Supernatural, episode by episode
Feb. 7th, 2007 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
heidiI'm coming in late on Supernatural. About a month ago I started watching S2 and have now seen most of S2 thanks to iTunes.
About 10 days ago, I got the dvds of S1 and I've been catching up on the series ever since.
My first catch-up writeup is here or use the Supernatural Catch-up tag.
I didn't watch this in order, because I was about to fly to NY and you just don't watch films about plane crashes *while* you're flying, because of karma and other stuff.
So I watched it *after* watching 5-11, and it was almost like a different season compared to 11 and 12, which I've also now seen.
Is this their first confrontation with an actual demon, in their lives? Has John been shielding them - both of them - from demons because of what he already knows about Sammy, or because they're just Harder To Deal With, or is there another reason? Or is it just Sam who hasn't dealt with a demon before? He seems good enough at exorcizing it but given that he has to look into rituals, it also seems like a first time for that, too.
But from ep 1, they talk about Sam having been on hunts before college, so the Department of Exposition in this ep seems a little clumsier than it could have been. I don't know why, but they seem more innocent than they actually should be.
I love seeing Dean with an actual fear of something - and yes in this specific he has a reason for the fear but of flying in general? Oh, Dean, believe me, I understand! I used to fly so much and got used to it and these days, oh God, do I hate it. But it's not just the idea of planes, I think, for Dean. This is something where he has absolutely no control, and no reason to trust anyone else (other than Sam) on the plane especially those in control of the actual flying. And no way out if something oes wrong. So the process goes against *all* his instincts and training and hence the woobieness of the freakout.
Is it canon anywhere as to whether Dean ever has flown? I think Sam implies that he's been on planes in the last few years but would there ever have been a reason for them to fly anywhere when they were younger?
: sends John and boys to check out weird demons who are actually aliens in cardiff (and are there any fics including that?)
Also, the suits! I'd wondered where they came from when I saw them in later eps, and here's the explanation! Smart sammy! And o so miserable dean! If he had a choice between going into public in a suit or in shorts....
If they ever do end up actually busted by the FBI, guys like the airplane bloke in this episode could be their best hope. Actually, the fact that they've helped so many people and have a documentable trail by and with so many people is one reason I'm in the FBI Guy Is Working For the Demon Or Something Equally Nefarious (Or Possibly Linderman in My Crossover-Verse) - there's no *way* the feds would ever want all of what the brothers know and do to become Public Knowledge. It's too dangerous, and the resolution wouldn't be jail - it would be total d00m.
Meh.
I think this ep is a lot less scary when you watch it on a handheld in the sunshine while waiting for pickup after school.
I love the twist on the urban legend, the posessed thing that moves around, and Dean's totally brilliant method of destruction.
And it's yet another ep where there's an anvil that there is more behind Jessica's death than Sam has told Dean. This is, also, the first time that one of them walks into something specifically to be bait, and I love Dean's protectiveness of Sam in that (almost as much as I love his story to the cops - they're having more luck with the stories they tell in S2, compared to getting blatently caught in eps 4 and 5).
Keeping secrets from each other is a *bad* idea, boys. Stop it.
And Sammy? Adding in the "probably" before "couldntve stopped it" probably didn't help Charlie feel any better, because probably means "small chance she could have". It's like, he's trying but he's just a few degrees off from saying the right thing.
Oh, brilliant! Sammy trying to maintain his Stanford life, the way all the stories he told and all the stories he avoided crash around him, and the shapeshifter's thought-download (yes, downloading like a MANDROID!) and what I think is the first jump-back from the opening in terms of time.
I've seen some meta wondering if, had this happened while Sam was still at Stanford, would he have reached out to his dad and Dean and asked them to help? Would he have gone himself?
I just have to suspend disbelief about the parents not flying back within 2 hours of their son's arrest and the trial happening omgnow, because there lie headaches. Same thing with Dean's total blase-ness about being considered dead - I know they're off the grid in a lot of ways but it's an inherently dangerous situation and we've seen some of the ramifications of it already, but the general "not a good idea"-ness of it should have been predictable. In other words, I love the setup it provides but I don't even get the feeling Dean was masking angst - I think he didn't angst about it at all.
And speaking of angst, oh the whole convo between Sam and the shapeshifter was a gallon-jar of it, with a dollop of "unreliable narrator" because clearly the shapeshifter thinks it's fun to mess with Sam's head just because he can - and possibly because he's irked that Sam figured out so easily that he isn't actually Dean.
I almost skipped this episode.
When I went to Camp Pinewood back in 1982 we all got told the story of the crazy handyman with a hook for a hand who attacked innocent campers and it gave me some sleepless nights when I was 11 and I just....
In a way it matches well with Bugs as two very different takes on parent-shild relationships - and again, two very different family setups from the Winchesters, as well. The thing that struck me most about this one isn't the actual plot, but rather the guilt the girl is going to live with forever because of her knowledge that she really was causing all this horror even if she wasn't doing it consciously and deliberately. If she ever ends up in front of a mirror saying Bloody Mary she is totally, totally doooomed. Is she really clueless enough to not realise that the suggestions were coming from her? I think they try to imply that but...
This feels like the first time they move in almost perfect unison while on a hunt - the blasting of the necklace is a prime example. I remember back in early HP discussion days, there were some who argued that Harry was able to pull Ron and Hermione into his thoughtprocess so they could do things like disarm Snape in the Shack completely in tandem, and along those lines I mildly wondered if Sam is doing that to Dean so they are sharing thoughts unconsciously, but it's probably just training, instinct and working so closely that get them to be able to do that bit with the necklace, or with the anagrams later, etc. In other words, it's plot, not a power. Probably.
More later re Bugs and the Shortest Night Ever and the fundamental disconnect between their memories/thoughts about their childhoods and why Dean thinks that, because of Sam's statement to Matt about the wonderfulness of leaving home, that Sam's first reaction to problems between them will be to leave rather than try to work anything out, and how that leads to the angst of Scarecrow, and why the family issues of Hookman and Bugs set up the woe-ness of Home.
But first, lunch with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sff_corgi while we rewatch Heroes, squeeeeeee.
About 10 days ago, I got the dvds of S1 and I've been catching up on the series ever since.
My first catch-up writeup is here or use the Supernatural Catch-up tag.
I didn't watch this in order, because I was about to fly to NY and you just don't watch films about plane crashes *while* you're flying, because of karma and other stuff.
So I watched it *after* watching 5-11, and it was almost like a different season compared to 11 and 12, which I've also now seen.
Is this their first confrontation with an actual demon, in their lives? Has John been shielding them - both of them - from demons because of what he already knows about Sammy, or because they're just Harder To Deal With, or is there another reason? Or is it just Sam who hasn't dealt with a demon before? He seems good enough at exorcizing it but given that he has to look into rituals, it also seems like a first time for that, too.
But from ep 1, they talk about Sam having been on hunts before college, so the Department of Exposition in this ep seems a little clumsier than it could have been. I don't know why, but they seem more innocent than they actually should be.
I love seeing Dean with an actual fear of something - and yes in this specific he has a reason for the fear but of flying in general? Oh, Dean, believe me, I understand! I used to fly so much and got used to it and these days, oh God, do I hate it. But it's not just the idea of planes, I think, for Dean. This is something where he has absolutely no control, and no reason to trust anyone else (other than Sam) on the plane especially those in control of the actual flying. And no way out if something oes wrong. So the process goes against *all* his instincts and training and hence the woobieness of the freakout.
Is it canon anywhere as to whether Dean ever has flown? I think Sam implies that he's been on planes in the last few years but would there ever have been a reason for them to fly anywhere when they were younger?
: sends John and boys to check out weird demons who are actually aliens in cardiff (and are there any fics including that?)
Also, the suits! I'd wondered where they came from when I saw them in later eps, and here's the explanation! Smart sammy! And o so miserable dean! If he had a choice between going into public in a suit or in shorts....
If they ever do end up actually busted by the FBI, guys like the airplane bloke in this episode could be their best hope. Actually, the fact that they've helped so many people and have a documentable trail by and with so many people is one reason I'm in the FBI Guy Is Working For the Demon Or Something Equally Nefarious (Or Possibly Linderman in My Crossover-Verse) - there's no *way* the feds would ever want all of what the brothers know and do to become Public Knowledge. It's too dangerous, and the resolution wouldn't be jail - it would be total d00m.
Meh.
I think this ep is a lot less scary when you watch it on a handheld in the sunshine while waiting for pickup after school.
I love the twist on the urban legend, the posessed thing that moves around, and Dean's totally brilliant method of destruction.
And it's yet another ep where there's an anvil that there is more behind Jessica's death than Sam has told Dean. This is, also, the first time that one of them walks into something specifically to be bait, and I love Dean's protectiveness of Sam in that (almost as much as I love his story to the cops - they're having more luck with the stories they tell in S2, compared to getting blatently caught in eps 4 and 5).
Keeping secrets from each other is a *bad* idea, boys. Stop it.
And Sammy? Adding in the "probably" before "couldntve stopped it" probably didn't help Charlie feel any better, because probably means "small chance she could have". It's like, he's trying but he's just a few degrees off from saying the right thing.
Oh, brilliant! Sammy trying to maintain his Stanford life, the way all the stories he told and all the stories he avoided crash around him, and the shapeshifter's thought-download (yes, downloading like a MANDROID!) and what I think is the first jump-back from the opening in terms of time.
I've seen some meta wondering if, had this happened while Sam was still at Stanford, would he have reached out to his dad and Dean and asked them to help? Would he have gone himself?
I just have to suspend disbelief about the parents not flying back within 2 hours of their son's arrest and the trial happening omgnow, because there lie headaches. Same thing with Dean's total blase-ness about being considered dead - I know they're off the grid in a lot of ways but it's an inherently dangerous situation and we've seen some of the ramifications of it already, but the general "not a good idea"-ness of it should have been predictable. In other words, I love the setup it provides but I don't even get the feeling Dean was masking angst - I think he didn't angst about it at all.
And speaking of angst, oh the whole convo between Sam and the shapeshifter was a gallon-jar of it, with a dollop of "unreliable narrator" because clearly the shapeshifter thinks it's fun to mess with Sam's head just because he can - and possibly because he's irked that Sam figured out so easily that he isn't actually Dean.
I almost skipped this episode.
When I went to Camp Pinewood back in 1982 we all got told the story of the crazy handyman with a hook for a hand who attacked innocent campers and it gave me some sleepless nights when I was 11 and I just....
In a way it matches well with Bugs as two very different takes on parent-shild relationships - and again, two very different family setups from the Winchesters, as well. The thing that struck me most about this one isn't the actual plot, but rather the guilt the girl is going to live with forever because of her knowledge that she really was causing all this horror even if she wasn't doing it consciously and deliberately. If she ever ends up in front of a mirror saying Bloody Mary she is totally, totally doooomed. Is she really clueless enough to not realise that the suggestions were coming from her? I think they try to imply that but...
This feels like the first time they move in almost perfect unison while on a hunt - the blasting of the necklace is a prime example. I remember back in early HP discussion days, there were some who argued that Harry was able to pull Ron and Hermione into his thoughtprocess so they could do things like disarm Snape in the Shack completely in tandem, and along those lines I mildly wondered if Sam is doing that to Dean so they are sharing thoughts unconsciously, but it's probably just training, instinct and working so closely that get them to be able to do that bit with the necklace, or with the anagrams later, etc. In other words, it's plot, not a power. Probably.
More later re Bugs and the Shortest Night Ever and the fundamental disconnect between their memories/thoughts about their childhoods and why Dean thinks that, because of Sam's statement to Matt about the wonderfulness of leaving home, that Sam's first reaction to problems between them will be to leave rather than try to work anything out, and how that leads to the angst of Scarecrow, and why the family issues of Hookman and Bugs set up the woe-ness of Home.
But first, lunch with
sff_corgi while we rewatch Heroes, squeeeeeee.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 05:19 pm (UTC)I adore that show and am excited that you like it...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 05:40 pm (UTC)So yeah, only watched S1... might give S2 a try and see if its improved...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 06:48 pm (UTC)But the character-reveals in Bugs are *lovely* so that makes it worthwile. Go watch S2. It's much more consistent on things like that. Plus, lovely angst!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-08 12:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 05:44 pm (UTC)Also, did you get my email? <3
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 06:44 pm (UTC)And yes, the answer is of course *yes*!
You coming south any time this spring?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 04:56 am (UTC)<33333
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 05:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 06:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-07 10:06 pm (UTC)Given what we find out later in the Season, I have a feeling the boys don't know a lot about demons overall. They know some of the lore--40 as a bad number, exorcisms, etc.--but the way Dean approaches it, it seems to be a HUGE deal. So yeah, looking back on it, it may have been the first time they really did that by themselves. And I wouldn't be surprised about Dad shielding them from it, either; Season 1 eps change so much when you know what happened in Season 2...
Oh, and you may enjoy the Season One Meta index. I particularily recommend
shit i need to reply to Corgi...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-08 12:31 am (UTC)