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Supernatural: Wendigo

"If you shoot this thing, you're just going to make it mad."

Wendigos. Gross. It was smart of the director not to actually show the thing until very briefly, at the end and in the dark. (It looked like a Nosferatu wannabe.) What we create in our own minds is always scarier.

Sam was definitely crabby, and who could blame him? He was anxious to catch Jessica's killer and be done with life on the road. But this one was more about Dean, who appears to be all about the surface, but actually has interesting depths. The brothers aren't superheroes, after all; Dean was caught by the wendigo and could easily have died. Dean appears to accept his purpose in life, and that it could very well mean an early death. He channels his energies into saving other people. He's almost zen-like.

And he's so funny. I loved the peanut M&Ms, the way he taunted the wendigo ("Bring it on, baby! I taste good! You want some white meat, bitch?") and the way he "spoiled the moment" at the end. He related to Haley and her brothers, probably because they were orphaned siblings who had only each other to depend upon, much like himself and Sam.


Dean gave Sam some strokes in the end; he let Sam drive his beloved car. It was like conferring equal partnership on him. I liked that.

Bits and pieces:

— According to the recap, Mary Winchester died on November 2, 1983. According to her tombstone, Jessica Lee Moore died on November 2, 2005. The wendigo emerged every 23 years. Does what killed Mary and Jessica emerge every 22?

— Sam's nightmare was an obvious homage to Carrie. I don't know horror movies that well (which limits me as a reviewer of this series), but I know that one.

— Dean mentioned, and ruled out, skinwalkers and black dogs.

— Two of the guest stars, Donnelly Rhodes (Shaw) and Callum Keith Rennie (Roy), play continuing characters on another of my favorite shows, Battlestar Galactica. I could tell Roy was toast from the moment his character was introduced. And sure enough.

— This week's itinerary: Blackwater Ridge, Lost Creek, Colorado, and a brief dream sequence in Palo Alto, California.

— The guys masqueraded as environmental study majors from UC Boulder. Except I used to live in Boulder and everyone called the University of Colorado CU, not UC; a local would have noticed that mistake.) The guys also masqueraded as rangers with the park service; Dean's fake park service ID gave his name as Samuel Cole.


Quotes:

Haley: "You're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?"
Dean: "Oh, sweetheart. I don't do shorts."

Dean: "Tell me. Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?"

Dean: "It's probably the most honest I've been with a woman. Ever." A little insight into Dean's love life.

Dean: "Guns are useless. So are knives. Basically, we gotta torch the sucker."

Haley: "So, really. I don't know how to thank you. (Dean leers at her) Must you cheapen the moment?"

Dean: "Man, I hate camping."
Sam: "Me, too."

Have you ever noticed that the second episode of a new series is usually bad? This one wasn't. If it had been, I might not have kept watching. Two out of four stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

7 comments:

  1. This one was good. What attracts me in Dean is how he appears one thing on the outside but different on the inside. The man has depths!

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  2. Did ne1 else notice Fin out of Glee in the tent? Cory Monteith was credited at the end.

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  3. About the wendigo emerging every 23 years, I wonder if they got that from the writer William S. Burroughs who first proposed the idea of the "23 enigma", how significant events are often connected to the number 23. Like the number 13, 23 was associated with bad luck and was incorporated in the phrase "23 skidoo", meaning something that forces you to leave quickly (like a wendigo perhaps).

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    1. Or maybe it's really jeepers creepers :P

      But yeah good theory

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  4. Yeah - this episode really creeped me out. I read the legend of the Wendigo as a young child (before bed - which was my first mistake) and so I spent a good portion of this story peeping through my fingers. That being said, while some of the elements were predictable, I enjoyed it a good deal. I'm not a horror fan either...but Supernatural seems to have just enough to get the point across and yet not so much that I have to stop watching. It's about the same level as some of the darker Doctor Who stories.

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  5. God, it took me forever to get used to SPN's pronounciation of Wendigo, after growing up with Charmed and having watched the S2 episode about a hundred times. Anyone else have that problem?

    Still sometimes gets to me...

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    Replies
    1. I did not like their pronunciation of "Wendigo" at all. It sounds less menacing and more ridiculous to me. It was like nails on a chalkboard every time they said it.

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