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<\/a><\/p>\n\nDirected by Kim Manners
\nWritten by Eric Kripke<\/i><\/p>\n
For the finale, we get our first major loop-around. Sam, Dean, and, by extension, John, have spent their lives hunting the demon that killed Mom. Sam and Dean started the season by searching for their father. They found him. They lost him again. They found him again. They lost him again. Now, when they find him again, he is ALSO the “other” thing they have been chasing. The two have become one and the same. It’s elegantly set up, and works on both a plot-line and an emotional level. We’ve only seen the demon as a black silhouette in a baby’s room, no features, we don’t know yet what it looks like. So how great that in our first confrontation with this thing \u2026 it’s John. <\/p>\n
A finale has to both wrap things up and keep the audience hanging. It has to have a satisfactory sense of closure, as well as set up the challenges for the next season. Season 1, seen as a whole, was a bit all over the place, with some major Lemons, but the show barreled on like the Impala, making its points, zig-zagging, making rest-stops, pit-stops, zooming back into the major themes before skirting away again \u2026 You know, the show is a road trip and the structure feels like one too. But everything that was set up in the pilot (search for Dad, search for demon, Family or Hunter dilemma) has to be wrapped up. Or at least re-visited in a way that will assure that the story will continue. It’s a hefty load, a huge challenge, and “Devil’s Trap” is an extremely ambitious finale, the most ambitious episode thus far, at least in terms of the multiple interlocked challenges facing everyone involved.<\/p>\n
Kim Manners directs, and the script was by series creator Eric Kripke. “Devil’s Trap” hurtles out of the gate at 100 miles an hour, picking up directly where the last episode left off, and basically doesn’t stop until the final moment 40 minutes later. And yet it is amazingly taut, airtight, really, and there isn’t a sense, like you sometimes get with finales, that the action is being pumped up artificially to lead us to some kind of cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is certainly present, but when it comes it feels like it arrives from out of nowhere.<\/p>\n
Our conversations in the comments section to these re-caps have been marvelous. One of the reasons I started these re-caps is because I wanted to talk about the show the way I<\/i> wanted to talk about it. I also wanted to create a forum where I get to analyze the crap out of things like camera angles, camera moves, script analysis, and acting choices, the nuts-and-bolts of the business and things that have obsessed me since I was a kid. It is the whole POINT for me, and it makes me happy that like-minded people have gathered! Fun! The Story-telling tropes, and cinematic choices interest me far more than how a plot-point in Season 1 connects to a plot-point in Season 6, and how this fits with that, and that fits with this, and “but Sam said this in Episode 16, and that fits with what he said 3 seasons later \u2026” and honestly, it’s all a bit too Inception<\/i>-y for my taste. The beauty of Supernatural<\/i> is that things are not wrapped up, they continue<\/i>, they surge forward, they don’t<\/i> make complete and perfect sense, the issues work ON the characters, the issues continue to rise up from the depths \u2026 saying “HANDLE ME”, and they think they’ve got it handled, only to realize \u2026 shit, nope, not handled. It’s not that those connections between seasons aren’t there, and I sense them constantly and of course mention them in the re-caps, but it’s not my obsession or interest. Have fun with it if it’s your thing, I mean that sincerely, but it’s just not my “way in”, or what interests me. For me, Supernatural<\/i> is most powerful, though, because of the bottomless pool of un-knowability<\/em> and ambiguity <\/em>swirling beneath every moment (not to mention the almost slapstick level of humor, which was the initial attraction of the series for me). The pleasure, for me, in the whole thing is in breaking down WHY those moments work, and HOW they “do it.” This includes camera angles, directorial choices, and this also includes acting choices. I get into that at length below in my “Acting Choice” discussion. <\/p>\n And I want to thank you all for your participation in these re-caps. Seriously. It has been so much fun! Those comments sections are insane<\/i>!<\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n \n“Devil’s Trap” features three major scenes, really, and each scene is broken down into enormous and complicated sections. There’s the scene at Bobby’s house. There’s the scene at Sunrise Apartments. There’s the scene at Rufus’ cabin. (I know it’s not really, but that’s how I choose to think of it because it pleases me.) Each scene is ENORMOUS. Each scene has a HUGE arc. It’s a very information-heavy episode, and yet the emotions are 100% operatically in operation. Everything feels heightened, which basically means it’s NUTS, because the show already works on such a heightened level. <\/p>\n You know.<\/p>\n \n So. Briefly. “Devil’s Trap” features manly pained fights and brooding profiles and ancient books and dusty Impalas and hubcaps and muddy driveways. It features nighttime scenes as well as alienating blue sky. There are yellow fire trucks. There is a full-on exorcism as well as salt piled up on windowsills. There is a violent fight scene. Dean flies through the air twice. There are also a couple of “here is how I feel” and “this is how it’s gonna be” arguments. There are whiskey flasks and rosaries. There is a dog named Rumsfeld. There are firemen running around alongside creepy frozen demons. There is John Winchester drugged and tied spreadeagled to a bed. There are lots and lots of shot-from-below angles, almost every character gets one in the process of the episode. Look for them. There are many beautiful oozing wounds, wounds that proliferate over the course of the episode. Fire escapes. Stone cabin. Roaring fireplace. Ethical and moral issues surrounding interrogation. It features more spectacular closeups than any episode thus far. Dean has three, count ’em, THREE full-on Dirty Harry moments. Black smoke gushes from people’s mouths. We are introduced to Bobby. Meg exits. John re-enters. There is a massive realistic collision between the Impala and an 18-wheeler. I could go on. It feels like “Devil’s Trap” has GOT to be longer than 41 minutes. The entire THING is a “devil’s trap.”<\/p>\n Too much? <\/p>\n Hell yes. They’ve earned it. <\/p>\n 1st scene<\/big> \n \nThe emotionalism of that closeup is so intense that its momentum will carry us through this episode, over the hiatus, and barrel us through the first couple of episodes of Season 2. It NEEDS to be there, and Manners knew it. They had been picked up for another season. “Devil’s Trap” needed to land, and it needed to land HARD. There’s a reason why they “gave it” to Manners. Also, why they gave Episode 1 of Season 2 to him too. <\/p>\n The scene that follows Dean’s hanging up is chaotic, charged. Sam doesn’t take his eyes off his brother. Even with his intensity, even with his suicidal desire to run into the burning house, it is still Dean he looks to, even if he just wants to fight against Dean’s suggestion, he needs Dean to “show up” that way. Dean, though, is panicking. Sam is more focused, what is happening, what’s the plan, Dean<\/em>. Dean’s fight-or-flight has kicked in. It is time to flee. <\/p>\n \n And only Dean could make fleeing seem brave as hell. There’s a moment when Sam says, “We still have three bullets left – let the demon come,” and Dean flips: “Listen, Tough Guy, we’re not ready!” The argument is messy and loud and urgent, and there’s a slight (almost imperceptible) push-in to Sam’s face as he listens to Dean’s words. It’s a great moment of contrast. <\/p>\n \n \nThe Impala peels around a corner, and Kudos Mr. Dean Winchester Stunt Driver. The urgent messy panic continues in the Impala, all of it coming from Dean’s side. Sam acts as a counter-balance, throwing out ideas, things Dean doesn’t want to hear. <\/p>\n It’s a close-up to close-up scene, as most of the Impala scenes are, and they are a “thing of beauty” and “a joy forever,”<\/a> especially when it’s Kim Manners at the helm. Everyone is gorgeous<\/i>, the darkness is around them, and there’s so much emotional possibility and American poetry in how the light hits the planes of their faces.<\/p>\n And look out, because the Importance of Beauty (more here<\/a>) is going to be even more of a factor in Season 2 where it reaches a baroque almost decadent stage. <\/p>\n \n \nTo save time, these Impala scenes are often filmed with two cameras running simultaneously, one on Dean and one on Sam. Then, of course, you can piece together different takes in the editing room, but the technique is one of the reasons why scenes between these two guys are filled with interesting behavior and pauses and flickers of thought, because we’re watching an actual scene play out in real time. It helps things not be “one note” or literal. <\/p>\n Watch the behavior in each guy as the other one is speaking. Manners cuts back and forth, so we get a lot of listening reaction shots. A flicker of “that’s stupid” in Dean’s eyes, or a flash of “what the HELL” in Sam’s eyes, as the two of them pursue their separate objectives. It’s a real FIGHT going on, a real disagreement. The energy of their conversation is reflected in the sense that the car is going 90 miles an hour, and honestly it’s amazing because basically the Impala is being jostled around by a bunch of crew guys. <\/p>\n \n \nAs the argument continues, Dean at one point says, “SCREW the job” and Sam shoots back, “Dean, I’m just trying to do what he would want.” Aaaaand cue the opening Arc of Season 2, the argument that carries us forward through those first episodes, and all of its attendant drama and buried hurts and losses. Dean couldn’t care less about the demon, and his weariness, his over-it-ness destabilizes the entire hunter lifestyle, and the Winchester “dance-step”. It is a conflict that is still going on for him. Dean is burnt out<\/i>. <\/p>\n There is also an issue here of listening. How do we listen to one another? What we hear depends on our context. It can lead to misunderstanding, to conflict. <\/p>\n “Quit talking about him like he’s dead already,” Dean barks, but it comes out like he’s pleading, and indeed he is. <\/p>\n Dean, as often happens, is somehow stronger emotionally. I don’t mean strong as opposed to weak, I mean in terms of connectedness<\/i> and force. Even when he’s behaving irrationally, he’s so compelling that he’s hard to resist. This will be a constant theme, and points out Sam’s distance from that kind of drama, his fascinating distance, something the show has a lot of fun playing with, making it explicit with things like demon-blood-junkie and oops-where’s-my-damn-soul-at? Dean can’t help but be human. He’s flawed. He’s emotional. He’s defensive. These are Achilles heels, and they are strengths. I love these moments when Dean’s sheer sense of connectedness makes Sam back down, or agree, or simmer off. Somehow Jared Padalecki finds so much variety in these moments. He does so without selling the character out, or betraying Sam’s inherent strengths too. It’s just that in certain situations he is no match for Dean. <\/p>\n In the middle of emotional connectedness is also sloppiness, as is often the case. Dean wants to head to Nebraska, to Wabash and Lake (holla Chicago!), and look for Dad. Sam treats that suggestion with the skepticism that it deserves. “Come on, Dean, you think these demons are going to leave a trail?” <\/p>\n Small exchanges like this one – with Dean panicked and shouting – and Sam keeping his cool – and somehow both of them are right, depending on where you stand – are part of why this show works so well, and why they make such an indomitable team. They need each other. Counter-weights. Nobody is the real leader. They need each other. It is really highlighted when their father joins up with them and destabilizes the equilibrium they have found with one another.<\/p>\n What was most interesting for me, the first time through watching, was what Dean says next, “You’re right. We need help.” <\/p>\n Blackout. <\/p>\n Wait, excuse me? (thinks Sheila, watching it for the first time). Don’t you guys exist in your own plane of existence? Isn’t it just you two guys? Wait \u2026 Where the hell are you going? Who the hell is out there that we don’t know about??<\/p>\n Well, of course, there are many many many people out there we don’t know about, and we are about to meet one of them. <\/p>\n 2nd scene<\/big> \n \nI remember my sense of excitement when I saw that shot for the first time. I did not go into the show knowing too much about it. I started watching it early season 9, and had avoided all commentary, for the most part. So what was about to happen was a shock to me. The claustrophobic cloistral atmosphere of the Winchester men was about to be shaken, opened up a little bit. Seen story-wise, it was time. John Winchester is about to exit the narrative, and someone needed to “take his place.” We can only really get the full-frontal of Sam and Dean when seen in conjunction with these other regular figures: it is through the contrast and through the differing relationships that we actually start to understand them. (Mainly because they are not touchy-feely guys and do not talk about their feelings with one another – so it is through their relationships with, oh, Charlie, or Ellen, or Bobby, or Lisa \u2026 that we see those other sides. VERY important. If the show had continued on with just Sam and Dean \u2026 no way would we be looking at a 9-season run.) When we see Sam in a context without Dean, we understand more about him. Same with Dean. We NEED those outsiders to help us with that.<\/p>\n And no establishing shot once we are inside. Manners holds off, only showing us the full room once Meg enters. The first thing we see are two small flasks being picked up, and then suddenly we see Bobby (the magnificent Jim Beaver, who also happens to be a contributor<\/a> at the same venue where I write<\/a> – so you know, AWESOME), holding out one of the flasks to Dean. We’re in medias res<\/i>. Whoever this new figure is, we’re forced to play catch-up and figure it out. The scene is dark (what a shock) and books are literally piled up the walls. The “set” of Bobby’s house will increase in specificity the more it is used, but at this point in the game, nobody had any clue that “Bobby’s house” would take on such import and meaning. Everyone jokes about how the thing was basically tied together with string, since it wasn’t built like, say, the bunker, as a major set that would be used all the time. I think half the reason they burned Bobby’s house down was that everyone was sick of the damn set. But anyway, here, in our first glimpse of it, it appears to be a hovel with books everywhere and the walls, naturally, covered with clippings and drawings, hunter-style The blinds are down. A siege mentality. <\/p>\n \n \nBobby takes a big gulp from his flask, wincing at the bite, and giving Dean a rakish grin. It’s our first good look at him. I’ve written before<\/a> about pilots of what end up being long-running or at least successful series, and our first glimpses of characters in said pilots – and how sometimes an actor eases into the role (if the show isn’t canceled that is), or – as in the case of Melanie Mayron in thirtysomething<\/i>, she intervened almost immediately with how her character Melissa was being written (her comment was awesome: “Guys, the show is called THIRTYsomething, not TWENTYsomething”), the writers heard her concerns, took them seriously, and adjusted what they were doing. So you really have to discount the first couple of episodes featuring Melissa. It’s not the same character.<\/p>\n In terms of Supernatural<\/em>: the show is so well thought out beforehand that you don’t have to do that much adjusting. Dean was obviously written as a “type” in the pilot, and that especially comes out in how he treats Jessica in their first interaction. You could certainly “justify” it if you felt like it, but I see it more as just broad-stroke kind of writing, throwing paint on the walls in primary colors. But almost immediately, with “Wendigo,” other things started to come into play and so there was an extremely steep learning curve with the character, where everyone started to build Dean Winchester to LAST. <\/p>\n Shows that last get it right quick<\/i>. Shows that last course-correct themselves quick<\/i>. Otherwise, you’re dunzo. It’s a brutal business. <\/p>\n \n \nWe know nothing about Bobby, and we learn so much about him throughout – although not until his meeting-death episode do we understand his backstory completely – but here he is, and he is a full person entering the scenario. He is a real guy, and he somehow knows them and their dad, and they know him so well that they have immediately made themselves at home in his hovel, Sam sitting at the desk going through books, and Dean sharing the whiskey flask. It’s a ton of information provided for us, through behavior. We just know: This guy matters to them.<\/i> <\/p>\n \n \nThe first scene is quite long with a lot of different elements: it is the introduction of Bobby, it provides information about demons and devil’s traps, it gives us an important perspective-moment monologue from Bobby, and then Meg re-enters the scene. <\/p>\n When we first see Bobby, the flask he has handed to Dean is filled with “holy water”. We know that dousing a demon with holy water hurts them, we saw it in “Phantom Traveler”<\/a>, and then of course in “Dead Man’s Blood”<\/a>. But the “plan” is, so far, not revealed to us. <\/p>\n Now we get the exposition. A bit of filler. Dean says he wasn’t sure if they should have come: “Last time we saw you, you did threaten to blast Dad full of buckshot, cocked your shotgun and everything.” To normal people, such behavior would be a deal-breaker. A “Marmaduke You Crazy!” moment. But Dean sounds almost humorous and Bobby smiles a bit, saying, “Yeah, well, what can I say, John just has that effect on people.”<\/p>\n I love it. No apology. No “oops, yeah, that was messed up.” Not even “I was wasted, sorry.” It’s totally “he had it coming, I know he’s your daddy, but you know how he is.” We are not in mainstream America. We’re basically camped out on Ruby Ridge. <\/p>\n Dean’s response to that comment is soft, quiet, contemplative. “Yeah, I guess he does.” Bobby is total Inner Circle then, to say something like that and get away with it. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Sam is buried in books in the background. Bobby has clearly given him some homework (it’s almost like: “You go busy yourself over there while your older brother and I have a drink, kiddo\u2026”), and Sam expresses amazement at the book itself. It is the Key of Solomon<\/i>, and if you are interested in going down the rabbit hole with it, go right ahead.<\/a><\/p>\n Instructions written beneath The Grand Pentacle:<\/p>\n It should be written on sheepskin paper or virgin parchment, the which paper should be tinted green. The circle with the 72 divine letters should be red or the letters may be gold. The letters within the pentacle should be the same red, or sky blue everywhere, with the great name of God in gold. It serves to convene all spirits; when shown to them they will bow and obey you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Also, I believe I have expressed my adoration for sigils. There’s a lot about sigils in there too. <\/p>\n So I think I’m all set.<\/p>\n \n \nSam is looking at the Devil’s Trap illustrations and asks, “These protective circles. They really work?”<\/p>\n Well, if you don’t draw them on with easily-smudgable chalk on a wet floor, you dumbasses. <\/p>\n Bobby answers Sam’s question, Yes, they work, blah blah, but instead of the camera being on Bobby speaking, instead we are given a shot of Dean in the background, drowning in shadows, looking off, worried, listening, coiling around himself. <\/p>\n \n \nIt’s a brief shot, but it’s classic Kim Manners, who was so in tune with emotion as connected to visuals that it’s nearly uncanny, and he was basically unable to frame something in an uninteresting or cliched way. A master. Because what Bobby is saying is explanation. It’s academic. It would be too boring to just have our camera on him as he rattles off the wonders of the “Devil’s Trap.” Better instead to turn our focus elsewhere, subtle, deep.<\/p>\n Dean heads back over to the fold with a random line, “Man knows his stuff.” It feels like it’s for us, not Sam, because Sam, of course, already knows that Bobby knows his stuff. So consider how quickly Bobby is sketched in:<\/p>\n — Alcohol – he’s first seen drinking the hard stuff Bobby has grease under his fingernails, and probably marks down the dates of rare book fairs on his calendar. It is one of the many ways that Supernatural<\/i> messes with expectations, as well as the downright regional prejudices that exist in the U.S. I’ve gone into that before, the obnoxious “flyover country” comments from snobs on the two coasts. Well, maybe YOU “fly over” this country, but other people drive, and there’s a hell of a lot of great stuff down there, as well as nice people. You should check it out sometime. Supernatural<\/i> is a rough blue-collar world, a world of junkyards and roadhouses and rinky-dink one-pump gas stations. That America still exists. You just have to get off the Interstate to find it. <\/p>\n Now comes an important prophetic monologue from Bobby, one that will be quoted in re-caps endlessly: “I’ll tell you something, this is some serious crap you boys stepped in. Normal year, I hear of 3 demonic possessions, 4 tops. This year I’ve heard of 27 so far. More and more demons are walking among us. A lot more. I know it’s something big. Storm’s coming. And you boys? Your daddy? You are smack in the middle of it.”<\/p>\n \n If you want to see how Jim Beaver owns<\/i> the role, when he’s only been on screen for 1 minute tops, watch how he does that monologue. <\/p>\n It’s also interesting because in 4 lines, he has given Sam and Dean more perspective and useful information than their father ever has, especially now, when things are getting dangerous and things are getting personal<\/i>. Working with Dad, it’s like he’s put blindfolds on his kids, and ordered them to follow. But obviously that doesn’t work, especially not with grown capable men. Why else did he train them so hard when they were children? Naturally, John has that other subterranean secret all along, his knowledge that Sam is at the center of something, that something is coming for Sam specifically. But watching Sam and Dean soak up Bobby’s words is really evocative of the perspective they’ve been missing. <\/p>\n Bobby freely shares his information with a trusted group of hunters. He is “on call,” always, ready to look something up, pass on what he knows. It is the complete opposite of John Winchester, who huddles his knowledge into himself, parsing it out to his sons. But Bobby is a Public Library in human form.<\/p>\n The sound of the dog barking breaks the tense silence afterwards. Bobby goes to the window saying, “Rumsfeld.” The dog is named Rumsfeld. I love you, Bobby. Rumsfeld is no longer on the hood of the truck, his chain dangles. Poor Rumsfeld. We never see him again.<\/p>\n It is at that moment that Meg kicks Bobby’s front door down. <\/p>\n How much fun did Nicki Aycox have with this role? <\/p>\n She stalks into the main room, where they all stand, trapped. Our first establishing shot, the first time they allow us to really orient ourselves in space and get a good look at where they are.<\/p>\n \n \nDean moves forward with the flask of holy water, but she, with a contemptuous flick of the wrist, flings him across the room. Dean flies through the air and lands in a pile of books in the corner. Demons can move people around with the power of their minds or a simple gesture. But still. They need to kick the front door down. Apparently. <\/p>\n \n \nMeg demands the Colt. Bobby and Sam move, as one, across the room, away from her. She says that after everything she’s heard about the Winchesters, she’s a little bit “underwhelmed” by them, and it’s a line I like because it suggests the importance of the Winchesters in the supernatural realm, that they have been discussed, gossiped about, they are a topic of conversation. In the same way that Sam and Dean discuss the characteristics of the things they hunt, so, too, they have been discussed. It’s creepy. As long as they could pursue these evil things without the sense that the evil things were aware of their particular existence, the world was a little bit comfy. Well, not comfy, but at least it had some balance. The Wendigos <\/a>weren’t gossiping with one other about the Winchesters. But when the demon in “Phantom Traveler”, cackled, “I know what happened to your girlfriend \u2026” the boys got a glimpse of how they are KNOWN, marked. It’s alarming. <\/p>\n This all would have been very good information for John to give his sons. <\/p>\n Meg coos at Sam, “Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?”<\/p>\n In a gorgeous shot, we see a dark figure step into the frame behind her. It is, clearly, Dean, who has recovered from his flight through the air. But the way he is filmed, he looks like the monsters they hunt, faceless, a threatening black form in the background, ominous and menacing. <\/p>\n \n Dean says, revealing the plan that they came up with before the scene even started: “Actually. We were counting on it.” <\/p>\n There’s a tense standoff, and then Dean helpfully flicks his eyes towards the ceiling, a hint for she who is not getting it. Slowly, she looks up, and there is a phenomenal shot of Meg seen from below (one of the most common angles in the whole episode), staring up, way up, at the ceiling (who knew it was so high?), painted with an enormous “devil’s trap”. <\/p>\n \n \nI love devil’s traps. I love the idea of them. I love how they are used in all kinds of sneaky ways. I love how hunters put them everywhere, underneath rugs, in the trunks of their cars, on walls, on ceilings, everywhere. The possibility of the devil’s trap is, of course, writ large, very large, in Season 2, as they realized that Samuel Colt had created a devil’s trap spanning 100 miles. It is also satisfying to watch demons look frustrated when they realize they are trapped. They look put out<\/i>. Meg has seemed so un-containable up until now. She survived a fall from a 7-story window. What could stop her? A little painting on the ceiling, that’s what. <\/p>\n And I get to get my rocks off in the final moment of the scene when Dean sneers, with the seething hatred of Dirty Harry (although the real Dirty Harry moments are coming later), “Gotcha.” <\/p>\n Talk to me, big boy.<\/p>\n 3rd scene<\/big> We haven’t seen Dean and Sam in interrogation mode. Dean referenced the possibility in “Shadow”<\/a>. Interrogations will become almost rote as the series moves on, and they are always frightening, ugly \u2026 especially when you sense that Dean and Sam are getting used to them. Interrogation is useful but Supernatural <\/em>also asks questions about what it does to the interrogator, and makes that explicit with Dean’s stint in hell, and his subsequent interrogation of Alistair in one of the most memorable and painful sequences in the history of the show. Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty<\/i> didn’t “ask” those questions as much as presented the situation in an atmosphere where questioning was not part of the process. That’s why people had such a problem with the film, but I have a problem with people who had a problem. (I think the film is a masterpiece.) Those who wanted the film to make a “statement on torture” don’t know how to evaluate what they are actually seeing. I guess we just have a different definition of art. I like my definition better and I will continue to fight for it. There are those who want art to be moral (“moral” meaning Agree With My Politics, you realize), to provide a clear and easily understood lesson for the Dimwits in the audience, to have an arrow pointing downwards on “bad behavior” saying “This is bad.” (I covered my thoughts on this in my piece on Wolf of Wall Street<\/i>, another film which sent the shriekers shrieking – and I used a Season 9 moment in Supernatural<\/i> as a backup example, if you’re interested. Here it is.<\/a> I was not a fan of that Castiel plot-line, in general, but the reaction from some fans illustrated my point perfectly.) Sam and Dean are constantly presented in a way that pushes buttons, that undercut their heroic status, that makes us question them and the world they live in. Supernatural<\/i> shows them going too far. Supernatural<\/i> shows them having to deal with that, struggle with that, combat what the job does to them on the inside<\/i>. It’s what Supernatural<\/i> is all about. <\/p>\n But as of now, the finale of Season 1, interrogation is a brand-new thing for us in the audience. And Meg is a tiny woman. Dean and Sam are huge. She can whip them across a room, so I’m not feeling too bad for her, but the fact remains that her “vessel” is a teensy slip of a woman, and so there are all kinds of associations with that, men looming their power over women, men abusing women, men using their strength in irresponsible ways. The implications are unavoidable. And I am glad, GLAD, that Supernatural<\/i> did not shy away from that. Sometimes they don’t get it right, sometimes the envelope is pushed too far, an inevitability with a series that makes it a point to push the envelope. But for the most part, they find that balance, a queasy murky middle-ground, where the characters can feel the pull of black-and-white thinking, the beauty of it, the attraction of it, it’s seduction and inevitability, and yet they know that their humanity lies in the grey, the murky grey. That’s where Supernatural<\/i> LIVES. <\/p>\n Meg and Dean are cut from the same cloth, because she smiles up at him breathlessly, “If you wanted to tie me up, all you had to do was ask.” It’s certainly something Dean would say if the positions were reversed. <\/p>\n Bobby returns to the fold, having salted all the doors and windows. Dean has a moment, a small getting-ready moment. It’s show-time. <\/p>\n He’s the Bud White<\/a> of the group. The brawn. The scary one. The one who is able to turn off his brain (the brain that says, “She is a small woman”, the brain that says “I don’t hit girls”). She is a demon but she is in human form and this conflict would mess with anyone’s brain. You are going to have feelings<\/i> about hurting a human-formed-thing in a way that you wouldn’t with some disembodied spirit or drooling monster. That small glance up at Bobby is Dean moving into that zone, you can see it happen.<\/p>\n As he approaches Meg, he looks almost gentle. It’s going to be a long day. <\/p>\n “Where’s our father, Meg?” Well. No more Mr. Nice Guy. <\/p>\n \n You can’t get any closer than this. Kim Manners, again, setting the style, a clear signal to other directors: “Film these guys this way. Don’t be afraid to get this close.”<\/p>\n Meg says, with pleasure, “He died screaming. I killed him myself.”<\/p>\n And Dean backhands her across the face. Remember: Dean is the HERO of the show. I love Supernatural.<\/i><\/p>\n In any other context, it would be unforgivable. And even here, it’s shocking. It SHOULD be. We should be hovering around in that grey area, that muddy area, with these guys. Because that’s where THEY will be going too. It is very important that Supernatural<\/i> does not protect<\/i> its main characters. Let the fans feel protective. The show itself should not. Put these guys out there, put them in the muck, have them fuck up BIG time, or just present their reality, put them smack-dab in the middle of the chaos, let us wonder how they will get out, how they will survive, let us question how we feel about them. GOOD. Otherwise, the whole show is just a Tiger Beat<\/i> photo shoot and I sure as hell wouldn’t be watching. <\/p>\n Even better, is Meg’s sick response: “That’s kind of a turn-on. You hitting a girl.”<\/p>\n Doh. Stop implicating me, Supernatural<\/i>. <\/p>\n \n \nDean definitely has some feelings about what he has just done. It’s all over his face in the two gigantic closeups that follow. He doesn’t recoil completely, he’s too much of a Bud White for that, but it does shake him. He says, almost trying to remind himself, “You’re no girl.” And this is when Bobby intervenes, calling Dean into the other room: “Dean, you have to be careful. Don’t hurt her.”<\/p>\n Dean and Sam hunch in towards Bobby in the dark of the room, and you can sense their hunger for information, for something that will help, provide illumination. These guys have been fighting blind, you really get that once Bobby comes into the picture. Bobby says, “Because she really is a girl. She’s possessed. That’s a human possessed by a demon. Can’t you tell?” <\/p>\n \n \nOf course Jim Beaver would not know Bobby’s full backstory at the time of filming “Devil’s Trap”. No one did. We don’t learn for a while that Bobby got into hunting because his wife was possessed by a demon and he was forced to kill her. But once that story-line came around, the writers did a wonderful job of calling back to this very conversation between Dean and Bobby. And it works, even though Jim Beaver isn’t expressly playing it. When you watch this moment, you can project your own knowledge onto him, and you can see it there in his face anyway. Good acting can work like that. <\/p>\n But of course Dean can’t tell it’s a girl possessed by a demon, and the knowledge devastates him. “You mean to tell me there’s an innocent girl trapped somewhere in there?” <\/p>\n \n \nWe see Meg, sneering back at them, straining a little bit against the ties that bind, and suddenly we see the pathos. We see her humanity. We get the tragedy. Dean’s job is “saving people, hunting things.” But look at how those two things are not separated, are conflated. In this case, “hunting things” cannot exist at the same time that you “save people”. These are moral and ethical issues that will take on great significance in the landscape of Supernatural<\/i>, especially when it is the two of THEM who need to be “saved”. Bobby was right. A storm’s coming. <\/p>\n \n Back to Dean hitting a woman: In “Dead Man’s Blood,”<\/a> one of the vampires is about to backhand the female victim, and he is stopped by Kate: “Wait for Luther.” We can imagine all of the things that will be done to that girl, but we are spared the sight, the taboo sight, of a “man” (vampire or no) hitting a woman. Here, two episodes later, we are not spared it. It’s a violent show and egalitarian in its violence. But Supernatural <\/em>could very easily have had Bobby stop Dean just as Dean raised his hand, but they didn’t<\/i>. It’s a brave choice, one I applaud. Dean works when he’s on shaky ground.<\/p>\n \n \nThere are a lot of Exorcist<\/i> references in “Devil’s Trap,” for obvious reasons, one of them being the sense of compassion and empathy we feel towards the young girl (Linda Blair, who shows up in Season 2!) writhing around in that bed. As frightening as her behavior is, one of the reasons it IS so frightening is that you never forget that that’s an “innocent girl” we’re seeing. It’s so completely devastating to our ideas about identity and cohesion and personality and who we are<\/i>, and Supernatural<\/i> has always had a lot of fun examining that. We’ve seen it already: Dean as Shape-Shifter<\/a>. Sam in “Asylum.”<\/a> There will be more to come, much more. <\/p>\n The Exorcist<\/i> ruined my childhood. I’m Catholic. You can imagine the horror. I had no business seeing that movie at age 11, 12. I saw it the same year I read Flowers in the Attic<\/i>. No wonder I had a breakdown.<\/p>\n Speaking of exorcism movies, one of my favorite movies of last year (in my Top 10) was Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills<\/i>, from Romania (he’s an awesome director). My review here.<\/a> It’s about a true and recent story that rocked the monastery culture in Romania of an exorcism gone horribly \u2026 horribly \u2026 wrong. It’s an extremely long film. It is brutal. It is incredible. <\/p>\n \n \nThe next moment shows Sam holding open a book, in black silhouette against the window, a la Father Damien in The Exorcist<\/i>. The brothers circle her, switching places. Dean, looking at her, has a mix of expressions on his face. There’s adrenaline there, a volcano he’s trying to handle. It’s different from the “where’s our dad, bitch” look. He is now looking past her human form to the THING that is inside her. That “thing” is what he needs to remember, what he needs to address.<\/p>\n Sam starts reading in Latin, the camera now swooping down to Meg’s face, grinning up at Dean. All in one. It makes the moment feel dizzy, as indeed it is. Meg says to Dean, “An exorcism. Really.” and Dean’s response is clearly sexual for him, almost aggressive sexy encouragement: “Ohh, we’re goin’ for it, baby. Head spinning. Projectile vomiting. The whole nine yards.” To quote Madonna<\/a>, “My bottom hurts just thinkin’ about it.”<\/p>\n Sam continues to intone Latin in the background, and kudos to Padalecki for pulling it off in any way\/shape\/form whatsoever. They have a Latin professor “on call” to help with pronunciation. I can imagine Padalecki flipping through the script and seeing 2 damn pages of straight Latin and breaking into a cold sweat. As Sam reads, Meg starts to wince, almost against her will, something breaking apart and revolting inside her. Exorcisms become so rote that Sam eventually records himself saying one on his iPhone, in order to expedite the process if necessary, but here \u2026 they are stepping into something unknown. And, like us, their conceptions of exorcisms comes from William Friedkin’s 1973 film. <\/p>\n \n \nMeg struggles against the pull of the Latin (and Aycox does it beautifully, there’s a sense that it’s a strong tide gripping her ankles, that the words are working ON her – and it’s sexual, I’ll just say it so you won’t have to. The buildup, the intensifying, her boundaries breaking down, until it’s a tidal wave and she can’t fight it anymore. My Shakespeare professor in grad school used to say, “If you think a line from Shakespeare isn’t bawdy, it’s because you haven’t worked it out yet.” Same is true for Supernatural<\/i>. It’s All Sex All the Time.) She throws out taunts to Dean and Sam about how she will kill them, and Dean, whose excess energy could light up the city of Buffalo, glances at Sam to keep reading. <\/p>\n There is a gorgeous silhouette of both brothers, looking down at her. They’re both mostly in darkness, with a light going down the edges of their profiles. <\/p>\n \n \nMeg hates what is happening to her (or, the demon inside hates what’s happening to it), and it resists. She hisses, cutting off the ends of words, clipping the consonants, it’s hard for her to even speak, that their dad “begged for his life with tears in his eyes,” an image that is manipulative to the extreme, and yet Sam and Dean are both thrown off by it. <\/p>\n Dean’s ferocity is impossible to describe, especially since it is so coiled and tight, and it makes him seem completely terrifying. Like, Mark of Cain terrifying. You could see a foreshadowing here in this moment and in what he says to her, if you felt like it. <\/p>\n \n “For your sake, I hope you’re lying. Because if it’s true, I swear to God, I will march into Hell myself and I will slaughter each and every one of you evil sonsofbitches, so help me God.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nicki Aycox is a pretty woman, and here, you can practically see the leering mask yawning open from within. There’s evil there. As Sam keeps reading, with Bobby dimly visible in the other room, keeping watch at the window since poor Rumsfeld probably went where all good dogs go, a wind picks up, flipping the pages of the Key of Solomon in the foreground. Meg hunkers down, quivering, gasping. Dean continues the interrogation and it’s urgent now. Where is our father, bitch.<\/em> <\/p>\n When she says, again, that he is dead, Dean shouts, and there are tears, and rage, and denial, the whole nine yards in his desperate face, “NO HE’S NOT. HE CAN’T BE.” Actually, Dean, he’s a human being, so yes, he actually can be dead. But that’s the thing. That’s the beauty of the moment. Supernatural<\/i> doesn’t forget that element, the Winchester-psychodrama element, and Ackles shows us why he is the actor he is. Because the moment is childlike, raging, fearful, and, most importantly, revealing<\/em>. The last thing you want to do is reveal yourself to a demon, but Dean is thrown off at the prospect of his father dying. Dean’s reaction even gets Sam’s attention, and Dean sort of snaps back to himself, realizing what he let out, what he revealed, and looks up at Sam, breathing, “What are you looking at. Keep reading.” <\/p>\n \n \nA lesser actor would have shouted that line. It could be effective done that way. It would certainly make sense. But, as Eric Kripke observed, Ackles approaches every moment from a place of vulnerability, which is why even his physical fight scenes vibrate with a sense of the fragility of his human life. Ackles is not afraid of vulnerability. Many actors are (ironically), and protect themselves for all kinds of reasons – and also, many actors flat out cannot do what Ackles does so easily, so they stay away from it. Nothing worse than an actor straining<\/i> to get the effects that Ackles gets with seeming effortlessness. But it’s the broken little-boy look on Ackles’ face when he says, “What are you looking at. Keep reading” that makes him the actor that he is.<\/p>\n As Meg starts to break down, she keeps glancing up at Dean, and it’s fascinating because you can almost sense the real Meg, the “innocent girl,” looking up at this scary man with the thick neck, hoping, hoping he remembers that she is in there<\/i>. It’s all there. Dean has straightened up, and watch him glance off in the air to himself, a quick “Jesus Christ, this is intense” moment to himself. It’s so RICH. Again, imagine another actor who would have only played the hatred. Because that’s what the lines suggest. Anyone can shout and scream. But the quick “My God, this is upsetting” glance to himself, in the midst of a ranting-screaming scene, is why he is so riveting as an actor, and why we honestly don’t know what Dean will do next. <\/p>\n Meg has held on as long as she could, and she starts screaming, and her chair starts whipping around the floor, with her in it, flopping around like a rag doll. Good old Sam keeps reading (I mean, he shouted an exorcism as a plane was crashing so guy has ice-water – plus demon-blood – in his veins). She screams something and Dean cries, “Wait -WHAT?” and she says, “He’s not dead. But he will be after what we do to him.”<\/p>\n If the demon flies the coop, then what the hell will happen to the information they need? They need her to TALK. So it’s a moment of complete horrible dovetail, where “saving people” and “hunting things” become completely synonymous, a foreshadowing of the confrontation with the demon at the end of the episode. Search for Dad? Search for demon? How about finding them in the same “meat suit” (ugly phrase)? It’s really beautifully designed, because it introduces the “murky” areas immediately. Social, ethical, moral, emotional issues will always come into play, and if you think they won’t, or if you act like they don’t, then you’re just Gordon. <\/p>\n \n \nI’m sorry but that screengrab cracks me up.<\/p>\n Meg\/Demon, now fighting for its life, tells Dean that their dad is being held in “a building in Jefferson City”, but the “demon they’re looking for,” she doesn’t know where he is, she swears. The demon inside is disintegrating, we now sense the girl underneath, the frightened hurt girl. Dean says to Sam, “Finish it,” and the demon freaks: “You son of a bitch, you promised,” and Dean roars in close, “I LIED.” <\/p>\n Sam seems shaken. He has stopped reading. Dean wants Sam to “finish it,” and Sam disagrees. They could still use her. But now all Dean can see, and it was in that little “Jesus Christ” glance to himself, is that there is an “innocent girl” in there and they have GOT to get the demon OUT of her. Even in the midst of his own fear, his own dread, his worry about his dad, that news has shaken him, and it reminds him of who he is, what his job is REALLY about. It’s a great mix-up with the other argument that courses through “Devil’s Trap” and that is: is the demon worth dying for? Or is family more important? <\/p>\n \n \nBobby intervenes again. “You said she fell from a building. That girl’s body is broken.” Our next shot of Meg, sitting in the chair, hunched over, panting for breath \u2026 what Bobby has described, a girl with a “broken body” is all we see<\/i>. The “broken doll pose”, according to America’s Next Top Model<\/i>. I just Googled “broken doll pose” and found an entire Tumblr devoted to it<\/a>. <\/p>\n Bobby is a Perspective-Giver again: he changes how we see things. “The only thing keeping her alive is that demon inside her.” Which \u2026 sexy. Gross. <\/p>\n \n \nIn their separate ways, both Dean and Bobby are fighting for that girl. Dean wants that demon OUT of her, and if it kills her, then they are “putting her out of her misery,” one of those complicated thoughts that must come up all the time on battlefields. Dean wants her clean, un-possessed, he takes it personally. There’s the unspoken fear\/dread of penetration that Supernatural<\/i> trucks in, Dean being unable to look at Meg and not totally identify\/empathize\/dread what has happened to her, and fearful that it could happen to him, although it is also interesting to consider that this “demon possession” thing is new for him, so all of it is hitting him unawares. Hence, the intensity of his reactions. Think of the monsters they’ve hunted so far. A Wendigo. A couple of vengeful spirits. Some urban legends come to life. A Native American woo-woo curse<\/a> gone awry. A Norse fertility god<\/a>. A bound-reaper<\/a>. A racist truck<\/a>. A haunted painting<\/a>. A family<\/a>. A couple of leaping shadows from Persia<\/a>. Vampires. And Emperor Palpatine<\/a>. Many of these are distinct entities, easily separated from oneself. There is “Them” and “Us.” You’re not gonna be possessed by a vengeful spirit. A vengeful spirit may kill you but it won’t enter you<\/i>. As I’ve said, we’ve already seen the destabilizing of identity in both “Skin,”<\/a> and “Asylum,”<\/a> the possibility of being inhabited<\/i> by something else, and you will still look like you, but you will not be you anymore. There’s a reason the “evil twin” trope has been around for centuries, it taps into a very common human fear. (Oh, and see The Double<\/i>, starring Jesse Eisenberg, a really wonderful adaptation of Dostoevsky’s freaky story about a doppelg\u00e4nger. It’s really good.) <\/p>\n Dean’s boundaries are already in a state of permanent compromise. He can’t help it. He also knows this about himself, on some wordless level, and he can use it for the greater good, as we saw in the queasy vampire hookup scene in “Dead Man’s Blood,” or in all the weird scenes where he flirts with everyone he comes across in order to get what he wants, or for his own pleasure when he’s off-duty and he doesn’t have to police his boundaries and all he wants to do is just get naked with a friendly woman as quickly as possible. His natural milieu is nudity and sex and probably cuddling too. I have no doubt he is a cuddle HOUND. Dean is an odalisque, basically. (I went into the odalisque thing here<\/a>.) All of this is to say that being possessed by a demon is a game-changer and it’s extremely upsetting to him, outside of the fact that she has knowledge about where their dad is. Dean looks at her and wants that thing OUT of her. <\/p>\n Meg now does look held together with masking tape. Instead of terrible and frightening, she looks tragic, a victim. <\/p>\n \n \nBut Dean is in charge now. Not just because of the force of his emotions, but because of that moral conviction. This is what we are doing, this is what ‘saving people’ looks like in this horrible context. <\/em><\/p>\n When the demon exits her, it does so in a huge column of black smoke, our first glimpse of what will become almost rote on the show (the rote-ness in and of itself is funny. “What’s happening?” “Ah, nothin’. Just some poor sap expelling a whirling column of black smoke.” “Oh. What’s on the telly.”) <\/p>\n Dean, the guy you want to have around in a crisis, takes charge, telling Bobby to call 911, and grab some water and blankets. He and Sam hurry to Meg, and gently, tenderly almost, untie the poor girl’s hands. And here is where Nicki Aycox, whose performance grew on me (I’m not sure what my problem was with her the first time around), breaks my heart. She tries to whisper, “Thank you,” and both boys shush her, realizing the level of damage she has withstood. They pick her up and lay her on the floor. <\/p>\n She is trying to express to them what it has been like for her. “I was awake for some of it \u2026” a truly awful thought and one the show will explore again and again. To be you, but to NOT be you \u2026 to be forced to look on as Not-You does these horrible things \u2026 People talk about dissociative states, of “watching themselves” pull the trigger, feeling like they are in a dream, feeling like it was “not them” doing it \u2026 The sense of helplessness and also of complicity<\/i> is palpable. <\/p>\n \n \nDean is caring towards her, upset for her, but still asks, “Was it telling us the truth about our Dad?” Sam almost reprimands Dean, but Dean says, “We need to know.” And they do.<\/p>\n Bobby hurries in with water, and Dean hastens to hold her head and give her a drink. Her light is going out. She knows it, they know it. Before she passes away, she says “By the river \u2026 Sunrise \u2026” <\/p>\n And now comes the final button of the scene. No lines. No words. Mournful eerie music. And a series of giant slightly moving closeups of each figure in the room, Sam, Bobby, Meg, Dean \u2026 around and around, in succession. It feels like it could keep going that way for 5 more minutes, going from face to face to face, exploring the feelings there, the fear, the loss, the adrenaline. It’s storytelling Kim Manners style. <\/p>\n \n \n Cinema is visual. If you can say it without words, do.<\/p>\n There’s a reason John Wayne would sit down with a new script and cut out 75% of his dialogue. <\/p>\n 4th scene<\/big> \n Dean and Sam are headed off to Jefferson City. Bobby has a corpse in his living room. You know, just another day at the office. <\/p>\n Bobby has already taken on huge scope in our minds, his presence is a welcome corrective to the black-hole authority figure of John Winchester. It is a strange relief to be in the presence of an older man who treats them like, you know, men. It is a tribute to Jeffrey Dean Morgan that that dynamic is so clear, so present. Bobby gives Sam the Key of Solomon<\/i>, a nice Men of Letters passing-the-torch moment, and then says, in almost a snarl, “When your find your Dad, bring him around. I won’t even try to shoot him this time.” Bobby gets to joke about John Winchester’s nastiness in a way that nobody else would, and it’s almost a relief, because it admits what Dean, in particular, can’t admit, that John is difficult, that he has feelings about John that are NOT just idolization and adoration. <\/p>\n The scene ends on a closeup of Bobby’s face, already a clue that he will be coming back, that this ain’t no cameo. <\/p>\n 5th scene<\/big> Look at Nerd-Ball Sam. I adore him. <\/p>\n \n Dean is quiet and grim. Sam knows his brother. He says, “He’s gonna be fine, Dean.” <\/p>\n No response. But a gorgeous shot of both guys. Filming in broad daylight? Challenging. Season 2 has some broad daylight scenes where I basically swoon into a heap at the beauty of them. <\/p>\n \n \nSam, looking through the book, walks to the open trunk of the Impala, wipes off the accumulated dust, and starts to draw a devil’s trap on the trunk. Like, directly onto the car. Poor Dean. “What are you drawin’ on my car \u2026” <\/p>\n It is, perhaps, the worst thing that has happened to Dean all day, which is saying something considering the day he’s had. His car defaced. By his brother. Sam is calm and firm and extremely strong: they can hide the Colt in the trunk while they go look for Dad and a demon can’t get to it. Dean assumed they were bringing the Colt with them. If you have a MacGuffin like the Colt, then obvi you have to bring it with you. The same moment, almost exactly, occurs in Season 9 with the First Blade. <\/p>\n Sam tries to speak patiently, because Dean is ratcheting up. Sam must resist, and Dean is hard to resist when he gets like that: “Do you know how pissed off Dad would be if we wasted a bullet?” <\/p>\n “I don’t CARE what Dad wants,” retorts Dean, a moment of undercutting surprise along the lines of “I hope we NEVER find the demon.” <\/p>\n \n \nThe argument here is about the Colt, but it’s really about their relationship to their father, something they have been fighting about since the pilot<\/a>, something they will continue to fight about. Dean pulls out the big mean guns: “And since when do you care what Dad wants?” <\/p>\n Because “Devil’s Trap” is the season finale, we must loop back to the argument they had in the pilot. Demon or no demon, the moment under the bridge is a family moment, a brothers moment, a childhood moment. Dean’s resentment comes out, something we saw really clearly in “Skin,” and Sam’s resentment comes out at being “pulled back in”, and he blames Dean for that. They look at each other and see the worst parts of their own lives. YOU’RE the reason I’m drawing a damn devil’s trap in white on your car, which is really DAD’S car, you little copycat. <\/em>Think about Sam in the pilot. Think about him now. It’s a startling transformation, more so than even Dean’s.<\/p>\n Sam does not hold back from saying the hard things, the true things, which is why he can be so brutal in an argument. Dean recoils from Sam, and laughs to himself, a clear sign that Sam’s comments have hit home, but all he can say is, “Boy, you and Dad are more alike than I thought.”<\/p>\n Consider the implications. It is an observation, but it is also an insult, in a way. However, it is also coming from the man who has defended his father staunchly throughout the first season. It’s glorious. Kripke knows what the hell he’s doing. Dean goes on, coming from a place of total personalization, zero distance: “You and Dad both can’t wait to sacrifice yourself for this thing. But I’m<\/em> gonna be the one to bury you.”<\/p>\n The Colt continues to work its MacGuffin Magic through the plot: Sam and Dean are arguing about the Colt, but of course they aren’t at all. The Colt is the excuse for all the other stuff. Sam says the Colt is their only leverage, they can’t bring it, put the gun in the Devil’s Trap trunk NOW. Bratty, Dean throws it down, “Fine.” <\/p>\n By this point, I don’t trust Dean at all, and as Sam moves away, we get this huge honkin’ James-Dean-in-Giant<\/i>-against-the-oil-wells profile of Dean. No way will he leave the Colt behind. No WAY. <\/p>\n \n \n 6th scene<\/big> The fight at the car is over. Dean and Sam are in the same frame (as they often are), with Dean looking at the apartment, Sam blurry in the background, and then Sam coming into focus as Dean looks back at him. Kim Manners was beautiful in how he handled these guys, prioritizing not only them as individuals in those aching awesome closeups, but them as a team: the behavior<\/i> of the two men, happening at the same time<\/i>, in the same shot. While obviously there is a structure here, and both actors are on point, behavior should be relatively loose, in-the-moment and spontaneous. Both these guys are world-class listeners and reactors. (There’s a great quote from John Wayne: He said he didn’t consider himself an “actor,” he considered himself a “RE-actor”, and those are words any young actor should take to heart.) <\/p>\n They stare at the building together. Thinking on their feet. <\/p>\n \n Plus, freckles. And hair. <\/p>\n It’s a win-win for all of us. <\/p>\n 7th scene<\/big> \n Once Sam pulls the fire alarm, we are suddenly in Creepy-Room, with Creepy-Angle, with a man and a woman sitting totally still at a table, listening to the alarm. It’s delightfully weird.<\/p>\n \n \nIn this particular episode, demons “present” as:<\/p>\n \n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nPicking up where we left off<\/a>, with a classic Kim Manners closeup of Ackles’ panicked eyeball. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nWe get a lingering exterior of Bobby’s house, covered in hubcaps. On the battered pickup truck in the drive lies an extremely chill chained-up dog. As the camera pulls away past the truck, we get the stretch of muddy drive for a bit and then, silently, it rests on the Impala.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n— Threatened John with a shotgun
\n— Smart as hell, bookish<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nWatch the complicated swoopy camera move that opens the scene. It starts on the devil’s trap on the ceiling, moves down so we see Meg’s hands tied to a chair, with Dean and Sam standing off to the side, staring at her like thugs, and then the camera does a total 180 back to Meg. It probably took 4 hours to get that shot right. It lasts 1 second. <\/p>\n
\n“You didn’t ask very nicely.”
\n“Where’s our father, bitch?”
\n“Jeez, you kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, I forgot. You don’t.”<\/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<\/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
\nA beautifully lit scene between the three men, blue-black, shadows, slats of light coming in through the blinds. I mean, look at this. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAlong the way, in a gorgeous scene, color-corrected so that the blue sky isn’t bright blue but more of a cold icy flat-ness, and the shadows seem stark and black, Dean and Sam hang out by the Impala, getting ready. A wooden bridge towers in the background, an electrical plant. Sam has the Key of Solomon laid out on the roof of the car, and Dean has the trunk open, going through all of his guns. Books AND guns? In the same scene? Bestill my heart. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nDean and Sam walk along the river in Jefferson City, looking for \u2026 a sunrise? In broad daylight? Dean catches sight of an apartment building, SUNRISE APARTMENTS (thank goodness it’s a short damn river), and there are kids playing around outside and a mum with a baby carriage. The demons assume that Sam and Dean will hesitate to shoot a mum with a baby carriage. But also, plenty of fresh meat for vessels. Sam and Dean talk it out. Demons could possess anyone, right? They check in with each other about that. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSam walks through the front door and goes to pull the fire alarm. A “nothing” scene really. Filler. But look at how Manners and Ladouceur manage to make that lobby look entirely strange, not quite right, not quite real, with the wrought-iron and glass doors seeming like a cage, and the unrealistic light-contrast, the shadows too dark, the light too bright. It’s a Hitchcock-type shot. Or a Roman Polanski shot. A well-made and well-shot interior.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n