In the Supernatural writers’ room, someone pitches vengeful rampage of a ghostly, racist, killer truck. And absolutely no one says, Um…maybe not. Seriously, what were they thinking?
Pre-show notes
Fans dumped on this one from a truly great height, and as I remember the episode mostly deserved it. Although let’s be honest – the real reason most fans hated it at the time was because Dean got a love interest. And I agree that their story seemed somewhat out of character for Dean, but I’ve been re-evaluating Dean during this re-watch.
Let’s see if time makes this one any better.
Episode Notes
A huge truck pursues the driver of a sedan, forcing him off the road. The car turns over spectacularly, and the truck slowly fades from sight.
Dean gets a call from ”an old friend” who asks for his help. Turns out she and Dean dated for a couple of weeks, which Sam finds hilarious, as he’s never known Dean to “date” for more than one night. But then the penny drops that Cassie knows they are hunters because Dean told her, and then Sam is cross because Dean broke the rules. Dean doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Our big family rule number one: we do what we do and we shut up about it.”
But when they meet Cassie, Dean is very awkward about it. There’s obviously some big feelings there. Cassie explains that her father was being haunted by a disappearing truck before he died, and that his car was dented as if it were hit by a truck but there was only one set of tracks. She’s “sceptical” about ghosts, but she called Dean anyway.
So now three black men have died in “accidents” on the same stretch of road. Cassie confronts the mayor, suggesting he’s not taking it seriously because the victims were black. The mayor says she shouldn’t be calling him racist.
Oh, the Reservoir Dogs suits are coming out again! Nice.
We learn the truck took a string of victims in the 60’s, too.
Sam apparently cares more about Dean’s unfinished business with Cassie than finding the ghost-racist-killer-truck. Which makes sense because even this show can’t say ghost-racist-killer-truck with a straight face. So Dean and Cassie dated, and she dumped him. That explains the big emotions. Dean would blow that up all out of proportion.
The Dean/Cassie confrontation is one of those things that looks okay on paper, but when you give those lines to actual actors to read, it’s just bloody awful. Sam’s phone call rescues Dean from the crappy dialogue.
Now ghost-racist-killer-truck is after the mayor – first white victim.
Dean and Cassie research the truck killings in the 60’s, and they link everything to the Dorian family, that owned most of the town back then. They’ve already said the victims all seem to be connected to Cassie, so how is she connected to the Dorians? Uh-oh, now the ghost-racist-killer-truck is chasing Cassie around her house.
Dean is bullying the widow for information. He’s a bastard sometimes. But she confesses the story. She used to date Cyrus Dorian, but dumped him for Cassie’s father. Cyrus burned down the church where they were going to be married. “Interracial couples didn’t go down too well,” she says. Cassie’s father killed Cyrus in self-defence. He and his friends got rid of the body, and the truck. The mayor was a cop back then and he helped ensure they got away with it. They are victims of the ghost-racist-killer-truck.
So they know where Cyrus and the truck were dumped. They tow racist-killer-truck out of the swamp, pull out the body, and salt and burn what’s left. No more ghostie – right? Wrong. Ghost-racist-killer-truck is now really pissed off. Dean tells Sam to burn racist-killer-truck while he leads the ghost-racist-killer-truck away from Cassie. Aw, ain’t that sweet.
Sam can’t burn the truck: metal won’t burn. So he works on a new plan. Meanwhile ghost-racist-killer-truck rear-ends the Impala and now Dean is pissed off. Sam gives Dean directions to the old church, and the truck destroys itself by driving onto holy ground.
Associations
Duel is the original killer-truck movie, though that wasn’t a ghost or a racist and is a much better thriller than this episode manages to be.
Ghost-racist-killer-truck has an “intimidate” mode just like the Batmobile in The Dark Knight.
Final thoughts
Okay, so I realise I’m a privileged white English woman and I have no business pontificating about race relations in the USA. But I’m going to give my thoughts and, dear reader, please let me know if I’ve got it wrong.
Race isn’t only about black and white. You can tell a much more nuanced story by including other ethnic minorities in the mix. But if you’re going to do a Black and White story, it’s a mistake to pull punches. This episode missed the mark in 2005 and in 2020 its really bad. My knowledge of US history is sketchy, but I do know that the history of racism in the US has things far more horrific than a guy in a truck who beats on black men. And I also know that the anti-miscegenation laws were valid until 1967. Since this episode is all about an inter-racial couple – Cassie’s parents – whose marriage triggered the events, that would be an important detail to include here. Cassie’s mother said that an inter-racial couple “didn’t go down well” but she doesn’t say that their relationship was literally illegal.
This is how white writers handle stories about racism. The narrative goes: racists are bad, but they’re only a few bad apples: most white folks ain’t that way. It’s just not a perspective that works any more. With that said, I did like the detail where the white community has more or less forgotten Cyrus’s racist attacks, where the black workman instantly recognises Dean’s description of the truck even though the attacks are long over. That says a lot about privilege right there.
Dean’s relationship with Cassie just doesn’t ring true onscreen, largely due to the truly awful dialogue between them. But it’s worth some examination. If we look at the timing, their relationship took place not long after Sam left “the family business” to take up his place at Stanford. Dean had made a choice to stay with John but the family dynamic must have felt very different. And John wasn’t with him when he met Cassie. For whatever reason, Dean was getting a taste of independence.
There’s an old saying that women marry when they meet the right person, whereas men marry the woman they meet when it’s the right time. In that sense, It’s natural that the girl he happened to date would be the girl he fell hard for. I’m not surprised he told her the big family secret, either. First love – he would have wanted her to know who he really is, and probably didn’t realise just how insane it would sound to her.
So…okay. Ridiculously bad monster of the week, poorly executed concept. But still plenty to talk about.
