p>\n Sam then asks Dean the same question: “How do you do it?”<\/p>\n Dean responds, gesturing over at Haley and Ben, and his comment is key on multiple levels: “Well, for one – them. I figure our family is so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. It makes things a little bit more bearable.” It’s an honorable response, for sure, but it is illuminating of darker waters. It’s an admission that Dean finds life unbearable and looks for things that can help him to bear it. Sex helps, alcohol helps, sleep helps, burgers and pie help, and helping people helps. But he’s not kidding himself. Life is unbearable. It also gives shadings to the Dean we met in the pilot, who kept insisting that their childhood was not so bad, and their family was not so bad. Come on, Dean knows how bad it was. <\/p>\n The brotherly tete-a-tete is interrupted by a scream for help out in the darkness. This is followed by a whizzing sound, rustling branches, angry growling, and the group huddles inside the Anasazi symbols, staring out at nothing. Badass dumbass Roy shoots into the darkness and races off, convinced he’s killed a grizzly. As he charges through the dark woods, he stops under a tree, looking around. Then, in a quick flash, a long snaky arm drops down from the top of the frame, breaks his neck, and pulls him up into the tree. Totes gross. <\/p>\n 12th scene<\/big> \n It’s also a great shot because it acts as a breather. A small pause. A breath taken. Supernatural<\/i> would get real old real quick without those small breathers. Sam has to decide to be a hunter, and in deciding to be a hunter he has to stop thinking only about himself. <\/p>\n Back at the campsite, Dean and Haley and Ben pack up some stuff, and as they do so, Haley asks Dean, “How do you know about this stuff?” The way other people look at Dean helps us to know how to look at him. He’s a beautiful disaster. He’s strong and obnoxious, he’s vulnerable and funny. He’s brave. He’s impatient. He’s smart. He’s clearly tough but he also wears his heart on his sleeve, and you can see he’s a giant goofball in many respects. There’s just a quick glimpse of Haley looking up at Dean, and we get it all there in her face. She’s not idolizing him, but she’s seeing him in a way she hadn’t seen before. This guy isn’t just a cocky sonofabitch with a fake badge, some bad pickup lines, and a cool car. He’s \u2026 rather extraordinary. And doesn’t seem quite to be aware of it. <\/p>\n Sam, having communed all night with himself and Dad’s journal, returns to the group, ready to do what needs to be done to kill this creature. Now we get a small lecture from both Dean and Sam about the history of the Wendigo, the payoff from the earlier reference. I love how they tag-team the explanation. They both seem so formidable, and Haley and Ben just listen, trying to grasp what they are hearing. Wendigos were once human, usually a frontiersman or a Native American or a miner, and during a tough winter these humans were forced into cannibalism. Ben says, “Oh. Like the Donner party.” Dean shrugs and walks out of frame, and it’s a minuscule moment but it makes me laugh. “Sure, whatever, Donner, I don’t know, nerd, let me get my supplies ready, whatever.” So the Wendigo is immortal, and the Wendigo is always hungry. They drag their victims off to a safe place, and keep them alive, so they can feed on them throughout the winter months. Charming. But this means there’s a chance that Tommy is still alive. <\/p>\n Haley asks, “How do we kill it?”<\/p>\n Dean, looking like the freakin’ Unabomber, says, “We torch the sucker.”<\/p>\n \n 13th scene<\/big> \n \n \nSomehow in the mayhem they get separated, and when things settle down, Sam and Ben discover quickly that Dean and Haley have vanished.<\/p>\n 14th scene<\/big> I love the casual shrug. It shows sensitivity on Padalecki’s part, as well as the director. Any normal person would hesitate before entering that dark hole. Sam doesn’t. Why would he? He’s been in worse places. His brother is in there. His instincts are back in gear from a lifetime of training. <\/p>\n 15th scene<\/big> \n \nA growl rips through the blackness and Sam and Ben huddle in a shadow. In the light source beyond, down the tunnel, we see a blurry shadow of a skinny misshapen figure moving off into the distance. Again, there is such potent power in NOT seeing the monster. The glimpse we get is enough to know that that things is not human, and it is freakin’ scary. Sam and Ben follow the monster, knowing it will lead them to their siblings, but then they find themselves tumbling through some rotten floorboards into a kind of cave far beneath the ground. It’s really gross. There are piles of skulls on the ground, but you can still barely see anything. I love that Sam says to Ben at this point, “It’s okay.”<\/p>\n It is? For real? Cause I’m pretty sure you all just fell into a monster’s lair and your brother and sister are missing and I am not sure how any of it is okay. But it’s a nice detail, Sam taking on the Dean role. Naturally. Over in the dark corner, they see both Haley and Dean, strung up by their arms, bloody and battered. Sam and Ben rush over to cut them down. Both are still alive. Once Haley is down, she peers around in the darkness, and her eyes fall upon her brother, also strung up. She and Ben run to him to take him down. <\/p>\n The placement of the characters in the scene is great, because essentially what we have going on in that dark monstrous place is two simultaneous family reunions. Haley, Ben and Tommy huddle together, hugging each other, and almost crying. Sam and Dean are separated by the three huddled siblings, Sam peering down the tunnel, Dean lying down on the ground getting himself together. He lost his torch, but he has some flare guns in his pocket (because, of course, he would). He holds them out to show them to Sam, and Sam grins, “Those’ll work.”<\/p>\n That’s their reunion.<\/p>\n \n The show walks a fine line. We love the brothers, and there are some killer scenes in later episodes where we get some crying and hugging and all that. But it takes a LOT for them to “go there”, and it would be out of character for them to behave in that way on a regular basis. They just don’t express themselves like that. The “that’ll work” is the brothers’ first moment of real solidarity in the entire episode. <\/p>\n That solidarity then leads into telepathy. The plan comes to life for both of them, in a glance, a nod. Sam stays with Haley, Ben and Tommy, and Dean wielding his flare guns, charges off into the dark tunnel. Haley tries to stop him, and Dean throws a wink back at her, which is so super over-the-top and should not be attempted by any actor who is not Harrison Ford, Clark Gable, Charles Bronson or Jensen Ackles. Or Bruce Willis. He could get away with it too. Dean is using himself as bait so the others can get away. And, of course, because he’s Dean, he shouts out provocative sexual come-ons into the darkness. “Bring it on, baby. I taste good!” Or, even better, “You want some white meat, bitch? I’m right here!”<\/p>\n So now we get the dual journey, of Dean in the tunnel, and Sam, Haley, Ben and Tommy making a staggering run for it. It’s edited together masterfully, building in tension and fear, with Sam pushing the three siblings ahead of him, as he holds back for Dean. They are shot from behind, being chased down the tunnel by the camera (monster), and growls fill the air, and finally, at the very last second (of course), Dean emerges from the shadows, shoots the towering thin Wendigo with a flare gun, and we see the thing burn up and crumple to the floor, howling in outrage. <\/p>\n \n \nDean grins at the traumatized others, and says, “Not bad, huh?” Through the lingering flames of the dying Wendigo (I can’t believe I just wrote those words AND that I know what they mean), we see how everyone else is looking at Dean, Sam smiling, and Haley gob-smacked by his awesome-ness. Fine line, again. Idolizing characters is the fan’s job, the show shouldn’t do too much of it, they should undercut it, they should tread gently. Supernatural<\/i> does, but in small moments we are given a glimpse in from the outside, of what these brothers seem like to those encountering them for the first time. <\/p>\n Check it out. It’s beautiful. It’s done quickly, eloquently, with no words. The implications are left to us.<\/p>\n \n \nAnd, best of all, the scene doesn’t end there. If it had ended there, it would have been not only unbearably sentimental towards one of its lead characters, but way too unironically idol-making of him. Nutter and crew decide to cut back to Dean, dirty and triumphant, grinning back at everyone, and he does this weird little head roll, with a cocky goofy look on his face, like, “Did you see that cool thing I just did?” The look in his eyes is vulnerable and pleased. And he wants praise. He’s like a kid who’s riding without training wheels for the first time. I certainly don’t mind a little un-ironic Tough Guy stuff, but without irony Supernatural<\/i> would suck and I would probably hate it. Without humor, Supernatural<\/i> would be self-congratulatory and embarrassing, not to mention way too idolatrous of “Real” Men Being Cool and Tough. We have enough of that in our cultural landscape. Supernatural<\/i> is up to something different. Half of the battle is won through the casting of Padalecki and Ackles, who, naturally, are gifted with handsomeness and sex appeal and all that stuff (but everyone in television has all that, that doesn’t set them apart). What sets them apart is their smarts and their humor. And that final moment of the scene, and Dean’s little goofball “Look at what I just did” gesture and expression helps take the edge off the moment, and it is the vulnerability behind his eyes that allows him to get away with it. <\/p>\n Final scene<\/big> This is clearly a mistake because Dean, of course, has an idea of how she could thank him, and smiles at her. It’s hard to put into words that smile. It’s not the lecherous leer he threw at Jess in the pilot, although it is still, technically, a leer. But it’s friendly. Sex came into his mind when dealing with her, and he’s experienced enough to know that it crossed her mind too, so he can’t help it. He eye-fucks her, knowing he’s being silly and ridiculous but what the hell. Seriously. How does this actor do it? It would be so gross in someone else’s hands. <\/p>\n \n But her reaction is even better. She is struck by how obvious he’s being, for real, dude?, but she can’t help but flirt back. You know, it’s a game, it’s a courtship dance, it’s how these things work. He’s so friendly<\/i> about the come-on, he kind of forces her into it. She laughs and says, “Must you cheapen the moment?” And Dean smiles and says, with gusto, “Yeah!!” More cheapened moments in life, please!! He looks pretty crazy when he says it, with the bandage, and the gleam in his eyes, but he’s not putting her down. Some men hit on women by putting them down. That is not this guy’s style. He can’t keep the friendliness out of his behavior, even when he’s on the make. It’s a calling-card. Sex is fun. Women aren’t conquests, they’re potential play mates. <\/p>\n Flirting makes life worth living, on a pretty elemental level. It’s fun. We all deserve it, especially when there are evil creatures out there who try to kill us. Come on. You know you’ve been thinking about me that way too. Let’s just pretend it could go somewhere for 2 seconds so we can salvage something “bearable” out of this whole situation. He doesn’t say any of that of course, but it’s all in the way he says “Yeah!!”, which is classic Jensen Ackles, and why we love him, and why we love the character.<\/p>\n This is only episode 2. The Entelechy is already there. <\/p>\n Haley and her brother get into the ambulance with Tommy, and still staring out at Sam and Dean through the back window, are driven off to the hospital. Dean and Sam are left behind, leaning back on the hood of the Impala. <\/p>\n \n As with the pilot, nobody speaks for a while. <\/p>\n Then we get two lines of dialogue, potent with meaning, which has been set up for us throughout the episode. Dean, suddenly vulnerable, says to Sam, “Sam, you know we’re gonna find Dad, right?” He actually doesn’t sound sure of that.<\/p>\n Sam, who doesn’t seem vulnerable at all right now, he seems a bit more steely-eyed and resolute, replies, “I know. But in the meantime, I’m driving.”<\/p>\n Dean flips him the keys, and they get in the car, all as Rush’s “Fly by Night” starts up, which, I’ll be damned, suddenly sounds new and fresh in this context. <\/p>\n The lyrics speak to Sam’s journey throughout the episode. It could be his internal monologue. <\/p>\n Start a new chapter Re-post for Sheltering-in-Place Re-watch Directed by David Nutter written by Ron Milbauer & Terri Burton teleplay by Eric Kripke After the intricate pilot, filled with exposition and set-up and flashbacks, with episode 2, we are introduced to the normal structure … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n
\nWords on the screen tell us we are in “Palo Alto California”, and we see Sam, in a suit, walking through a cemetery with a bouquet in his hands. The light in this scene is bright and over-saturated, giving almost a fuzz to the image. The sky is blue, and the light blasts its way through the scene. It doesn’t look like any scene we have seen thus far and if you’re in tune with visual information (which everyone is), it will strike you on some level as odd, not right. I like to point out these subtle mood\/style shifts because they are always motivated<\/i> in Supernatural<\/i>. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nDean: “You okay?”
\nSam: “I’m fine.”
\nI have not kept a running tally of how many times the same exchange goes down in the show, sometimes with Sam saying “You okay?” and Dean barking, “I’m fine” but it’s up there in triple digits. Admitting weakness is just so not in these guys, and that’s partly from the shadow of their Dad, who beat weakness out of them (sometimes actually? I don’t know. I think it’s certainly in the realm of possibility that he wacked Dean around – never Sam, only Dean – if he was drunk or pissed off or scared). Both of these guys are natural protectors. It gives them softness (both of them) when dealing with scared victims, especially when the victims are children, both guys squat down to talk to the kids on the kid’s level. But in themselves? Feelings? Both of them run for the hills. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThe brothers stop off at the rangers station for Blackwater Ridge, to try to figure out if their Dad has passed through, or what the hell they might be dealing with. Sam narrates the history of the area, bless his heart. Dean, meanwhile, is distracted by a picture of a grizzly bear. “Dude, look at this friggin’ bear.” Dude, you need to focus. The ranger comes in to talk to them, and they pose as environmental studies majors at the university in Boulder. Sam says they are “working on a paper”, clearly improvising, and you can watch the glorious schtick of Jensen Ackles as he adjusts to the new information of who he is supposed to be pretending to be. God is in the details, people, and it’s the detailed scene work of both Ackles and Padalecki that keeps this show going. David Nutter referred to Jensen Ackles once as a “meticulous actor” in terms of his preparation for every scene, no matter how small, and it pays off. He knows what the fuck he is doing. So does Padalecki. I couldn’t give two shits about the demons. It’s that DYNAMIC that is so entertaining and watch-able. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSam: “Since now.”<\/p>\n
\nAt Haley’s house.
\nHaley (Gina Holden) opens the door to see the two Hottie McTotties standing there. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nDean and Sam walk down the darkest hallway in the universe, debating about what they just learned. Seriously. Hats off to the lighting team, and to Ladouceur for turning what is a somewhat-stock scene of the brothers summing up for us the information as it stands into a Moody Festival of Creepiness.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nDean: “Corporeal? Excuse me, Professor.”
\nSam: “Shut up. So what do you think?”
\nDean: “The claws, the speed that it moves. Whatever we’re talking about, it’s a creature and it’s corporeal. Which means we can kill it.”<\/p>\n
\nCut straight into Dean going through his weapons, tossing shit into his duffel bag. He stands over his terrifying arsenal in the trunk (I love how he props the trunk open with a sawed-off shotgun). Dean is focused, tunnel vision, ready for the fight. Sam has other things on his mind, and brings them up, leading us into a pretty big argument, which will have reverb through the rest of the episode. They’ve sort of been fighting it all along but now it comes out into the open. Sam’s point is that he doesn’t want Haley and her teenage brother to come out hunting with them, it’s too dangerous and it will also hold them back from their REAL mission, which is to find Dad. Sam says, “Finding Dad’s not enough? Now we have to babysit too?” Dean doesn’t see how they could stop Haley from coming along. Besides, he points out, if he were in her position he wouldn’t let anything stop HIM from going out there either. It will be safer for Haley and Ben if they were with them, anyway. Sam is jumping out of his skin with irritation and impatience. This will pay off later in the episode too. Dean pulls rank, once he feels the argument has gone on long enough. He’s a big “Because I said so. End of discussion” kind of guy.<\/p>\n
\nHaley, her brother Ben, and Roy (Callum Keith Rennie)- their guide, who is carrying a rifle – stand at the head of the trail, ready to start out. The Impala barrels up behind them. There is immediate alpha-male bullshit between Dean and Roy. Roy is a confident guy, who knows this national forest, and swaggers around about it. He assumes he will be the leader, because Duh. Dean can’t help but swagger back. It is tiresome, and everyone present (except for Dean and Roy) seem bored by the altercation. Okay, now that we’ve established that you both have HUGE cocks, can we get started?<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSuddenly, we are underground in some sort of abandoned mine. Light peers dimly through wooden slats far above, and everything is dark and wet and stony. Two of the campers are strung up by their hands, dirty, bloody, and yet still alive. The way it is filmed is like from something out of a nightmare, or from out of a serial killer film\/series which features dungeons and human trafficking. We hear growls ripping through the dark air and we get a glimpse of the monster in the doorway, but just a glimpse. He’s more of a shadow than anything else, and his arms seem way too long to be human. They’re awful arms, dangling and thin. Tommy, strung up in a dark corner, closes his eyes as he hears his buddy (Cory Monteith) scream in pain and horror as the monster attacks. We don’t see much. We don’t see anything, really. Supernatural<\/i> learned its lesson from the shower scene in Psycho<\/i>. It’s a well-known fact that you never see the knife actually going into Janet Leigh. Hitchcock’s point was: the CUTS of the camera are the knife stabs. Pretty amazing. <\/p>\n
\nThe contentious little group of hikers make their way through a gloomy forest, all greens and greys and mist and dark shadows. Dean still can’t let it go, the whole Roy thing, and needles Roy with obnoxious questions about hunting, like “Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?” Everyone else walks in silence, almost visibly bored by the two Bucks up front clashing antlers. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIt clearly was a long night. Morning comes, and the mist undulates through the forest. Sam, who probably didn’t get a wink of sleep, sits off by himself against a giant rotting tree trunk, holding his Dad’s journal, deep in thought. The camera slowly pans around him from behind, a beautiful and emotional choice. It’s all about Sam’s transformation, it’s all about Sam’s journey, letting go his life behind, and accepting the road ahead. But he can’t accept it just because Dean told him to in an inspirational monologue. He has to come to it on his own. He’s his own man.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAs the four characters hike through the forest, we see bloody claw marks in some of the trees, unnoticed by anyone at first. Finally, Sam notices, and they realize they are surrounded by a circle of trees, all of which have the same bloody claw marks far up the trunks. Sam’s alarm bells go off. It’s got to be a trap of some kind and they walked right into it. As if on cue, we hear a ferocious growl, we see bushes waving with some unseen thing moving past. Then, in a horrifying dovetail with the blood dripping down on John Winchester and on Sam Winchester in the pilot, Haley, standing under a tree, suddenly feels something dripping down on her shoulder. It is blood. She looks up and screams, as Roy, his neck broken, falls down onto the ground. Dean shouts at all of them to run and then follows a thrillingly filmed sequence, with cliffhanger-dramatic music accompanying, of all of them tearing through the woods. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSam and Ben charge around shouting for their lost siblings, and Sam suddenly finds a trail of colored M&Ms leading off through the forest. Brill. Not only is it an E.T.<\/i> reference, but a Hansel and Gretel one too. The show is great that way, piling on our already-existing associations. The M&Ms lead to an old mine shaft, with a big scary sign above it: NO ADMITTANCE. It is boarded up, but with a gap in the boards, and Sam glances at Ben, shrugs casually, and enters.<\/p>\n
\nGorgeous scary shot of Sam and Ben making their way down a tunnel in the abandoned mine, with tracks along the ground, a light source from behind them, emanating weirdly, and Sam’s dim flashlight bulb piercing the darkness ahead. We get a shot, too, of what they see, utter blackness filling the screen with a small hole far ahead, showing where the tunnel goes in the dimmest of light. It’s just beautiful.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBig tracking shot at the rangers station, showing the cop cars, the flashing lights, the waiting ambulance, the EMTs. It tracks across the scene, a nice and complicated shot, showing Ben being questioned by the cops as Sam hovers supportively nearby (we hear Ben saying: “It was a grizzly bear – I saw it \u2026”) and the camera rests on Haley and Dean off to the side in the shadows. We need the payoff from the sexual tension that has been percolating from the second she opened the door to them. The scene is short. Dean has a bandage on his neck, Haley has one on her forehead. She says to him, “I don’t know how to thank you.”<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nFind what I’m after
\nIt’s changing every day
\nThe change of a season
\nIs enough of a reason
\nTo want to get away
\nQuiet and pensive
\nMy thoughts apprehensive
\nThe hours drift away
\nLeaving my homeland
\nPlaying a lone hand
\nMy life begins today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"