Translate

Friday 22 June 2012

Supernatural - 1.11: "Scarecrow" Review


Sam and Dean go there separate ways this time, after a row over Dad. Dean ends up wrestling a scarecrow pagan god and Sam meets a mysterious blond, to whom there's more than meets the eye. But the two aren't separated for long.

Burkitsville, Indiana  one year ago:  A lost couple are given directions in the town onto Orchard road.   The woman notices his tattoo, so we can watch out for it later too.   The couple breakdown and see lights in the woods.   She tells him if he had  a brain they wouldn't be lost, naturally the scatty scarecrow doesn't have a brain.  The scarecrow in the field moves and comes after them.

Dad (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) calls Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) and tells them he's fine but not where he is.   Sam says he's after the thing and Dad tells them "it's a demon."  He knows what happened to Jessica and is sorry, "I would have done anything to protect you." He warns them they're everywhere and they can't help.  Dad orders them not to follow him.   He gives them the names of missing/dead couples and Dean obeys his order, "Yes sir."

The couples went missing from different towns, each one ended up in Indiana, all on the second week of April.   This is the second week of April.   Dean's in awe of Dad putting together a file like he did based on obits.  "The man's a master."  Sam tells Dean to stop the car.   He's going to California.   Dad called them from Sacramento area code.   If Dad's closing in on the demon , he wants to be there to help.   Actually the demon was closing in on them.  Dean argues over the order and wanting to save peoples' lives.

Sam wants a week to get answers and revenge.   They argue, Dean doesn't know how Sam feels.   Sam: "How old were you when Mom died, 4.   Jess died 6 months ago - how the hell would you know how I feel."  Dean repeats what Dad said telling them, no ordering them to stay away cos it's dangerous.   Sam: "I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man.   I mean it's like you don't even question him."  Dean calls it being a good son.   Sam's selfish, he'll do "whatever you want, don't care what anybody else thinks."  Dean leaves Sam on the road.

Dean speaks with Scotty (Brent Stait) at the cafe and calls himself John Bonham, the Led Zeppelin drummer.   He hasn't seen the missing couple.   Sam meets a hitchhiker in the middle of nowhere.   It's understandable Dean leaving Sam there, but how did she get there.   She hitches a ride alone and tells Sam: "You could be some kind of freak." No, that's you."  Dean visits the general store and the couple, Harley (Tom Butler) and Stacey (P Lynn Johnson) deny knowing the missing couple.   The girl from the garage, Emily (Tanya Saulnier) tells him they were just married and left town.   Dean drives  and the EMF goes off now.   Since Dean conveniently leaves his bag on the backseat, whereas it's always in the boot (trunk.)  He walks in the orchard and comes across the scarecrow, "dude, you're fugly." He takes a closer look and notices a tattoo on his arm, just like the one the missing man had.

Dean drives to the garage.   Emily came here when she was 13, her aunt and uncle, the store couple, took her in.   Dean calls this a perfect town.   Everyone's losing families but they're blessed.   Sam is stuck in the bus station until tomorrow.   Meg (Nicki Lyn Aycox) meets up with Sam and is also going to California.   Sam's looking for something he lost a long time ago.   Like she doesn't know what, or rather who, that is.   Dean goes to the cafe and asks for some pie, just like the couple, being granted their every wish.   Dean was being friendly but doesn't get his coffee or pie.   Dean: "Sam, my brother could give you a puppy dog look"  and he'd convince everyone .   The Sheriff (David Orth) runs Dean out of town.

Mysterious stranger chick, Meg convinces Sam, or attempts to, that she's left her family too.   They told her everything to do.   Sam is taken in, easily and says it's the same with Dean.   Dean returns at night and finds the couple's car.   He saves them.   Sam calls Dean about the Scarecrow (Mike Carpenter)and he tells him he can "cope without you." He thinks the scarecrow is a Pagan god and has an annual cycle of killings, the Vics are always couples, like fertility rites.   The locals fattened them up.   Sam says their last meal was a sacrificial ritual.   A sacrifice to appease a ~Pagan god.   The scarecrow takes the sacrifice for another year.   Dean meets the professor, (William B Davis) "since I don't have my trusty psychic geek boy to do all the research."

Sam tells him to ask if he needs help.   He's not hinting.   They're both sorry.   Dean replies Sam needs to do his own thing and live his own life.  "You've always known what you want and you go after it.   You stand up to Dad, I ...  I admire that about you and I'm proud of you Sammy."  Sam will take care.   Meg asks if that was his brother, being nosy as usual.   The professor tells Dean about Pagan ideology.   A woods god, Vanir from Scandinavia lives in the orchard.   The energy springs from a sacred tree, if burnt then the god will die.   Dean's knocked out by the Sheriff, plenty of that going round in season 1.   The people need to protect their town.   Harley says this is murder, this is the seventh night of the cycle and Dean needs to die, but why Emily.

Sam can't get hold of Dean and is going after him.   Meg asks why he's going back to him.   Dean needs to find the tree.   An apple tree was brought over by the immigrants, the 'first tree' which is in the orchard.   They leave them tied up in the orchard.   Dean hopes their apple pie is worth it.   Sam finds them.   He stole a car.   The scarecrow's gone and he comes after her uncle and aunt instead.   When they find the tree and burn it, the whole town will die.   Emily doesn't care and lights the flame; then leaves for Boston.   What the town suffers is their punishment.  What about the professor, for Dean to be caught, he had to be in on it too and yet he also gets away.

Sam is stuck with him.   He still wants to find Dad, "but Jess and Mom they're both gone, Dad is God knows where.   You and me, we're all that's left so if we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together." He finally decides he can't do it without Dean and they shouldn't be alone.   Dean: "Hold me Sam, that was beautiful!"   Sam says he should be kissing his ass, Dean was dead meat and Dean tells him he had a plan.   Meg hitchhikes and slits the driver's throat, pouring his blood into a cup.   For making a call.  She chants.   She could've got Sam and taken them both, why was she stopped.   Yeah dream on! She calls him/it, "father."

Obviously this chick is a demon, working her way into Sam's life and thought she could have taken them both, yeah in another life.   Dad finally contacts them and tells them he's fine and admits he's looking for a demon.  It took him two episodes later to finally acknowledge them.   But sends them on a job instead.   The best episodes are where the two argue and this was no exception.   Sam admitting from the previous episode that Dean still follows orders and doesn't think for himself, let alone stand up for himself against Dad.   Dean just sees this as being a good son.   But decides Sam should live his own life.   Dean being in trouble draws Sam back to him, much to Meg's chagrin.

An episode honing in on their differences and what each one thinks of Dad, Sam loves him but he won't blindly follow orders as Dean does.   But then Dean's been around him longer when Sam went off to college.   As well as having to dealing with a Pagan god, a scarecrow no less this time round and still no pie for Dean! Well he and Emily didn't get their last meal, which Sam referred to as a sacrifical ritual and thus even if they were left for the Vanir, the sacrifice wouldn't work.   They weren't fattened calves being led to the slaughter as such.

It's clearly not 6 weeks since Jess died since it's the second week of April, 6 weeks would have been in May.  Several Wizard of Oz (1939) references too, such as the "if you had a brain." Emily, though Dorothy's aunt was called Aunty Em, she also had an uncle and aunt.   The trees weren't apple trees and there's no apple harvest in April either.   The town got off scott free as the people still had their lives and could just move away, not a just punishment for all those years of murder.

No comments: