My Supernatural rewatch has reached the episode that dare not speak its name. Can I even bear to watch?
Pre-show notes
I really hope this one isn’t as bad as I remember.
Episode notes
Screw it. I’m just going to type as I watch – here it is, unedited.
Weird earthquake on a building site and a man-sized sinkhole appears right underneath one of the workers. Between another guy going to fetch a rope and him returning with it, he’s dead.
Cut to Sam reading a newspaper headline: Local Death a Medical Mystery. Dean is hustling pool and comes back with what looks like a nice stash of cash. Unless it’s all single dollar bills, in which case there’s enough to gas up the car. There’s a brief conversation about Sam’s desire to make money honestly. I am sort of on Sam’s side with this, but Dean’s doing it because he loves it.
Dean watches Oprah. LOL.
The brothers head to the scene of the…well, it’s not a crime is it. Let’s say death. The newspaper quotes a doctor as saying it’s Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease but that takes years to be fatal, and this guy died in minutes. Sam and Dean talk to the man who witnessed the death, claiming to be his nephews, and establish that he showed no symptoms.
Dean offers to toss a coin to decide which of them will climb into the hole. I am half expecting him to have a double-headed coin like Harvey Dent, but Sam snatches the coin out of the air and insists on going himself. It’s a weird conversation, because neither of these men is a coward.
Sam finds a few beetles in the hole. Nothing else. I’m with Dean: a few beetles don’t prove anything. They are passing a show home advertising free barbecue: Dean thinks it’s an awesome opportunity to ask the locals some questions. But those are floating red balloons, Dean – haven’t you ever seen IT?
Dean thinks the suburbs are freaky; Sam likes normal. The developer thinks they’re a gay couple: a reasonable assumption when two young men are house hunting, but surely no one would really say that upfront? Anyhow, they sit through the sales pitch to get to the free food.
Larry Pike and his family moved in early to a new development because the Larry is the developer and also salesman, showing potential buyers around the newly built homes. His son Matt is into insects and Sam catches him trying to scare someone with a tarantula. Sam bonds a little with the kid, all the more so because he doesn’t get along with his dad. Sam talks a bit about how he and John never got along; Dean shrugs it off.
They break into one of the completed but empty homes to spend the night there. Dean may not want the “normal” life, but he really wants the luxury house.
Oh, lady in the shower with bad CGI spiders. Run, Lynda, run!
Dean suspects Matt, he of the spider fetish. Sam isn’t so sure. Matt is in the woods playing with bugs. Kid’s gonna be a great entymologist. He thinks the Winchesters are serial killers. And he’s made the connection between the various deaths. Smart kid. Matt leads the brothers to a spot in the woods that’s teeming with insects and worms. In the middle there’s a hole in the ground. Dean sticks his hand in and pulls out a skull.
They have found several skulls and instead of leaving them there they take them to an anthropology professor. He identifies them as Native American and sends them to the local tribe. Cue some dodgy racial stereotypes, but poor character choices aside, the story they learn is as realistic as it is horrible. There are many more massacres of Native American tribes than are officially documented. The land where the houses are being built is cursed because of a massacre of Native Americans two centuries before. The curse calls down six nights of death, and no one on the land will survive the sixth night. Or at least no one white. There seems to be no way to break the curse, so the only answer is to get off the land until after the sixth night.
It’s bad news for the Pike family. Larry’s response is reasonable enough: it does sound crazy. But the giant swarm approaching is a bit more convincing.
But what they do next doesn’t make sense. They know that no one can survive the night on the cursed land. So why not pile the family into the Impala and hit the gas? There was time – just, and that car would hold them. But instead they decide to hole up inside the house and fight the apocalypse with a can of Raid. I mean, if it were being played for laughs that’d be fine, but it’s not. Even Dean using the can as a flamethrower isn’t going to be very effective. No house is impervious to bugs. Also, if it was 12am when this started, dawn had to be at least four hours away. Those guys were bug food.
Okay, new theory: The Winchesters and the Pikes died that night for real. Everything that follows is the boy’s afterlife – they just don’t know it.
Aw, Matt is throwing away his insect collection! The world has lost a great entomologist.
Associations
This does have strong Poltergeist vibes. The targeted family are the developers of the housing estate. It’s on land cursed by Native Americans (this is revealed in Poltergeist 2). There is a mass grave uncovered, linked to the terrible things that are happening. And after the final attack, the family packs up to leave. It has all the beats, but leaves out all the things that made the movie great.
Final thoughts
Yeah, that was as bad as I remember. If not for the brothers’ various conversations about their father, the episode would be a total waste.
So let’s talk about the Winchester family.
I understand Sam because I did exactly the same thing. When I got a place at university, I had no intention of ever going back. I wasn’t pushed out or abused. I just always felt like an outsider in my family, and like some kind of freak in my hometown. So I understand why Sam didn’t look back. And I understand why Dean is hurt by that.
But I don’t understand why Dean claims at the beginning of the episode that he doesn’t remember conflict between his father and brother. In their close-knit unit, he couldn’t have avoided that. Sure, as humans we tend to repress unpleasant memories once the unpleasant thing is over, but we don’t forget them entirely. Dean should remember the time after Sam left as significantly less tense, and he should be worried about what will happen if and when they reunite. But it’s Sam who points that out.
So this is the first time we learn that Sam and John really didn’t get along. It marks a shift in the focus of the brothers’ search. Before it was purely a practical matter for Sam. He wants to find Jessica’s killer. The best way to do that is to get John’s help, because John has been searching for it for 22 years. Now Sam’s motivation has shifted slightly: he wants to find Dad in order to find Dad.
“Sam, Dad was never disappointed in you. Never. He was scared. He was afraid of what could’ve happened to you if he wasn’t around. But even when you two weren’t talkin’… he used to swing by Stanford whenever he could. Keep an eye on you. Make sure you were safe.”
Dean
Why was John so afraid for Sam? I mean, he raised the boys as hunters for a reason. Sam is more than competent, and even when living his normal life, he kept weapons and supplies on hand. While Dean is sincere, the behaviour he describes resembles stalking. Was John watching Sam because he was waiting for something to happen? Expecting something?
