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<\/a><\/p>\n\nDirected by Charles Beeson
\nWritten by Raelle Tucker<\/i><\/p>\n
I’m going into the hospital this week, and then will have to go in again in the weeks after that. It’s going to be super-fun, but I did want to get this up before that happened. I’ve been working on this re-cap in bits and pieces for about 3 weeks, whenever I had a spare hour or so. My new job is time-consuming (and fun!) and I still have my paid writing to do. But I do want to continue! I’ll have to figure out the best way to move forward, for myself. In any case, here it is. “Roadkill”!<\/p>\n
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\nThe Sixth Sense<\/i>-inspired structure of “Roadkill” allows for all kinds of emotional and philosophical conversations that normally have no place in the Winchester world (at least up until this point). Their job is to hunt and kill ghosts. What happens to the ghosts afterwards is not their business. Such a question enters into spiritual territory that seems anathema (strangely enough) to them. But things are starting to shift. “Houses of the Holy”<\/a> introduced a spiritual element in the most explicit way since “Faith” in Season 1. “Roadkill” is another episode where new ground is broken, and it’s done so gently, mournfully, delicately. It stays focused on the specific. There are only three main characters in the episode (well, four, counting Farmer Greeley.) That makes the action focused and emotion-based. <\/p>\n If you’ve loved someone and had to let them go, it is like a death. You not only mourn the loss, but you mourn your own future, so brightly and clearly imagined. That is Molly’s journey in “Roadkill.” The time will come when Sam and Dean, both, have to go through something similar. Sam is already approaching it. Something is “wrong” with Sam, he knows it, his dad knew it, and it’s working on him, worrying him. He was possessed by Meg for a week in “Born Under a Bad Sign.” He can no longer draw a clear line between the monsters they hunt and himself. He’s also just so …. Sam-ish in his insistence on going about things the right way, the respectful way, the thoughtful way. He wants to be conscious<\/i> of what he is doing as a hunter. <\/p>\n There is a stark difference between how Sam treats Molly and how Dean treats her. Dean never uses her name. He calls her “lady” and, even ruder, “sister”. But Sam gently and respectfully uses her name. She’s still HER. And where she’s at may be where he’s going. He’s thinking a lot about his own life and his own future in “Roadkill.” <\/p>\n Death has been an ongoing theme of Season 2, starting off with John’s death and Dean’s near-death. Dean’s experience with Tessa the Reaper deepened our own understanding, as audience members, of the process of death (in Supernatural<\/i>-Land, anyway), and was destabilizing to Dean’s understanding of his own life, and who he is in the world. That comes up again in the “John’s whisper” sub-plot, which – while it is not mentioned all that often – is really the subtext of the entire season. It’s working ON the characters, as opposed to being forefronted as a plot. The “psychic children” is the biggest “plot” of the season, and it’s a bit of a dud. It doesn’t lead to these in-depth examinations of morality and letting go and grief and what it means to be human. That’s what “Roadkill,” a quiet and very very dark episode, does. <\/p>\n “Roadkill” is evidence of the blessing of having a long season. With a long season, you can take the time to have an episode like “Roadkill,” one that doesn’t necessarily loop into a larger season-wide Arc, and yet is crucial in its own way. Molly is an upset ignorant ghost and she asks tons of questions about what Sam and Dean are doing, and why. This is not normally how things go with ghosts, right? Her questions allow for Sam (not Dean, who couldn’t care less) to consider answering them, to actually think about what he is doing, and why. Ghosts\/spirits clearly feel pain when their bones are salted and burned. Their screams show that. But after that? Do they find peace? Are they okay? Is the pain they go through necessary? What are Sam and Dean actually doing<\/i> to them? Molly forces them (Sam, mostly, although Dean comes around) to consider that.<\/p>\n “Letting go” whichever way you slice it is not an easy process. It sounds easy, right? You’re holding onto something, so you just open up your hands and “let go.” <\/p>\n Yeah, right. <\/p>\n It reminds me of that wonderful exchange from Men in Black<\/i>:<\/p>\n Jay<\/strong>: You know what they say. It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Molly’s story alone (and Tricia Helfer’s performance) would be enough to make “Roadkill” a powerhouse episode, but it’s also the tricky (for lack of a better word) architecture of the script that helps make it what it is. We are not “in on it” from the start. The episode withholds information from us. We do not follow Sam and Dean in “Roadkill,” we follow Molly. Her slow process of realization is ours. It’s a subtle but very important difference, and you can see it in the sheer number of gigantic closeups given to Helfer throughout. Visually, her point of view is prioritized. Like “The Usual Suspects,”<\/a>, “Roadkill” features a point-of-view shift (which I went into in that re-cap: I am sure dissertations have been written about why point-of-view-shifts are a key element of erotica!)<\/p>\n So let’s re-visit the idea: Sam and Dean are our leads. Their world is a claustrophobic Belljar. (I went into the whole “Belljar Effect” in the re-cap for “In My Time of Dying.”<\/a> I am trying to keep up with my own shorthand!) Very rarely do we leave that Belljar, especially not this early in the game, where there isn’t a larger ensemble in the series. Our point-of-view is Sam and Dean’s point of view – there IS no outside eye. So when, in “The Usual Suspects,” we are suddenly forced outside The Belljar, and we get a chance to see what Dean and Sam look like to the outside world … it’s awesome! The same happens in “Roadkill,” although it’s more hidden here because of Tucker’s script. We don’t KNOW we’re outside the Belljar, although we sense something is different early on … we aren’t let in on the secret until the end, when those flashback moments show us how Sam and Dean put together the case. <\/p>\n In terms of point-of-view shift, “Roadkill” has almost more power than “Usual Suspects” because it doesn’t state upfront that that is what it will be doing. We THINK we’re still on the “inside” with Sam and Dean, when all along, Charles Beeson has been thrusting us into Molly’s experience and Molly’s experience alone. And so because of that point of view shift, Sam and Dean seem … different<\/i>. Don’t they? It’s because we are being asked to meet them for the first time, to see them as we would see them if we were Molly. Molly then realizes that she has only been seeing what she wanted to see. The episode places us in the same position.<\/p>\n If Supernatural<\/i> is going to work, and at the depth that they (the creators\/writers\/cast) want it to work, then they need us, the audience, to be willing to go deep. The show is not plot-driven at its core. Ever. (Supernatural<\/i> is weak when it becomes all about its plot.) Supernatural<\/i> is driven by emotions only<\/i>. And so Kripke et al are training<\/i> us, as any audience needs to be trained. A show or a movie needs to announce: “Here is who we are. This is what we will be interested in.” The audience is not the King. The creator is. The audience can choose whether or not to watch, but the best shows know in no uncertain terms who they are, what they care about, and how they are going to proceed. It always surprised me when a certain sub-set of Sopranos<\/i> fans, who seemed to love the show for the violence and the boobs, were outraged by the show’s abrupt ending (or bored by the quieter episodes having to do with therapy.) Methinks these fans could not have seen (or understood) the pilot. That pilot is one of the strongest pilots I have ever seen in my life. It is deeply melancholy, and existential in its awareness of death. The ducks in the pool. From the very first frame, The Sopranos<\/i> announced itself – its mood, its concerns, its tone … and then was consistently misunderstood for its entirety by those who kept wanting it to be Goodfellas<\/i>. (I wrote about that here.<\/a>) Supernatural<\/i>, too, had a very strong and very moody pilot, even with its couple of scenes of clunky exposition (“Dad gave me a gun for my birthday! What kind of childhood is that??” etc.) Within that framework, we got the depth of emotional possibilities that the show has been exploring ever since. It’s all there.<\/p>\n And so it’s great: Sam and Dean enter “Roadkill” from the side. They just appear, suddenly, into HER scene. When we first see them, they look up at her through the rain-speckled windows of the Impala. We are in her shoes, not theirs. But when we get the flashback of that same moment later, we are inside the car with them, looking out the window at her. It’s not until that moment that we realize how much has been withheld from us. <\/p>\n Dean is an extrovert (by necessity) with a sensitive mushy soul. His Burlesque Act is a survival technique. We watch him go in and out of it, we understand where it’s coming from, even when it’s obnoxious. In “The Usual Suspects,” we are placed in the cops’ point-of-view, and Dean strolls into that bureaucratic environment like Steve McQueen, the individualist, the brave wisecracking hero, the cool-as-a-cuke resourceful guy, the smartest guy in the room. If Dean was always presented like that, without the other shadings, we’d have just another shallow action hero, the guy who is never afraid, who strolls away from huge explosions in slo-mo. That has its place but Supernatural<\/i>, very early on, started poking holes in Dean’s Burlesque Act (“Phantom Traveler,” “Dead in the Water”), and so we see where his persona comes from, what it is meant to hide. In “Roadkill,” he is aloof, and extremely short with this panicked woman who needs help. This is our first behavioral clue that Molly is not who she thinks she is. Dean is normally very gentle with victims, even when he bungles the questioning by cracking jokes or getting uncomfortable. He draws a clear line: Humans are to be sympathized with, ghosts are to be killed. <\/p>\n So on my first viewing of “Roadkill,” I felt frustrated with Dean early on. I didn’t understand why he was being so bossy and rude. I mean, I got it: they only had a limited number of hours to put the ghost to rest, so there was no time to sit around chatting. But when Sam pleads, “Don’t sugarcoat it for her …” sarcastically … I felt the same way. <\/p>\n It’s yet another example of just how fluid and flexible the two lead characters are. They’re so flexible that Supernatural<\/i> can pretty much do anything<\/i> to these guys at this point, and the characters can take<\/i> it. That’s as much a credit to Ackles and Padalecki as the writers and Eric Kripke. <\/p>\n Once all is revealed at the end, it is clear why Dean didn’t care to “sugarcoat” things for Molly. Because she’s a ghost, and therefore, not human, and her agony and terror are of the supernatural variety and not his problem. But it’s bold, to have Dean be so frankly unsympathetic for an entire episode. I love it when he comes off as unsympathetic. It’s one of my favorite Deans. <\/p>\n Dean’s behavior is mitigated by Sam’s gentleness, gorgeously performed by Padalecki, one of his stocks-in-trade as an actor. I’ve discussed this before, maybe most at length in the re-cap for “Nightmare.”<\/a> There is nothing more important for an actor to do than listen. All good actors are great listeners: there are no exceptions. During the course of “Roadkill,” which is so dark throughout that often you can’t see the action on screen, he and Molly find themselves in quiet still moments where she asks questions and he answers. Patiently and gently. At first, it seems that he may be withholding information because he knows her husband is dead. Later, of course, we understand. “Roadkill” is one of those episodes that is better the second time through. What we see in these long scenes between Padalecki and Helfer is Sam trying to tell her something, trying to give her something useful that she can use when eventually she has to “let go.” And he has great sympathy for that process. He has great sympathy for her. <\/p>\n In every scene with her, Padalecki is playing multiple levels, which gives his performance great depth and subtlety. You can clock the real truth in his eyes from time to time when he looks at her. He knows that her husband is alive, and has re-married. He knows that she is dead, and does not realize she is dead. He knows she has spent 15 years pining for her husband. And he is sad for her. There is also the growing sympathy he has with “monsters”, since he may very well be one himself. Maybe they need to be helped to see the better way. Maybe they need sympathy rather than hatred. This comes down to the question of Free Will, very important in Supernatural<\/i>, although that doesn’t become explicit until Season 5. But it’s there from the start. <\/p>\n Do we get to choose who we are? Do we have any say over our own fates? Even when we become “ghosts”? Does strength of character and will count? That came into play in a huge way in Season 10 with the Mark. And in Season 2, Sam knows he is vulnerable to something, that something in him may “turn.” He doesn’t know the truth yet, about the demon blood, but his situation is starting to rise in urgency as a problem that needs a solution. Dean is all “I’ll take care of it, I’ll look out for you” but that’s already been a bust. Sam will be alone in this and he knows it. Molly’s panicked ignorance about her own condition is something he recognizes in himself. Maybe his behavior towards her is what he hopes will happen to him when his time comes. <\/p>\n Like “Nightshifter,” like “Asylum,” <\/a>, “Roadkill” takes place almost entirely at night. I just want to point out that Beeson’s first job as director with the series was with the Kubrick-inspired “Playthings.” He had a tremendous amount of fun creating that formal and elegant space, re-creating shots from The Shining<\/i>. The look\/feel could not be more different from “Roadkill.” This is the fun of these jobbing-around television directors who have to be sensitive to material, who have to be flexible with their own style. Look out for Auteur Theory, folks, because it tends to be dismissive of those who can adapt, whose style is adaptable. The Auteur Theory has its place but not when it ignores someone like, oh, Vincente Minnelli, who could do anything, who made everything beautiful, who worked in multiple styles. <\/p>\n In “Roadkill,” you often can barely see the characters, a perfect symbol for Molly’s ignorance of her own condition (and our ignorance as audience members). Serge Ladouceur manages to find so much variety in night-time scenes, using mist and fog, the headlights of the Impala, flashlight beams coming through darkness. It’s not monotonous. The thing about this style that is so beautiful (and it’s similar to the style of The X-Files<\/i>) is that it appears to be natural, while at the same time being cinematic and chosen<\/i>. It feels like it’s as dark and disorienting as it actually would be. <\/p>\n “Roadkill” is organized around the recurring appearance of The Animals’ version of the traditional folk song (with a fascinating backstory of its own<\/a>), “House of the Rising Sun.” (And “Roadkill,” of course, ends with the image of the sun rising.) All I know is I have about 10 different versions in my own music library. Passed down from generation to generation, it was first captured by Alan Lomax, underneath the auspices of the Archive of American Folk Song. (Lomax went traveling around America, seeking out traditional songs, sung by folks in the Appalachians, the Delta, mining communities in Kentucky, and everywhere else. His project was sponsored by the Library of Congress – and we owe Alan Lomax an enormous debt!) Everyone who sang the song said versions of the same thing: “I first heard my grandmother sing this song” “My great-grandfather taught me this song …” giving us a sense of the song’s long history. Everyone recorded it. Dylan recorded it. Woody Guthrie. Roy Acuff. Leadbelly. Dolly Parton. Nina Simone. When The Animals recorded it in 1964, it seemed like an unlikely choice (not to mention a weird song to become a hit). It’s so ominous-sounding, first of all. Also, it’s a folk song, and it sounds like one. But now it’s in the Classic Canon and it still gets almost constant radio play. Go figure. <\/p>\n There’s a great clip of Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler, sitting around playing the song. Here’s the clip.<\/a> They won’t let me embed it. The two guys discuss the lyrics: <\/p>\n Chet Atkins:<\/strong> “I used to sing this when I was 8 years old and I didn’t know what it was about.” [Pause.] “What IS it about?” Whether or not “The House of the Rising Sun” was an actual place (a brothel, a slave-trading outpost, a quarantine house for people with syphilis … the theories proliferate) has never been established. <\/p>\n It’s also interesting to consider that there are many interpretations of the song, and many different sets of lyrics (similar to “Stagger Lee,” another one of those songs passed down through the generations). Supposedly it started out as the story of a woman, meant to be sung by a woman. The Animals changed the voice to a male voice. One version of the song is a brother warning his sibling not to “go there,” to stay away from that house. He’s been there, and it’s been his “ruin.” He hopes his sibling will not follow in the same path. That meaning is lost in the newer versions of the song, but its ghost remains, and I would bet money that Raelle Tucker knew about it. <\/p>\n If the song was meant originally to be a warning from one sibling to another … well, that works out mighty nice, doesn’t it? <\/p>\n Teaser<\/big><\/p>\n \n The reason I love the opening scene is that the couple, Molly and Dan McNamara (Tricia Helfer and Dan Gauthier), are bickering<\/i> in a pointless and petty way. The conversation is not lovey-dovey, it’s not “Oh, I can’t wait to get to the bed and breakfast” or “That dinner was so good, happy anniversary baby” or some other totally cliched dialogue. No. We get to know them in the midst of a petty fight, where he’s being annoying and babyish (insisting he knows where they are) and she’s frustrated and pissed … and THAT’S, ultimately, what one misses when a relationship ends. How comforting it is to have a “Someone” that you can bicker with, a “Someone” who is a safe place like that. <\/p>\n The argument also represents a moment she regrets. These were our last moments together. This was the last thing I said to him. <\/i><\/p>\n The bickering doesn’t have a toxic quality. It has a regular everyday quality, and is one of those things that becomes more poignant once you re-watch the episode. Her husband realizes he’s gotten them lost and then tries to joke and flirt with her, she resists, trying to stay mad, and it all feels extremely real<\/i>. <\/p>\n Then, of course, Farmer McDouchebag appears on the frosty dark road, she slams on the brakes, and the car skids off the road, down a hill and into a tree at the bottom. <\/p>\n Just for shits and giggles: watch the crash sequence only for the editing choices. Where they choose to cut. There’s about three cuts, different perspectives in each shot (from inside the car – looking out through the windshield, the whole car seen plummeting down the hill, etc.) – and those cuts gives it its sense of chaos and movement. It’s not re-ineventing the wheel, editing like that, but it’s an example of a beautifully orchestrated and well-planned sequence. <\/p>\n The next thing we see is a circular overhead shot of the crashed car, which should give us some clue that the event has now changed, gone into the supernatural realm. It’s the God’s-eye point of view. We fly upward into the sky, looking down on the event. All is silent. The windshield has shattered, and Molly is seen inside the car, in gigantic claustrophobic closeup, head against the wheel, eyes opening slowly. The two-shot husband-wife bantering is in the past. Now it’s only Molly. <\/p>\n \n \nI am in love with the almost black-and-white palette of this opening scene (and the whole episode). Until the final scene, there is no color onscreen. She’s wearing black and white. Sam and Dean are in dark colors. Nothing “pops.” It’s such a bold visual choice, and the kind of thing the network balked at (which they would eventually lampoon a couple episodes later in “Hollywood Babylon”.) <\/p>\n \n \nMolly comes across a cabin in the woods, and still seems to think she will find her missing husband. (I am wondering: how many of you out there guessed immediately that she was dead?) Inside, a figure stands there, the Farmer from the road, and she forgets for a moment her quest in her relief that she did not kill him. However, he turns around, and at first he looks normal, and alive, but then morphs into a leering skull. Scream. Black-out. <\/p>\n 1st scene<\/big><\/p>\n We usually join up with Sam and Dean after the title-card but here we do not: we remain with Molly. It’s another clue of the point-of-view of the episode, of Sam and Dean being “outside”. Panicked, she runs through the woods, emerging onto the isolated snowy road. A car barrels down the road, and she runs into the street screaming for it to stop. The driver slams on the brakes, and as the car shrieks forward, we see it is the Impala, we see Dean freaked out at the wheel. <\/p>\n They have snuck themselves into the episode from the side. When she runs over to the window, screaming that she needs help, Sam and Dean stare out at her, through the rain-speckled window, alarmed. <\/p>\n \nSam and Dean get out of the car, and she tells her story. Wet snow is falling around them. As she tells her story, there is portentous eye contact between Sam and Dean, although they don’t say anything. These quick sharp glances, of ESP, non-verbal communication are extremely satisfying behaviorally (the episode is full of it, since the two of them are holding out on us – and on her.) <\/p>\n \n \n \n \nSince they haven’t had time to plan out what to do if they run into a ghost who doesn’t know she is a ghost, they fly by the seat of their pants. They take different tones. Dean is blunt: “Did he look like he lost a fight with a lawnmower?” Sam throws him a look, like, “Really?” Dean shrugs. She’s a ghost, man. <\/p>\n But in my first time viewing, I just thought it was Dean being his normal bumbling self in the face of trauma. Sam steps into the driver’s seat of the event. Dean is in his own driver’s seat, but Sam takes it upon himself to be gentle with Molly, to treat her with concern and care. She wants to get back to her car. Sam wants to take her into town, but she insists she is not leaving until she finds her husband. Another long meaningful glance between Sam and Dean and by this point I was thinking, “What is going on, you two? What are you hiding?” <\/p>\n When they return to the crash spot, the car is gone. Molly stands down in the ravine, disoriented, looking around. Sam and Dean stand up at the edge, with their flashlights, conspiring what to do. They both have a sense of urgency, but they are not in sync as to how to handle it. Sam wants to tell Molly “the truth,” Dean balks. They’re whispering like conspirators. <\/p>\n \n \nMolly’s sense of disorientation is so complete, you could believe it was head trauma from the car crash. Helfer does a wonderful job modulating that, because it changes over the course of the episode, although her confusion continues. The Impala heads down the lonely road, and for a second, it’s shot from behind and slightly above … a strange and slightly frightening angle, like the car is being stalked. Molly sits in the back seat, telling them it was her and her husband’s anniversary. “Hell of an anniversary,” is Dean’s sensitive and kind response. Sam, in the passenger seat, is more open. He asks questions, and leans his head to the side to listen. Beautiful behavior from him. <\/p>\n \n \nShe says, “The only time we ever fought was when we were stuck in the car,” and Sam laughs, saying he knows what that feels like. Prickly-pear Dean shoots him a “Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Willis” look, but the bond between Molly and Sam has somehow left him out. Or he has left himself out. Sam is easy with her, natural, and is interested in hearing from her. Molly senses that. Dean is a watchful serious presence, glancing at her through the rear view mirror. You wonder what it is he sees. Suddenly, the Impala’s radio comes to life on its own: “House of the Rising Sun”. Dean and Sam are startled, and Molly, still with that head-trauma vibe, leans forward, saying that that was the song playing when they crashed. More close-ups of Dean and Sam, reacting. I’m in heaven with “Roadkill” because of the non-verbal behavioral stuff. It’s everywhere. The radio starts to move its own dial to another frequency, and a staticky creepy voice starts speaking: “She’s mine …” <\/p>\n Suddenly a figure appears in the dark road before them. Dean sees it, gets that hard determined look, tells the others, “Hold on” and speeds up. Molly starts screaming, and the Impala charges right through Farmer Greeley, who disintegrates into the dark air. <\/p>\n If they can’t calm Molly down, who is now screaming in the back seat, she is going to be an impediment to whatever they are up to, that’s for sure. Sam looks grim. The engine starts making bumping noises, and Dean has to pull the car over to the side of the road. Dean tries to turn the engine over, it chugs, it won’t start. They’re stuck. Dean says to Sam, quietly, “I don’t think he’s gonna let her leave.” <\/p>\n Here is where the Dean Burlesque starts to really show up, and it shows up in contrast to the Duo of Molly and Sam. Sam, though, has almost the more interesting journey in “Roadkill”. Like Dean, he knows the truth, but instead of brushing off Molly’s trauma\/disorientation as a Confused Ghost and therefore not worth his time (Dean: don’t you remember when you were a helpless ghost? Can you tone it down a notch, please?), Sam decides to help her. She can’t let go. That’s clear. Maybe she needs him. Sam has multiple levels of objective in every scene. Dean has only one. The contrast in behavior, in reaction, between Sam and Dean gives the episode its strange and emotional charge. <\/p>\n Dean starts rummaging around in the trunk, and Molly staggers out of the car, still caught up in the fact that they just ran over a man back there, and what the hell happened, and where is her husband? Dean doesn’t have time for this. Sam doesn’t either. But Sam’s reaction to that time-constraint is very different than Dean’s. Greeley has to be handled, but so does Molly. Molly is not incidental, she is not an impediment, or in their way. She, and what she is going through, is their business<\/i>. That’s what they’re here for. <\/p>\n It’s a very good script. <\/p>\n “This can’t be happening!” says Molly, and Dean, loading up his shotgun, says, “Trust me. It’s happening.” Once she sees that terrifying trunk of weaponry, she starts to back off, terrified of the both of them. She’s about to bolt, when Sam says, desperately, “It wasn’t a coincidence that we found you …” <\/p>\n The alignment of that moment is stunning, one of my favorite shots in the episode. Look at how there are no colors. Look at how the figures are placed in the frame. <\/p>\n \n \nMolly’s confusion, her questioning response, makes Dean take the lead, in his typically sensitive way: “We weren’t just cruising for chicks when we ran into you, sister.” Uh-oh. Dean’s in a mood. But her resistance is going to hold them back. He rips the Band-aid off. “We were out here already. Hunting for ghosts.” Then back he goes to the trunk, leaving Sam frustrated, with one of my favorite line-readings from him in the episode: “Don’t … sugarcoat it … for her …” Oh, the pauses! <\/p>\n Now we finally get a moment of exposition, thanks to Sam, who takes the time to explain to her (partially) what is happening. She resists: What he is saying doesn’t make sense. And why aren’t they looking for her husband? Dean is busy with his guns, and Sam moves towards Molly, slowly, openly, telling her about Jonah Greeley, a farmer who died on this road 15 years before. “One night a year on the anniversary of his death, he haunts this road.” <\/p>\n I love the image of Dean and Sam, months before, marking their calendars. Okay, we gotta be in Nevada on such-and-such a night. How many times did John Winchester attempt to capture Greeley? What trail of evidence was left in the journal? <\/p>\n Molly thinks they’re both crazy. Dean moves into the conversation, with a devil-may-care arrogant attitude, cracking stupid jokes, whacking Sam like, “Ha ha, wasn’t that funny” and it feels extremely out-of-tune with the mournful and confused energy emanating from Molly. Again, this is because the entire episode is from her point-of-view, not theirs. This is how Dean “presents” to her. There’s a lot more going on with him, as always, but Molly wouldn’t know that, and so this is how he seems to her. And Ackles is playing that. He’s “closed” to us, and that’s a strange experience. Dean doesn’t get many close-ups in “Roadkill” – some, but not many. Most of the close-ups are Molly’s, with Sam running a close second. But if you watch this scene, you’ll see how Molly’s point-of-view dominates.<\/p>\n As she listens to Sam, tears start to glimmer in her eyes, and mixed with the rain on her hair, and the raindrops on her face, it’s a beautiful image, one that will be echoed in the final scene. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asks Sam, but it is Dean who answers, “Deadly.” And he himself looks deadly. Glamorous and deadly. <\/p>\n \n \nMolly is devastated and victimized: “I didn’t do anything!” Dean would have barked some rude comment, but this is the Sam Show: “It doesn’t matter. Some spirits see only what they want to see.” And this is one of those moments that looks very different once you know the whole story. In this moment, Sam tries to help her. Not just to understand, but to see herself<\/i>. To understand that she is in a loop of her own confusion, that she cannot see the truth of her situation, because she doesn’t want to see it. His words and soft behavior are tremendously loving, seen in that second context. A moment of pure compassion. <\/p>\n Molly hears all this, and goes right back to her missing husband. Did Greeley take her husband? No answer from Sam and Dean. Dean is not the person to be in charge of Molly’s emotional experience, you can see it in every single shot of the guy. Sam has moved, powerfully, into that vacuum, while still standing strong beside his brother. There is no disagreement between the brothers on having to deal with Greeley: it is Molly that is the wild card. <\/p>\n 2nd scene<\/big><\/p>\n The camera is inside the little woodshed where Molly had seen the leering bloody Greeley. Molly and Dean appear at the door, and Dean’s flashlight beam cuts through the gloom of the interior. There are chains hanging from the ceiling, in the foreground, making for an interesting visual: it’s good when things are placed between us and the thing we want to see. But that chain hanging there gives us the feeling of tight quarters, claustrophobia, and the placement of the camera has that Stalker-y horror-film feeling. <\/p>\n While Dean is busy looking around the shed, Sam appears at the door, saying that there were no gravestones or markers outside. Molly asks questions. Dean takes an opportunity to provide an answer, and it gives him pleasure to discomfort her. Because she’s a ghost who doesn’t know she’s a ghost. But as I’ll keep saying, because it’s interesting: In my first viewing, I kept thinking, “Dean. You’re being obnoxious. Stop it.” I felt as left out as Molly does. Sam steps into the void left by grumpy Dean, explaining that finding Greeley’s corpse will help her – and her husband – (a bone thrown towards her delusion – Sam is being practical, too. They need her. The whole bait conundrum. Sam doesn’t like it, Dean doesn’t like it either, but sometimes they have to do it.) Sam is so certain and competent and professor-ish that she is taken aback. Not only is her husband missing, but there are actual “ghost busters” in this world. <\/p>\n It’s Dean’s turn to take over. And in this mini-monologue, where he becomes an aggrieved bitchy foreman of a lazy construction crew, he calls her “lady”. She has abdicated her right to a name by becoming a ghost. Sam, though, says her name repeatedly, continuing to speak to the person Molly once was, a person who deserves to know what has happened to her. <\/p>\n Once outside, flashlights struggling through the mist and rain, Dean heads off by himself, and Sam and Molly pair up. I mean, if you were Molly, who would YOU choose to follow? The soft-voiced giant who takes the time to explain things? Or the gun-toting wisecracking crankypants? Sam warns Molly to stay close. She immediately disobeys when she hears what she thinks is her husband calling for her. Greeley materializes, grabbing her, and then Dean appears, shotgun cocked, saying, “Whoops” before blowing Greeley away. You see? It’s all Burlesque. That Burlesque works in so many different circumstances: survival, self-entertainment, flirtation, pleasure, handling of stress, dealing with anxiety. Here: we just get the surface of the Burlesque. He’s Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” another example of the action hero who manages to wise-crack his way through the most dire circumstances. Normally we get layers with Dean. Here, not so much. It’s fascinating, and again, a clue that we are not in his story this time, we’re in Molly’s. <\/p>\n Sam reassures her: “You’ll see David again, I promise …” a line that has multiple meanings, and made me wonder, first time viewing: How does he know that? What do they know that we don’t? Meanwhile, Dean has moved on (Molly’s issues being of no interest to him), saying, “Hey. Let’s follow the creepy brick road.” <\/p>\n Dean, again, moves on ahead and Sam and Molly follow. She asks questions. “That thing shoots rock-salt?” He answers, explaining about salt. He is still on high-alert, peering through the trees, assessing the threat-level. Sam has the patience and strength to do both. He’d make a great Dad. Or a counselor. Or a hostage-negotiator. How many ghosts say, “Hey, what’s up with salt?” Or “What are we doing now?” It’s a strange situation, no precedent really in their experience, and Sam – improvising – does what he thinks is right. I am sure John Winchester would have taken Dean’s route in the same situation (although with less joking). This is one of those moments where you can see Sam’s “sui generis” personality, his out-of-nowhere individualism – emerging intact despite the cult-like atmosphere of his childhood. His instincts are sometimes way off, and his uncertainty about the fallibility of his own mind is starting to be in operation for him at this point of Season 2. Maybe he’s NOT to be trusted. Maybe how he sees things IS the problem. But with Molly, in that dark wet forest, he decides to answer her questions, to treat her kindly, and maybe – through that – help her do what he already knows she needs to do. It’s quite moving. If you’ve ever been in a crisis – a real mental crisis – and had a friend or doctor or whoever – treat you kindly, patiently … not talked down to you, not dismissed your delusions\/paranoia\/mental-loony-tunes-thought-patterns … then you know how that kind of listening DOES provide you the space to move on. Or, at the very least, to see where you ACTUALLY are. <\/p>\n I guess I take “Roadkill” personally. For me, it works most powerfully as a metaphor. For being “stuck” in your life. For being unable to move past something. For not even KNOWING you’re stuck (which is the worst.) <\/p>\n The house that emerges from the woods is a creepy ruin, and Dean says, “Just once I’d like to round a corner and see a nice house.” His behavior is cranky and put-upon throughout, leading to some humor (a breath of fresh air in this very dark episode). As we’ve seen, Dean is not a complainer. It’s against his code. But sometimes he slips. For whatever reason, and I think it’s because now they have a ghost tagging along with them, he’s annoyed by the situation. By the cobwebs. By his job. By his life. If it were just him and Sam, his energy would be very different. He’s “showing off” for Molly. Not in a flirtatious way, but in a “Look how hard my life is” way. If you ghosts would stop hanging the hell around, then I wouldn’t have to crawl through dark cobwebby spaces.<\/i> He’s “acting.” <\/p>\n It appears that the only light source onscreen is from their flashlights. That is pure illusion: it takes a lot of very subtle lighting to achieve that palpable darkness, pierced with areas of lesser darkness, so we can perceive movement, faces, background. But the overall effect is one of total naturalism. It’s a dark-as-hell and scary-as-hell night. You honestly can’t see anything onscreen that the flashlight beam doesn’t show you. Go Serge!<\/p>\n In an upstairs room, Molly and Sam come across piles of papers and scrapbooks and documents of an entire life (the props are superb). The music here is eerie, mournful, but like a kid’s mobile-music can be mournful. It’s almost child-like, that music choice. This, to me, is connected to Molly’s almost child-like attitude throughout. She is trying to understand, but she doesn’t have the capacity yet. In her real life, when she was alive, she was a grown woman who could understand things. But nobody can prepare you for … this. <\/p>\n Death is out there, waiting for us all. We do so much to avoid that knowledge, and it is that very avoidance (based on knowledge) that separates us from the animals. Knowledge of and fear of death allows so much to happen: philosophy, art, theatre, love, poetry, everything comes from that tension. Our time here is not forever. There’s something about Molly and Sam looking through old photo albums and newspaper clippings that brings up that sense of the fragility of life, and its meaninglessness once it ends (what we leave behind is just a pile of paper and photos) – but alongside that meaninglessness is a deep profundity. Greeley was a person once. With a wife. And a life. And so was Molly. Getting her to understand that she and Greeley are the same will not be easy, but it’s what needs to happen. <\/p>\n \n \nMolly comes across a love letter the farmer wrote to his wife. It touches her. She doesn’t understand how such a man could turn into that leering monster out there in the woods. Sam turns away. Not dispassionately or dismissively, but thoughtfully. As he starts to explain to her about spirits, just watch his behavior. Watch Padalecki work. It’s hard sometimes to remember that this is work, because it looks easy and effortless. But all along the way, he the actor has made choices (to go back to Stella Adler’s definition of talent: “The talent is in the choice.” Bad actors make bad choices. Good actors make good ones. End of story.) And his small monologue here is explanatory, but it is also a way to prepare her. He is talking to the “wounded animal” in her. Because she will need that information. She will need to prepare. She does not know “who she is,” but Sam knows, and the fact that he knows something she doesn’t (something so essential about who she is) makes him … uncomfortable. He knows he must tread carefully. He doesn’t look at her directly for too long, he keeps turning away. Fascinating. And on an even deeper level, the level he couldn’t even put into words if he wanted to, he’s talking to himself. He himself is trying to understand. Because he senses the darkness approaching for him as well. <\/p>\n That’s a lot of stuff to “play.”<\/p>\n And watch Padalecki play it. <\/p>\n
\nKay<\/strong>: Try it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nMark Knopfler:<\/strong> “It’s one of them titty bars, don’t ya know.”
\nChet Atkins:<\/strong> “I thought it was just a house.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\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