Previously: A scarecrow was killing people because of a crazy ass town who didn’t let Obama ruin their ecomony.
–
Faith
Sara: Dean and Sam are getting weapons out of the trunk of the Bromobile and saying that they only have one shot to make it count. (What it is, we have no idea.) They rush down some stairs and into a basement where they find two little kids cowering in a closet. When they ask the kids if it’s still there, they nod. The boys try to send the kids out, but the Creature of the Moment pushes Sam down the stairs, like a real jerk. Dean tells Sam to get the kids out of there while he handles the Creature.
Kirsti: Excuse me while I have a lot of Dean protecting small children feels. Because OBVIOUSLY.
Sara: After Sam leaves, Dean is punched IN THE FACE by the creature demon thing, who looks a lot like an electrocuted Albert Einstein. I feel bad for Dean’s face, but I always love when someone gets punched, because it reminds me of Throat Punch Todd. Dean is thrown to the ground and uses a taser to electrocute the shit out of Albert Monsterstein. Unfortunately, he’s also laying in the same puddle of water as the Albert, so he gets electrocuted, too, and passes out, as we fade to black.
Later, Hospital of Sorrow. A nurse tells Sam that they don’t have any insurance on file, and when he hands her his credit card, she thanks Mr. Burkovitz. Poor Mr. Burkovitz. Let’s hope his bank is cool about refunding fraudulent charges. (K: Nah, it’s cool. The boys were raised to apply for fake credit cards. Because RESPONSIBLE PARENTING.) (S: OH, RIGHT. Whoops, forgot!) Sam goes back over to some cops and tells them that he and Dean were just cutting through a neighborhood when they heard some screaming and found the kids in the basement. The cops thank him for his help as Sam sees Dean’s doctor and takes off to find out his brother’s status.
Dr. Bad News tells Sam that the most they can do for Dean right now is keep him comfortable because he only has 2 or 3 weeks left to live. Sam is like, “No. No, that isn’t possible. We have at least ten more seasons of this show to go.” (K: A+) Dr. Bad News tells Sam that he can’t work miracles and heads off to destroy someone else’s day, probably.
Sam visits his brother’s hospital room and they have a sweet and sappy moment, where Dean tells Sam to go off and finish the jobs they’ve taken on, and to make sure to take care of his car or he’ll come back and haunt him. Dean knows that he’s going to die and there’s nothing they can do about it, but Sam knows that if Buffy can die three times and still have a show, they’ll somehow manage, too.
Sara: Back at the Motel of the Week, Sam calls Daddy Winchester who STILL DOESN’T ANSWER EVEN THOUGH HIS DAMN SON IS ABOUT TO BE DEAD. Ugh, I hate him so much. (K: Welcome to the fandom, where everyone hates John Winchester) Sam leaves a message, saying that he’ll do whatever it takes to make Dean better because they’re the best bros that ever were. As he hangs up, there’s a knock on the door, and it ends up being freakin’ Dean who doesn’t want to die in a hospital when the nurses aren’t even hot. LOL.
The Bromobile pulls up to a tent in the middle of a muddy field, where tons of limping and sickly looking people are. When Dean sees a sign with a cross on it, he realizes that he’s been taking to one of those evangelicals who heals people and gets angry. He thought Sam was taking him to a doctor, but Sam clarifies that he said specialist, not doctor.
On their way in, they hear some guy yelling at a cop about how he needs to shut this down, because this healer is tricking people and taking their money. Dean harumphs at the idea that a preacher can heal people, and Sam thinks it’s funny (ironic funny, not ha ha funny) that Dean can see what they see every day (read: monsters) and still be unbelieving about other kinds of unexplainable phenomena. He asks Dean to have a little FAITH and earns the gold star for the episode title!
Dean goes on that he can’t believe in any kind of good miracles, because he’s seen what evil can do to good people. Which is the cue for FREAKIN’ DARLA TO TURN AROUND AND JOIN THE CONVERSATION. This show has the best guest stars.
K: I’m going to go ahead and dictate that the Supernatural drinking game should include “I know you from the Whedonverse” shots. Because yeah, actors from the Whedonverse pop up a LOT.
Sara: She tells the boys that God works in mysterious ways and wonders why he’s there if he isn’t a believer. Dean answers that Sam believes enough for the both of them, and they all enter the tent.
Dean tries to sit in the back (he must be a Baptist), but Sam pushes him forward and says they’re getting front row seats. Sam tries to help him to his seat and Dean hilariously slaps him away, telling him to get off of him.
The healer man preacher(who also happens to be blind) begins his sermon, saying that there’s a lot of corrupt and bad things in the world, but that all good things come from God. He tells the congregation that God chooses who the preacher should heal because of what He sees in their hearts, and Dean mutters to Sam, “Or what’s in their wallets,” which immediately makes Preacher No-Eyes stop with a, “What was that, son?” which gave me flashbacks to when I would make a comment in school and every single set of eyes would flip around to stare at me because it was louder than I anticipated. Plus the person you were talking to always ends up looking the other way, whistling, leaving you to suffer on your own. Jerks.
Dean apologizes and Preacher No-Eyes tells him not to worry about it but to watch what you say around a blind person because they have really good hearing, which makes the congregation, including Dean, laugh. Preacher No-Eyes goes on to ask what Dean’s name is and when he gets an answer, he asks him to come up to the front with him. Dean politely declines, and Sam is like WTF. Preacher No-Eyes (PNE) urges him to come forward, asking if he came here to be healed, and Dean agrees that he did but thinks that someone else should be picked first. Unfortunately for Dean’s stubbornness, PNE didn’t pick him, the Lord did. (K: Or…spoilers. But those of you who’ve seen season 4 will know what I’m talking about!) Sam tells him to get up there, and when he starts to go up, Sam gets the cutest, happiest smile about it. I simply cannot choose which of these boys I want to marry.
When Dean makes it to the front with PNE, he admits that he’s not really a believer, but the preacher assures him that he will be. He asks the congregation to pray with him, and he touches Dean’s face. The camera gets kind of wonky as Dean falls to his knees and passes out, falling to the floor unconscious. Sam races to the front to wake his brother up and when Dean comes to, he sees a fuzzy dead-looking figure behind Preacher No-Eyes and we cut to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, the brothers are at the hospital again. When the nurse comes back in with test results, she tells them that his heart is as perfect as it should be for a man his age, because it’s very rare that people as young as him have heart attacks. She goes on that it does happen sometimes, for instance, to a 27-year old man who was admitted yesterday for a heart attack. Hmmm suspicious.
K: This is going to be random, but this is about the point that I noticed that the lighting in this episode is really strange. It’s like everything’s been put through an Instagram filter…
Sara: After she leaves, Dean says that this calls for some investigating because it doesn’t feel right. Sam doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but Dean didn’t feel right after he was healed and seeing that creepy dead spirit thing really didn’t help matters. Sam is skeptical, but Dean tells him that maybe he needs to have a little FAITH in him. Sam asks what they should do, and Dean tells him to go check on the heart attack guy while he goes to visit the preacher.
At PNE’s house, Dean is sitting with the preacher and his wife, telling them that he wants to make sense of what happened to him. Preacher Wife says that miracles just tend to happen around her husband and Dean asks when these miracles started. PNE shares that he woke up one morning blind, and the doctors figured out he had cancer and a month to live. He asked his wife to pray for him before going into a coma. When he woke from the coma, the cancer was completely gone and he was suddenly able to heal people.
Dean wants to know why he was the one chosen to be saved instead of all the other people in that tent, and PNE says that when he looked into his heart, he saw a young man with a job to do that wasn’t finished.
Off in another part of town, Sam is at a gym, asking questions of one of the staff members regarding the young guy who had the heart attack. Apparently the guy was incredibly fit and was outside running when he collapsed. He insisted that there was something coming for him, but the staff member didn’t see anything. Looks like he needs a little more FAITH.
K: I’m sorry, but I can’t not do this:
Sara: As Dean leaves, he tells the staff member that the gym clock is broken (okay, show) and it turns out that the clock is broken at 4:17, the exact time of the healthy 27-year old’s death.
As Dean leaves PNE’s house, he runs into DARLA! and her mother who are trying to get in to meet with the preacher. Unfortunately, Mrs. Preacher Wife tells them that he isn’t seeing anyone else and apologizes. As she goes back inside, Darla’s mother turns her anger to Dean for taking up PNE’s time when they’ve been going to every service and praying every day for a miracle while he got picked after showing up once. Dean asks Darla what her mother is talking about, and Darla admits that she has an inoperable brain tumor. Her mom continues that Darla has only been given six months to live. Darla’s mom wants to know why Dean deserves to live more than her daughter. I actually feel kind of bad for Darla’s mother. If I had been going to those damn services every single week and praying every day, and then smart ass Dean walked up and got saved, I’d be PISSED.
K: Thank you for referring to her as Darla all the way through. Because YUP. She does indeed have a name (Layla), but every time I watch this episode, I just think of her as Darla.
Sara: Back at the Motel of the Week, Dean comes home and asks what Sam found out about the 27-year old heart attack victim. Sam apologizes before telling him that he the guy died at the exact same time Dean was being healed by the preacher. He also cross checked all of the “miracles” PNE performed and found eleven matching deaths in nearby cities. Each time the victim died of the same thing that someone else was being healed of. Turns out, PNE is just trading a life for a life.
Dean is furious that Sam would take him to this place, because now someone has died because of him. Sam insists that he didn’t know and goes on that they need to know how PNE is doing it. As Dean tells Sam that there’s only one spirit who can take life, we see a healthy-looking jogger running through the woods and at the same time, PNE healing an old man (K: Accompanied by the dulcet strains of Blue Öyster Cult, because it’s not this show without some classic rock!). Dean says that the spirit helping PNE has to be a reaper, and we then see the reaper walking briskly behind the jogger who really should have jogged a little faster and stopped looking back, because before you know it, she’s tripping in the woods and falling and The Reaper is right behind her. He touches her face and sucks the life out of her, and back at the Revival Tent, the invisible Reaper touches the face of the old man and heals him, and we cut to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Sam thinks it’s odd that Dean saw the one and only reaper, wearing a suit no less, but Dean clarifies that there could be more than one reaper and also, they don’t all wear cartoonish black robes probably. Seriously, if I was taking lives, I’d want to look ballin’ in a nice suit, too.
Dean has also discovered that reapers can stop time and that you can only see them when they’re after you, which explains why Dean could see them and Sam couldn’t. Sam still doesn’t have enough FAITH in this idea. (By the way, I’ve had George Michaels’ ‘Faith’ stuck in my head for the duration of this post. So now maybe you do, too.)
K: Well I do now. Before, I was just debating whether I could take “I know you from the Whedonverse” shots…
Sara: Dean wants to know how PNE would be able to control the reaper, and Sam suddenly and conveniently remembers a cross he saw at the church that resembles a cross in a tarot card signifying death.
Dean thinks the only way PNE can be stopped is if they kill him, but Sam is the moral compass of the show so he has to argue that they can’t kill a human. I have this bad habit when watching a show where anytime someone is being a jerk or threatening a main character, I think, JUST KILL THEM, WHO CARES? I think Scandal is a bad influence. Instead of just killing the guy like I would do, they decide to figure out what black magic he’s using and try to stop it, which sounds way harder than just killing him.
When they get to the Revival Tent, Sam heads off to find a spell book that might be laying around and as the boys pass the guy handing out fliers and calling PNE a fraud, Dean gives an “Amen brother!” and Sam tells him to keep up the good work. LOL.
After PNE and Preacher Wife leave the house to go to the service, Sam breaks in to look for the spell book. He finds a bookshelf inside that is so damn dusty, even *I* am feeling a bit judgy about it, and trust me, I have no right to judge other people’s dust problems. (K: Right there with you. My mum once wrote “Hi Kirsti” in the dust on my TV and it took my housemate and I a month to notice.) There is one book that has no dust in front of it, and when he pulls it off the shelf, finds a small spell book behind it. Inside the spell book, he finds a picture of the grim reaper and the cross mentioned earlier.
There’s also some folded newspaper clippings inside. “Openly gay teacher wins lawsuit” “Local Abortion Rights Activist…” and the last one has a picture of the guy standing outside of the Revival Tent handing out fliers with the headline, “Wright: ‘local church a cult'”.
OH MAN, THAT IS SO DIRTY. WTF. They’re specifically picking the people to die in place of others?! Ugh.
K: I sometimes wonder how many religious fans Supernatural has, because religion does NOT get painted in a good light in this show…
Sara: Sam calls Dean, who’s inside the Revival Tent, and tells him that the protester is on PNE’s shit list and will probably die tonight if anyone gets healed. He tells Dean he’ll watch the protester but Dean will need to make sure that PNE doesn’t heal anyone. Just then, the service starts and PNE calls Darla up to the front. Darla and her mom hug and cry. Well, this is inconvenient as fuck for Dean. Her mama is going to be SO PISSED.
As Darla heads to the front, Dean stops her and tells her that she can’t let him heal her or something bad will happen. Instead of saying really quickly, “Someone will die if he heals you,” he just says that she has to have FAITH in him, which is stupid. She doesn’t know you and she has a brain tumor, bro. Even if I knew someone would die in my place, I still might get my heal on. And if I didn’t know, I would most definitely be running up there.
As PNE starts to pray over Darla, Sam, outside, hears a scream from the protester, who is being chased by that creepy as fuck Reaper. Poor protester. Sam can’t see The Reaper, so he can’t fight it and instead tries to drag the protester away.
Inside the tent, PNE is about to put his healin’ hands on Darla, so Dean starts yelling that there’s a fire. If I were him, I would have actually lit the damn tent on fire, but I guess that would endanger lives and stuff. As people start filing up, Darla’s mom begs PNE not to stop the healing of her daughter, and it is heartbreaking. She was about to get her miracle, and as far as she knows, Dean just ruined her chances of keeping her daughter alive forever. Terrible.
K: Yeah, but surely Drusilla will turn up soon to turn Darla back into a vampire??? Oh, sorry. Wrong show. (Petition to have Juliet Landau guest star in Supernatural!)
Sara: PETITION SIGNED. Dean calls Sam and tells him that he stopped the healing, so everything should be okay. I really hope these two have free mobile-to-mobile. Sam tells the protester that he’s okay, but right then, The Reaper shows up and gets to reapin’.
Sam yells to Dean that it didn’t work because someone is still controlling The Reaper who is killing the protester. Sam looks around the Revival Tent and sees Preacher Wife standing off in a corner, chanting. YOU BITCH. He runs over and grabs her shoulder, keeping her from finishing the recitation, which makes The Reaper disappear. Stupid Asshole Preacher Wife screams for help and two officers pull Dean out of the tent and away from the Preacher Bitch Wife.
As the cops exit the Revival Tent with Dean, Preacher Motherfucker Wife tells him that she’s very disappointed in him, especially after everything she and her husband did for him. She tells the cops to let him go because God will deal with him. Dean scoffs as she walks away.
K: Dean gives good “bitch, please” face.
Sara: Darla approaches and asks why he would do that to her, but he can’t give her a good enough reason. (It’s actually pretty easy – SOMEONE DIES EVERY TIME SOMEONE IS HEALED.) She tells him goodbye and wishes him luck before leaving.
As Sam and Dean leave, they hear PNE promising Darla’s mother that he’ll have a private session that night and heal her then.
Back in the Motel of the Week, the boys note that PNE truly believes he can perform miracles and doesn’t know anything about what Preacher Dumbass Wife is doing. Sam shows his brother the spell book he found and explains that there’s a binding spell in there to trap a reaper. It takes some dark shit to do the spell, and Sam is disgusted. But Dean says that it’s less about being evil, and more about being desperate to save her husband. She used the spell to keep the reaper away from her husband, and now continues to use it for selfish purposes. I’d say the second part, where she murders innocent people for her own selfish reasons, is pretty evil.
The boys decide that they either need to destroy the cross or destroy the altar, or maybe both, and it has to be soon because Darla is going to be healed that night.
Later that night, the brothers show up to the Revival Tent. Dean feels terrible about Darla not being healed when he was, knowing that she’ll probably die in the next few months, but Sam tells him that there’s nothing he can do because it wouldn’t be fair to trade a life for hers.
They peek into the Revival Tent and see Darla up on stage with PNE, but Preacher Crazy Wife is nowhere to be seen. They assume she’s in the house and head that way to check. The two cops from earlier are standing outside, so Dean yells at them and takes off running as a distraction. Good thing they always get out of arrests, so they can pull distractions like this!
K: Meanwhile, my notes say “Dean, you sassy little shit”.
Sara: Sam heads around to the back of the house where he finds a cellar. Inside, he also finds, of course, the black altar. Lying on the altar is a picture of Dean with an X made of blood scratched over his face. Preacher Crazy Wife is behind him and says that she gave Dean life and she can take it away. She quickly leaves the cellar and closes and locks it as Sam tips the altar over, destroying it.
From outside the locked cellar, she tells Sam that she is God’s servant and it’s God’s will for Dean to die and Darla to live because Dean isn’t a good person. BITCH BE CRAZY. Sam busts a window out of the cellar and starts to climb out.
K: He should have known better than to go into a Basement (cellar, whatever) of Don’t Go In There.
Sara: Back in the Revival Tent, the healin’ and prayin’ begins as Dean, outside, sees The Reaper headed straight for him. Preacher Crazy Wife chants, as Dean’s life is sucked out, as Darla is saved. Just in time, Sam shows up to grab the cross necklace out of Preacher Wife’s hands and throws it to the ground, destroying it. She really should have checked the windows on the cellar, too. She cries out, and inside the Revival Tent, PNE doesn’t understand why his healin’ powers aren’t working.
Back outside, Preacher Crazy Wife looks up to see The Reaper staring right at her, with a big creepy smile on his face. She turns to run, but then he’s right behind her and grabs her face, starting to drain the life from her. He drops her and vanishes, as her body convulses on the ground, dying.
K: Karma’s a bitch, Preacher Crazy Wife.
Sara: The boys meet up at the Bromobile and head back to the Motel of the Week. Dean asks Sam if they did the right thing, because it doesn’t feel like it. There’s a knock at the door, and it ends up being Darla who’s come to talk to Dean. Apparently Sam called her and told her that Dean wanted to say goodbye. She tells Dean that she went back to see PNE, and he tried to heal her, but it didn’t work. She also shares that Preacher Wife died from a stroke.
Dean thinks that it must be hard to have such FAITH in something and have it disappoint you. Darla says that it’s okay, because if you have faith, you can’t just have it when the miracles happen; you have to have it when they don’t. Dean asks what happens now, and Darla says simply that God works in mysterious ways. Before she leaves, Dean tells her that he isn’t much for praying, but he’ll pray for her. “There’s a miracle right there,” she says before she leaves.
K: FEELS.
Sara: You guys, I really loved this one. I feel like I hardly even snarked through it because I enjoyed it so much. I really didn’t see the surprises coming, the Creature of the Week was pretty terrifying, and the resolution was solid. I love the line from Darla about faith being something you have to have when the miracles aren’t happening, and I love that even though Dean isn’t religious, he’s not entirely against the theory of a god. Overall, this was a really beautiful episode and I can see why so many people were looking forward to it.
K: I love this episode, but then again I love basically every episode in season 1, so…yeah.
I sometimes wonder how many religious fans
Supernatural has, because religion does NOT get painted in a good light
in this show…
Me! Religious fan right here. And no worries with this show what-so-ever. I think they poke at hypocrisy and rightly so. And yes I’m current thru S9.
This is one of my favorite Supernatural episodes. Here’s why:
– Perfect Blue Oyster Cult Montage. (here, have a relook: https://myspace.com/riotgirl77/video/supernatural-faith-blue-oyster-cult-don-t-fear-the-reaper-/8531278) Hmm: better link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spDMqUvg3nE
– Darla is just a wonderful person
– My heart is ripped to shreds when Darla’s Mom says everything that is in Dean’s heart
– My shredded heart is then pulled out and stomped on when Dean DOESN’T RUN AWAY from the Reaper. This episode evokes some serious Dean feels, Sam feels, and Bro feels.
– Dad doesn’t even call — which is HORRIBLE but provides such depth to why Dean feels like he does.
– Roy is a GOOD MAN.
From Layla to Darla. Really Whedon, really? At least try.
God this is a good episode. Also I am totally taking those Whedonverse shots. I have been taking shots anytime you guy said to actually. I don’t think I ever mentioned it.
I kind of want to do a survey and find out how many religious fans stopped watching once season 4 happened… And there are literally no words for how much I hate John Winchester. “Oh, my kid’s dying? Meh, deal with it later.” My hatred of John Winchester has actually reached the point where I sort of can’t stand Jeffrey Dean Morgan. And I used to love him because of Denny Duquette. Now? NOPE. GO DIE IN A FIRE, JOHN WINCHESTER.
Oh, dude. You totally shouldn’t have told me that. Now I’m going to be calling all kinds of random shots just to mess with you. I offer my apologies to your liver.
I kind of love that in a fandom that can have so many different factions there is still this one uniting factor in our hatred of John Winchester, its beautiful really 😛
As I said in my comment on the last post; this is hands down my favourite Season 1 episode and probably in my top 10 or even top 5 episodes overall.
I think this is the episode that really cemented so much of my love for Sam and for the brothers’ relationship for what it can be at its best. This is one of the first time’s we’ve really seen Sam looking after Dean and he’s just so sweet and gentle and you can see how much he loves his big brother in pretty much. I also love this first glimpse of Sam’s relationship with God and belief and just his very strong sense of faith, whether that be in a religious sense or just in people and in goodness (excuse me while I go cry about this).
I’d forgotten just how creepy the reaper is in this (V xvaq bs jvfu gurl’q fgnlrq guvf perrcl ohg gura ntnva V ybir Grffn fb znlor abg)
I’m also just really enjoying having so many Dean feels rewatching Season 1, because I have some serious issues with Dean in later seasons and although many of these issues are present in Season 1 (going back to what I said last time about the groundwork for some many of their personal issues and personality traits having nice subtle groundwork laid early on) they haven’t taken over what I love about him yet so, so yeah shed loads of Dean feels I’ve missed you.
Brain tumour, always hits home but I agree, overall, this was a great episode. Not much to snark.
It really really is. John Winchester is their father biologically. That is all. Apart from that, he’s just a douchecanoe.
YES. Right there with you on the reaper thing. I’d forgotten too. It’s funny, watching season 9 I’ve been all “OH MY GOD, THE CODEPENDENCY ISSUES YOU GUYS HAVE ARE INSAAAAAAAANE”. But watching season 1? I’m like “Wow. Those codependency issues were there right from the start…” Snaps to the writers for consistency???
The great episodes with nothing to snark are so much harder to recap. Sigh.
It is fun. No regrets. 🙂
I know, I notice it every time I have to write a review for a book I liked. The terrible ones are so much easier to write.
It’s funny, watching season 9 I’ve been all “OH MY GOD, THE CODEPENDENCY ISSUES YOU GUYS HAVE ARE INSAAAAAAAANE”. But watching season 1? I’m like “Wow. Those codependency issues were there right from the start…”
Right! The one thing that really got me was Sam’s submissiveness with Dean/Dean being way more a parent than brother; I’d been thinking of that as something that didn’t really manifest until a couple of seasons ago, but nope, I mean to be fair he’s far more likely to at least try to argue back in season 1 but still… Have we have had a “go wait in the car” yet? I can’t think, but that’s what really made me pick up on it on the second watch; like do either of you remember that Sam’s a grown ass adult!
Agreed. So very agreed! He truly is the negligent parent to end all negligent parents.
I tried to write a John point of view chapter in a pre-series fanfic I was writing the other day; I got so angry with him I threw my notebook across the room!
I didn’t even think about Dean not running away from The Reaper! 🙁 That is really sad. Moar Dean Feelz.
Of course not. People regress to their childhood relationships when around siblings. Often.
MOAR SHOTS.
Oh yeah definitely, but I just think that telling a 22 year old to go wait in the car and said 22 year old doing so without argument is a little more than normal sibling regression.
Legit, girl. Legit.
This is another episode that I thought was brilliant, and combined with the last one it makes me think that I shouldn’t give up on this show yet. I really liked the ending, because I loved how everything wasn’t all neatly tied up for once. I was 100% convinced that when the crazy wife died, her death was somehow going to pay for Darla’s life, so I fully expected her to show up at the motel all ‘hey, I’m cured now!’ and thought that everything was going to work out just fine in the end. When that didn’t happen, it made the whole episode so much more meaningful (albeit much, much sadder). Dean being cured somehow didn’t feel quite so convenient in that context, because it left him (and us) with so much to think about, and that’s awesome.
I have to admit that I thought I wouldn’t like the series because of the religiosity. I grew up in an extreme fundy home and am not religious at all. But I think because it doesn’t follow the lore of the bible quite so much to the letter that it makes it more tolerable for me.