"Maid" Netflix Series First Impression

 So much to unpack with this show so far. I haven't finished it yet but these are my initial thoughts. First, it is an accurate depiction of the reality some people find when trying to extricate themselves from abusive relationships. For instance, in the first episode Alex flees her home after her boyfriend has a violent outburst which leaves her fearing for her child's safety. The first place she thinks to go is a friend's house, but this friend has close ties to her boyfriend who is immediately alerted to her presence there. She leaves that place, but has nowhere else to go and ends up sleeping in her car at a public park. 

The second realistic thing is the finance issue. Many abusive partners control the money in the relationship so they can cut it off at any time for any reason. This gives them financial control which makes it more difficult to leave. Alex at the offset has about $20 to work with and as she puts gas in her car, we see her funds going down.

The third realistic thing is how difficult it can be to find work if you don't have a place to live or any kind of daycare for your children, which would be difficult if all your close friends were tied to your abusive partner. This is why abusive partners tend to alienate their victims to keep them from having someplace else to turn.

Something else I found interesting and extremely true to life is that people who come from troubled pasts tend to fall into these kinds of relationships more easily. Alex has a flighty and irresponsible mother, and a father who isn't really a part of her life because he has a family outside of the probably toxic one he had with her mother. One reason for this is that people with this kind of past have fewer familial ties, less confidence, and more neediness than their more stable peers.

And finally, and perhaps the most realistic part of all is the way other people tend to view emotionally abusive relationships and why it can be so hard to leave. Because it's easy to say "it was just one outburst" and ignore all the other things that person is doing or has done especially if it's not all the time. Abusers often begin with emotional abuse before they escalate to physical violence. This tears down their victims mentally and makes them more susceptible to physical attacks. Abusers often call their victims names, tell them they're worthless, scream in their faces, hit near them to intimidate them or throw things. All these actions take a toll on the victim and break down their willpower.

All-in-all the show has a very good start and I am eager to see more. So far, I rate the show a 10/10

"Bloody Mary" Supernatural S1:Ep5

Finally we get some semblance of closure for Sam and an idea that he might be able to one day get past his feelings of guilt over Jessica's death. This episode has a pretty big creep factor, although the monster is something we've encountered before (we see a lot of different types of ghosts), this ghost is different because there are no bones to burn since the body was cremated. I'm getting ahead of myself. The main thing I didn't like about this episode was the recurring damsel in distress trope where the boys put themselves in danger to save some girl. In this episode, the most important characters are the main characters with the only real exception being Charlie, the girl who ends up needing saved.

The show starts off with some 12-year-old kids playing truth or dare. One girl is dared to go into the bathroom and say "bloody Mary" in the mirror, a superstition we've all heard. Just in case we haven't, however, the girls clarify what will happen in order to frighten their friend. The girl does it, and nothing happens apart from her friends jerkishly banging on the door to freak her out. The girl's father, however, starts having a creepy woman with ratty black hair show up in any reflective surface he passes (mostly mirrors). It comes to a head when the man notices something weird about his own reflection as he's looking into the bathroom mirror. The scene cuts to the 12-year-olds and and older girl walks in. The one who said "bloody Mary" teases her that she is past curfew, but the teen ignores her and heads upstairs. Once there she finds blood leaking out of the bathroom but appears unperturbed by it at first. She curiously opens the door further to find even more blood and then her eyes fall on something that makes her scream. The audience is left to imagine what has happened to her poor father who is no doubt the victim of Bloody Mary. All this, the candle light, the creepy ghost figure popping into reflections and finally the large amount of blood without showing the body, all up the horror element.

The next seen shows Sam and Dean. Sam is having yet another nightmare about Jessica's death. Dean lays into him a bit, but Sam brushes it off like it's nothing. It is obvious Dean wants to help Sam but doesn't know how. This is a good Sam/Dean moment, and there are quite a few of those in this episode. The first stop for the boys is the morgue where they have to bribe an orderly to be able to see the corpse. Evidently weary of their fake ids the boys pose as college students instead of federal agents this time. The orderly tells them how much blood there was on the guy's brain and that his eyes were melted in their sockets. He thinks it was an aneurism. As they're leaving the morgue, they discuss the possibility that it is just some freak medical thing and not a hunter thing, but they both agree that is unlikely. Next stop is the funeral where they talk to the guy's daughter who discovered the body. She is with a few of her friends. Sam and Dean pretend they worked with the father and ask if there were ever any signs of an impending aneurism. The younger daughter then says it was her fault because she said "Bloody Mary" that night. The boys look at the bathroom where the man died and are found there by Charlie, one of the daughter's friends. Charlie threatens to scream if the boys don't tell her exactly what they are doing. They say they think something ominous might have happened and they don't want it to happen to anyone else. It's pretty obvious from the moment that Sam gives her his number (in case anything happens to shed light on the situation) that this is going to be the episode's damsel in distress. I really wish they wouldn't do this every episode, it's kind of wearing on my patience. 

A friend of Charlie's is mocking her and says "Bloody Mary" three times in the mirror, after which she is attacked. Sam and Dean go to investigate and find a name on the back of the mirror she was killed in front of. They find out the name belongs to an 8-year-old boy who was killed in a hit and run. Charlie tells them that it was her friend who was driving the car. They boys go to the first victim's house and find the name of the man's wife on the mirror. The daughter tells them her mom overdosed but that it was an accident. The ghost is punishing people by revealing their secrets and killing them. The boys find that a woman named Mary was murdered in front of a mirror, but it was in Ft. Wayne Indiana. They go to speak to the lead investigator on the case. He tells them that Mary's eyes were cut out with surgical precision and that her diary indicated that she was planning to tell her lover's wife about their affair right before her murder. She was able to write the letters TRE on the mirror before she died, and the investigator thinks that she was trying to out her murderer. The boys try to track down the mirror, sure that if they smash it Mary will be vanquished. They find out that it was sold to an antique shop in the town Mary is currently haunting.

Before the boys get back, Charlie has an argument with the daughter of the first victim and that girl says "Bloody Mary" in front of the school's bathroom mirror. Charlie then begins seeing Mary in reflective surfaces and starts to freak out. She smashes the window at school, then sees Mary in her teacher's eyeglasses, screams and runs out of the building. When the boys return, they put Mary in a room without any reflective surfaces and tell her they're going to vanquish the ghost. They ask her what happened, and she tells them that her boyfriend committed suicide after a fight. Now they know that Mary only cares that there was a secret and someone died.

On the way to the antique store, Sam tells Dean he thinks the only way to make sure Mary doesn't keep appearing is to make sure she's in the mirror when they smash it. He tells Dean that he thinks Mary will come after him because of Jessica's death. Dean tries to talk him out of it, obviously worried. This is another good Sam/Dean moment. Besides, Dean reasons, he knows everything about what happened to Jessica so it isn't a secret. Sam then says that he hasn't told Dean everything and then refuses to divulge his secret because then "it wouldn't be a secret". 

They boys break into the antique store, but they trip the alarm. The cops show up before Sam is finished saying "Bloody Mary" and Dean goes to deal with them. Sam is set to smash the mirror, but he is surprised that instead of seeing Mary he sees his own reflection telling him what he did. It turns out Sam didn't only keep the fact that he was a hunter from Jessica, he was also having premonitions about her death for days before it happened. Dean tries to convince the cops that he's the owner of the shop's son, but it isn't working and so he chooses to knock them out instead so he can go back and help Sam. He returns just in time and smashes the mirror. Sam is saved. But Mary crawls out of the frame and attacks both boys. Sam manages to hold up a nearby mirror, which causes Mary to see her own misdeeds and vanquish herself.

After telling Charlie she's safe, Sam tells her that her boyfriend's suicide was "absolutely not her fault" and by so doing, we see that Sam is starting to forgive himself as well. Still, as they drive out of town, he refuses to tell Dean what the audience now knows and he sees a mirage of Jessica on the side of the street just before the credits roll.

I have decided to start rating various parts of the show, then giving a whole grade to it, based on the individual grades. For horror/suspense this episode gets a 9/10 (the creep element is high, but not the highest we've seen) for side characters, this episode gets a 6/10 (most of them were kind of predictable and I didn't like the damsel in distress trope once again. Would it have killed them to make this character a guy whose girlfriend died? I mean, they wouldn't have even had to change the name.) For main character bonding this episode gets a very high 10/10 (there were lots of really good moments and you can see how much the boys care for each other). For misogyny this episode gets a -2 out of -10 (one Paris Hilton joke and the damsel in distress trope). And finally, for mystery, this episode gets a 7/10 (it was pretty predictable, but some of the mystery elements were good). Overall, this episode gets a 6/10.

"Sex Education" Whole TV Series Review

This TV series is not for the prudish among us. I have seen someone call it pornography, and I am almost certain that is how my father would describe it. However, it is a very good show that touches on some very important topics especially where it concerns the LGBT community. For this reason I would like to do a whole show review. I may do episodic reviews at a later date, in order to give this show the credit it deserves. It does feature quite a bit of nudity. I would caution that people uncomfortable with LGBT relationships should not watch, except I really think they would benefit most from the show.

The main relationship the show focuses on is not LGBT, and that is a little disappointing. I didn't really enjoy the main ship of the show, even though the show fought so hard to make me care. I would have rather seen the main two end up with one of their other relationships. For a little while I thought Otis and Ola would be a good match, but I think the show was right to split them, they're better as siblings. I still think Maeve was best paired with Jackson, and I really couldn't stand that she broke his heart like that. Still, I think his friendship with Viv was the best thing that came out of his breakup, and he might not have gotten to know Cam either if they had stayed together.

And I've started talking characters before I've even given a premise. The show is about a group of British teenagers who are in the last few years of their education. The school they are attending is run by an uptight prick called Mr. Groff. The main character is a boy (Otis) who hasn't quite grown into his sexuality yet, having been scarred at a young age by witnessing his father cheating on his mother, then overhearing the subsequent fight between his parents after which they divorced. His best friend Eric is openly gay, but it is never suggested that this makes Otis even slightly uncomfortable. They interact as freely as any other two friends might. Otis is very uncomfortable with his mother's occupation (sex therapist) choice of art work (many erotic or phallic designs) and the tools of her trade (mostly sex toys, but some anatomical depictions of the female sex organ). He shows this in the first episode by trying to hide all this from his assigned study partner Adam when he comes over to study.

The headmaster's son Adam takes some viagra in order to help him with his girlfriend problems, but cannot get his girlfriend Aimee to meet up with him because she's still angry that he was having problems the night before. So he goes into the abandoned bathrooms, where all the teens go to do forbidden stuff. While he's there, Otis and Mauve happen to stumble upon him. Otis gives him some advice, which Adam totally takes the wrong way, but it works to help him overcome his problem, and Maeve is given the idea that Otis is really good at giving sex advice and there's certainly a market for it. They start what they call "the clinic" which is a business where teens come to Otis with their problems and he helps them. He doesn't want to do it at first, but he has a crush on Maeve, so he goes along with it.

Throughout the show, the problems addressed are valid issues, and the show also criticizes the poor excuse for sex education most schools give their teenage students, since it ill-prepares them for the adult world of sex and the internet is not always the most useful source of information because of the vast array of bad and potentially dangerous material you can find on there. Some of the issues addressed are: female pleasure, the right to choose, asexuality, gender identity, sexual phobia, STDs, safe sex practices, masturbation, slut-shaming and sexual assault.

The show also addresses many different child-parent relationship dynamics. The relationship between Otis and his mother Jean is the most prevalent, as is Eric's relationship with his family, but the dysfunctional ones (Maeve and her mom, Adam and his dad) are also a very good part of the show.  Jackson's anxiety about his moms getting a divorce is a key point in his character arc and eventual growth.

One of the most potent storylines of the show concerns the slightly airheaded Aimee who starts off the show dating Adam and is part of the popular posse, but secretly meeting Maeve in the bathrooms to hang out because Maeve isn't the type of person her friends would approve of. Aimee is an important part of the show from the very start. It is a party at her house where Otis and Maeve give the advice that starts the ball rolling for their clinic since Adam didn't like the result after his session (Aimee broke up with him because he exposed himself to the whole cafeteria). The storyline in question happens after Aimee has chosen her friendship with Maeve over the popular crowd because Groff decides to suspend Maeve despite her unparalleled intelligence after an incident where her brother was selling drugs at a school dance. Groff thinks she and Otis have been dealing because of the clinic money. Since Aimee's no longer part of the popular crowd, she starts riding the bus to school. One day, while on the bus, a man begins to masterbate next to her and Aimee, who is uncomfortable, asks to get off the bus. After she exits the bus, Aimee finds that the man has ejaculated over her best jeans. When she tells Mauve about the incident, Maeve insists she go to the police. Aimee brushes it off initially, and plays it down, but it really hits home how much this affected her when she is unable to board the bus on subsequent days, electing to walk several miles to school, and when she can't abide her boyfriend's touch because she keeps seeing the man who assaulted her. This really shows how traumatic any type of sexual assault can be.

The best relationship in the show was Adam and Eric. Although Adam started out with Aimee, even going so far as to show up uninvited to her party and he keeps acting slightly jealous at her relationships with other men after him, it is obvious even in the beginning while he mercilessly bullies Eric, that he has a crush on him. This comes to a head when they are both put in detention and end up fighting over how to put up a music stand. They struggle and end up on the floor, then Adam kisses Eric and goes down on him, but afterwards swears him to secrecy. Their relationship is put on hold when Adam's dad ships him off to military school. After Adam is gone, Eric starts dating the new kid (Anwar) who's from France, but Adam gets kicked out of military school after he accidentally stumbles on two of his classmates jerking each other off and they plant drugs on him to get him expelled. He ends up working at the shop that Anwar's father owns and this is how Eric finds out he's back in town. Adam starts showing up to Eric's house late at night and taking him to a secret spot where he goes to smash stuff when he's angry. They smash stuff together until it's almost morning then go home and kiss. Eric is confused, but finally decides he wants a boyfriend who isn't ashamed of him, so he choses Anwar. Adam doesn't know what to do at first, but he figures out that he's bisexual and then he decides to tell Eric how he feels, in front of the whole school. He gets up on stage during the school performance of Romeo and Juliet to tell Eric "I want to hold your hand". So they start actually dating.

Second best relationship is Ola and Lily. I thought at first that Ola would have been a good match for Otis and she is the one who is able to help him overcome his sexual phobias, but he still has feelings for Maeve, who decides to tell him that she reciprocates those feelings right before what's supposed to be the night he and Ola go all the way. Then, after he tells her he's with Ola and can't return her feelings, she texts him sorry interrupting the two of them on what is supposed to be their first night. Ola gives him an ultimatum, but Otis can't respond right away. While he's deciding, Ola starts having confusing dreams about her friend Lily and this is how she figures out that she's pansexual (attracted to the person, not their genitalia) and that she is in love with her best friend. So when Otis finally decides to tell Maeve he can't see her, Ola tells him it's not going to work because their personalities clash. Ola kisses Lily, but at first Lily starts avoiding her. It seems she has never considered whether a lesbian relationship would be right for her and at first it makes her uncomfortable.

The best heterosexual romance in the story is definitely the music teacher Mr. Henricks and the English teacher Ms. Sands. Their relationship is so sweet and weird at the same time. It never says just when they started dating, but during the school trip arc, when the kids are in their last year, she says they've only been dating for a year because he proposes to her. She compromises and says they should move in together instead.

Most supportive family goes to Eric Effiong's family who try their best to support him and keep him safe. They welcome both Anwar and Adam into their home with open arms, and even give him dating advice. There is not a hint of homophobia about them. His father is a little scared for him to go out in make-up and flashy clothes, and for good reason because that is when he gets attacked after Otis selfishly ditches him for a clinic thing with Maeve. At first, he lets this get to him and he starts toning down his fashion choices, but eventually, he decides that he has to be himself even if no one else understands. His father tells him that he loves him and wants him to be safe.

Although I'd like to give most dysfunctional family to Maeve since her brother deals drugs and her Mom is an addict, they both still love her and are supportive in their own way. Instead, most dysfunctional goes to the Groffs, especially between Adam and his father. Adam is constantly berated and belittled by his father, to the point that when he's being expelled from the Military academy he begs the headmaster to let him stay rather than go home to his verbally abusive father. It turns out Adam has a gift for training dogs and he works really hard to train their small house dog Madame in a competition. When he doesn't win anything substantial he tells his mom, who he wasn't going to invite in the first place and who he hasn't come out to as of this moment, that he doesn't want her to tell his father because, since he didn't win anything Mr. Groff would "just be disappointed" in him.  

The show also explores asexuality in a productive way when a girl who identifies as asexual is supposed to be playing Juliet in the school play, but the director doesn't think she's showing enough passion. She goes to Otis for help, but he just tells her she needs to meet the right person. Her friends are pressuring her, and she doesn't know what to do, so she confides in Jean, who has set up a presence at the school to feel out possible curriculum changes for the SRE (Sex and Relationship Education) class. She tells Jean she thinks she's broken because all the other kids her age are wanting sex, but she doesn't. Jean tells her that sex doesn't make us whole so she could never be broken.

In season three, it even introduces two non-binary characters, one of whom (Cal) becomes a big part of the story. They become friends with Jackson, and Jackson develops feelings for them, but when they start to express affection and Cal tells him that it will be a queer relationship, he realizes that he's been seeing them as a girl. That is a problem, Cal tells him, because they're not a girl. Cal gets into it with the new headmistress (Mr. Groff gets fired at the end of season 2) who is trying to tell them their gender expression is wrong because she doesn't understand it.

"Phantom Traveler" Supernatural S1:Ep4

 First let me start off by saying this episode was special in that it did not contain even one hint of Dean's usual objectification of women. There were, of course, moments when Dean displayed his usual "macho" persona, like when he denies being haunted by the job despite keeping a knife under his pillow when he sleeps, but none of his comments, even when he's talking with the "damsel in distress" character Amanda.

First things first. The monster this episode is a demon who possesses people. As we'll be seeing those crop up often in the coming episodes, I'll take a minute to explore the lore. From my history of watching the show previously, I already knew it was a demon the moment I saw it. Demons are always depicted as black smoke when they are not possessing someone and always cause the victim to have black eyes and act in a way that they normally would not. Later in the episode, Sam suggests that the concept of demonic possession is inherent to all religions, and Japanese culture also links them to natural disasters. Demons leave behind a sulfuric residue, and victims of possession have no awareness of anything they did during possession. Later in the show, the lore suggests that demons are like a different type of ghost, they are human souls which have been tortured in hell for enough time that they have become warped beyond recognition. They are also hard to kill and the only way to save the victim they're possessing is to exorcise them, which is also difficult. While possessed, the human gains super-human strength. Unlike vengeful spirits, the demon has no underlying motive and is generally not tied to a specific place but has the ability to move freely. Without corporeal form the demon cannot do much, hence the possession, but after possession it becomes very powerful. 

The show starts out in the lobby of an airplane. A man fidgets around, then goes to use the bathroom where another man reassures him that the odds of dying in a plane crash are infinitesimally small. The man does not seem to have been convinced, but smiles awkwardly and nods. After the other man exits, a black smoke finds its way out of the vent and enters the man's body through his nostrils. His eyes become black and he seems to have gained confidence suddenly. Upon entering the plane, the man tells the stewardess who tells him she's sure he'll have a good flight, that he's "counting on it". After the flight is up in the air, the man asks his fellow passenger how long they've been up. "About forty minutes" he's told. He responds "time really does fly" but the other passenger doesn't find this as funny as the man apparently does. At that, the man says he needs to stretch his legs, and gets out of the seat. He promptly walks over to the exit hatch and opens it. He's sucked out of the plane and the depressurized cabin is suddenly in chaos as the pilot struggles to land. The stewardess manages to find a seat and don her oxygen mask. The horror element relies on the suspense, but there is also a darkened atmosphere at play. The plane's dim lighting, cloudy conditions. It is obvious the plane will crash, but we don't know if there will be any survivors to help solve the mystery of why it happened.

The scene cuts to Dean sleeping. Someone enters but we can't see who it is. The suspense is held for just a moment before Sam speaks up. He has brought coffee. It turns out Sam has not been sleeping well. He's still having nightmares.  Sam asks Dean if the job ever bothers him and Dean denies it. "But don't you ever get scared?" Sam asks. Dean says he never does, which Sam counters by revealing that Dean sleeps with a large knife under his pillow. Dean says that's not fear, that's precaution. Later in the show, it will be revealed that Dean is afraid of flying, so this is a nice little setup for that "macho" masquerade to be knocked down a peg.

Then the boys receive a phone call from a man (Jerry) that Dean and their father had helped out a few years ago. Dean says they took care of a poltergeist for him, but it is unclear at this point whether a poltergeist is a different monster than a vengeful spirit. Jerry works with planes in some capacity, they meet in a hanger, he has possession of the black box from the crashed plane, but it never says specifically what Jerry's job is. He does not have clearance to allow them to view the wreckage which is locked up tightly by homeland security. They listen to the recording and there is obvious interference, but you cannot tell what's being said.

There are survivors, the pilot is one, but the boys zero in on a specific one in particular. He is currently in a mental hospital. The boys, posing as homeland security agents, go to interview him to find out if he saw anything. After some prodding, the guy answers that he thought he saw a man open the emergency hatch, but that he's researched it and there's two tons of pressure on the door. There is no way someone could open it, so it must have been a hallucination. They ask if there was any type of glitch when he looked at the man, and the patient asks if they are sane. He tells them the the man was another passenger and that he was sitting in front of him. Sam and Dean find out who the passenger was, and visit his widow. They think he might have been some type of superhuman monster, but find that he was just an ordinary dentist with ulcers. 

The boys decide the must have a look at the wreckage, and buy themselves suits so that they look the part of homeland security. While studying the wreckage, Dean uses a EMT to find evidence of supernatural activity. Sam asks why it looks like an old Walkman. Dean replies that he made it out of one, and seems quite proud, although Sam is less than impressed. The two find a substance on the exit hatch handle, which they take a sample of just before actual homeland security agents show up and the boys make a hasty retreat over a fence. Dean uses his suit jacket to avoid the barbs and the boys' escape is final. Jerry is able to analyze the substance for them and tells them that it's sulfur. That is when Sam and Dean decide it must be demonic possession. Dean then verbally wishes their father were here to help them because demons don't "want anything, they just want to kill and destroy" and it's going to be difficult to take down. 

The next scene shows the pilot nervously preparing to fly his first plane since the crash. A black smoke exits the vent and enters him. Suddenly he doesn't seem so nervous. He is in the air with a co-pilot who tells him he'll be back to flying the big planes before he knows it. The pilot says "time really does fly" and knocks out the co-pilot before sending the plane into a nosedive. As it crashes, the plane takes out telephone wires. The scene cuts to Jerry telling the boys that the pilot is dead. Dean suggests that perhaps the demon was after the pilot all along, but Sam has another theory. Both flights went down 40 minutes into flight. In the past ten years, there have been six other flights with this same pattern. For the other flights, there were no survivors. The interference on the black box said "no survivors". Sam and Dean decide that the demon is targeting the survivors.

Most of them are not planning to fly any time soon, but the stewardess, Amanda, has a flight that departs that evening. Sam and Dean decide that the demon will try to tamper with her flight and the best way to prevent that is by keeping her off of it. The problem is that she will not answer her phone. They arrive at the airport and succeed in paging her to a phone nearby, but they are unable to convince her not to board the plane. It is then that Sam suggests that they need to get on the flight and exorcise the demon to prevent the plane from going down. Here's the payoff from the earlier claim Dean made that he doesn't get scared because his face goes white. He is afraid of flying. Sam tells him that he needs to get a grip, because if he's got a chink in the armor, he opens himself up to demonic possession.

Dean has brought holy water with him to help find the demon, but Sam suggests a subtler approach. He says that the demon will flinch at the name of God and tells Dean he needs to say it in Latin "christo". Dean goes to find out if the stewardess Amanda is possessed. Despite the fact that she is a woman, Dean does not go his usual route of hitting on her. Instead, possibly because he is nervous from flying, or perhaps because he's on a mission, the two simply exchange light conversation about flying. He ends it by saying "christo" but she doesn't respond and he walks off with her obviously thinking he's a little strange in the head. Next, Dean attempts to find the demon by walking around with his EMT, but he has scanned all the passengers and had no luck. Suddenly, the EMT starts going off when the co-pilot enters the cabin for a moment. Dean says "christo" and the man flinches and looks back, his eyes black. Sam and Dean convince Amanda that she needs to bring the co-pilot back so they can "have a talk with him". When the co-pilot enters the back of the plane, the two jump him and duct-tape his mouth shut. Amanda is horrified by what they're doing until they sprinkle the man with water and his skin begins to smoke. They use Dean's strength and the holy water to keep the demon incapacitated while Sam chants the exorcism in Latin. The exorcism rite has two parts. The first part gets the demon out of the body of the victim, but it corporealizes him making it so that the demon can wreck havoc without a body. The second part sends the demon back to hell. Sam is almost finished with the first part when the demon, who has managed to rip the duct-tape of his mouth, turns to him and says "I know what happened to your girlfriend. She must have died in agony." Sam falters, but quickly regains his composure and continues the exorcism. The demon flees into the vents and the book has been knocked out of Sam's grasp. The plane begins to experience turbulent conditions as the demon, now corporeal, shakes it. Sam struggles to find the book so he can continue the ritual. He finally gets it, the lights are flashing, the plane is shaking, the passengers are all terrified, and Sam is shouting in Latin in the center of the aisle.

Sam succeeds, of course, and the plane calms down. Next it shows the crew being interviewed. The co-pilot says he has no memory of even boarding the plane. Amanda is telling her story but she manages to mouth "thank you" to the boys who are standing off to the side. They decide it's time to go. Jerry thanks them and it is only then that Dean wonders how Jerry was able to get his new number since he's only had it for about six months.

"Your dad gave it to me." Jerry says. Dean and Sam are taken aback, but Jerry explains that he didn't actually talk with their father. "It was on his voicemail."

Sam wonders how this could be since he's tried calling their father and it hasn't gone through like his service had been disconnected. Dean tries and they get the message. "This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean." The boys look at one another and Sam is visibly upset. Their father knew he was going to be unreachable, and had the temerity to send people looking for help their way. The episode ends with them driving their car down the road.

This show has a bit of mystery, but not as much as "Dead in the Water". It doesn't show Dean's lascivious side, which is good, and it takes down his toxic masculinity a peg, which is great. It also shows both boys being vulnerable in different ways. I didn't really like that they rescued yet another woman, (does it always have to be a woman?) who was grateful. Jerry doesn't count even though he's the one who called them in, because he was never in any danger. The horror and suspense elements are pretty good too, capitalizing on the fear of flying which is a common phobia even though flight problems are rare. After carefully weighing all elements, I give this episode an 8.5/10, slightly lower than the last episode which had a better mystery element. 

"Dead in the Water" Supernatural S1: Ep 3

This episode has a much more in-depth look at Dean's character and what makes him tick. He is also more personable for most of the episode, although he does do some eyeballing and failed pick-up lines near the beginning of the show. It focuses more on the mystery element of the show than on the horror, although the horror element is not missing, it is simply toned down. For these reasons, I particularly liked this episode and would rate it a surprising 9/10, higher than either of the two previous shows, despite the fact that the monster is similar (a vengeful spirit) to what we encountered in the first episode.

Now let's get to the meat of what makes this show so good in comparison to the others. First, the characters. The show gets off to a rocky start as a grown brother teases his sister that "guys don't like buff girls" as she's headed out to the lake to swim. She cuts back with a comment about girls not liking guys who still live at home and we're set with the gender stereotypes for the show. Then the girl goes swimming and something in the water is obviously watching her. She stops, glances to the shore, then starts swimming again. Whatever drags her under is not seen and we're not even showed her struggle, just the bubbles that rise to the surface when she doesn't. This ups the suspense but it's not as big of a horror element as some of the things on previous episodes.

The scene cuts to Sam and Dean discussing the disappearance as being one of three such "accidental" drownings this year where the body was never recovered. Dean flirts with the waitress and gives her a lecherous look telling Sam that they're "allowed to have fun". Then, the two of them argue about why they're hunting monsters instead of searching more diligently for their missing father. Sam finds their father's disappearance to be more pressing, but Dean argues back that he is just as worried since he has been the one fighting at their father's side for the past two years while Sam was off getting an education. Dean belittles the college experience (another thing that does not bode well for my feelings about his character). Then the two of them set off for the town.

When they show up to talk to the victim's brother (introducing themselves as wildlife specialists), he tells them what he saw, which wasn't much of anything. They ask to speak to the father (Ben), but they're given the brush off. The son says he's "been through hell" and he didn't see anything anyway. Then they talk to the sheriff, who insists that there's nothing in the lake, and they even brought in sonar equipment to prove it. There, they meet the sheriff's beautiful young daughter Andrea who catches Dean's eye, and her son Lucas. The sheriff tells the boys that his grandson has been through a lot. Dean tries to hit on Andrea, but she gives him the brush off and the boys head to their hotel room for a little research. It is there they they find out Andrea is the widow of one of the victims and that her son Lucas saw his father's death. 

They head to the park where Andrea is watching Lucas from one of the benches. She tells Dean he is wasting his time, but he goes to talk to Lucas anyway. Andrea obviously thinks Dean is still trying to put the moves on her and she tells Sam that his "Jerry MacGuire" routine isn't going to work. The scene leaves the two of them and focuses instead on Dean talking to the mute Lucas. Dean can't seem to get Lucas to say anything but he suggests that Lucas could draw what he needs to say about his father's death. Dean draws some stick figures that he says are his father, his mother (he chokes on this word) himself, and his dumbass brother. Finally, he seems to give up and wanders back over to Andrea and Sam just as Andrea is explaining to Sam how Lucas has not spoken a word since his father's death. Just then, Lucas runs up and hands a drawing to Dean. It is of a house. Dean folds the drawing and pockets it.

Next we find a mournful Ben being attended by his son who is trying to convince him he needs to eat. The boy is fixing dinner when the sink starts filling up with a dark liquid which looks like lake water. Even after the guy pulls the plug it will not drain, so he sticks his hand in to try to plunge it or catch whatever is clogging it. Here the horror element comes in at the unseen force which pulls him beneath the water and holds him there long enough to drown before the sink drains itself and leaves his body in the sink. Sam and Dean find out about the drowning and go to follow up. Ben is beside himself as he sits in a chair by the lake. He tells Dean that both of his children are dead and that it is worse than dying. The boys go to leave and they agree that Ben is hiding something. That is when they notice, Ben's house is the same as the one in the picture Lucas gave Dean, down to the very last detail.

They go to question Lucas, but Andrea tells them they're wasting their time. Dean tells her if she really thinks these are all just coincidental drownings that they'll leave, but if she thinks that there's even a chance something else is going on, she needs to let them talk to Lucas. Dean is the one to talk to Lucas. This is the part where Dean really opens up. He tells Lucas that when he was a boy, he saw something "bad" happen to his mom and that he didn't want to talk after it happened either. He says that he knew his mom wanted him to be brave and suggests that Lucas' dad might want the same thing. Lucas hasn't looked up from his drawing this whole time, but he gives Dean another house drawing. This one is of a yellow house near a church with a red bike and a little boy standing out front. Sam and Dean hunt the house down and the inhabitant tells them that the boy "has not lived here in a very long time" she tells them of her son's disappearance and says that losing him 35 years ago was "worse than dying". There is a connection. That is when the lake disappearances started. Sam or Dean finds a picture of two boys, one of them is the boy that disappeared, the other is Ben.

Sam and Dean go to confront Ben, just as he has decided he knows what the vengeful spirit wants from him. It is too late to stop him from propelling his boat out onto the lake where it is promptly upended by an unseen entity and he is pulled beneath the surface.

Next they are in the sheriff's office where Andrea calls them by their first names and the sheriff seems angry about this. Before Andrea takes Lucas away, Lucas seems frightened and clings onto Dean. The sheriff tells them he knows they aren't who they were pretending to be and gives them two options. He can arrest them for impersonating federal officers, or they can leave town and never be seen again. They pick option 2, but as they are in the car, headed for the interstate, Dean hesitates. He turns in the wrong direction. He has a bad feeling about Lucas' fearful clinging earlier that day. If the vengeful spirit has been satiated by Ben's death as Sam thinks, then why was Lucas so afraid.

The scene cuts to Andrea running bathwater. We all see the attack coming before the water even begins to run out muddy, we just don't know if Sam and Dean will be there on time. She has time to scream before she gets pulled under and a frantic Lucas answers the door and leads the boys into the bathroom where Sam is able to pull Andrea from the clutches of whatever is trying to drown her, albeit with some difficulty. They ask Andrea to tell them what happened and Andrea begins to tell Sam a tale of hearing someone say "come play with me" just before being pulled under. Dean finds a picture which links the sheriff to the boy who went missing. Now we know why this family is under attack. Lucas then leads Dean to a spot where they begin to dig and unearth the red bike the missing kid used to ride.

The sheriff shows up and has a gun on Dean and Sam while Andrea comes out from the house to find out what's going on. Dean explains that he knows that the sheriff and Ben killed the boy 35 years ago and that the spirit is going to take everyone he loves away until he knows what the boy's mom felt and then it will take him too. He tells the man that if he wants to have a chance, they have to destroy the remains. As this scene plays out, we see Lucas, we hear the voice "come play with me" an eerie faraway child's voice, and we see him leave the safety of the house. Andrea confronts her father telling him to look her in the eyes and say he didn't murder anyone, but he can't and so his confession is heard. He and Ben were both bigger than the missing boy. They used to bully him. That is what they were doing that day, holding his head under water, only this time, they held it too long and the boy drowned. They let the body go and it sank to the bottom. This part does take away some from my suspension of disbelief because the body was never found and it is pretty well known that decomposing bodies fill with gas and become more buoyant. That is why gangsters would give their victims "cement shoes" before sending them to "sleep with the fishes". Okay, but I can get past that. Maybe some algae grew over the body before it became buoyant.

Anyway, just in time to watch Lucas get pulled into the water Sam, Dean, Andrea and the sheriff notice that Lucas is near the edge of the pier. Then the sheriff sees what he's been denying. The ghost of the boy he drowned. As Sam and Dean desperately search the water for Lucas, the sheriff wades in and begs the ghost to take him instead and leave the boy alone. The ghost obliges, and Dean surfaces with Lucas, but he's limp. The next scene shows Sam consoling Dean that "we can't save everyone" and for a moment the audience believes that Lucas drowned as well. Lucas and his mom, however, show up moments later. Lucas has even begun to talk. They say goodbye, Dean seems especially sad to leave because of the bond he's formed with this kid and then Andrea kisses him. Dean seems to linger before they get in the car and drive off, indicating that he'd much rather stay and explore a relationship with Andrea and Lucas.

A few notes -- I loved the mystery element to this episode. Most of them have at least some mystery to be solved, but this one really took it to the next level. It was on par with "What lies Beneath" down to the vengeful spirit punishing its murderer(s). I didn't even mind that the monster was another ghost. We will meet other kinds of monsters down the road. 

I also loved the vulnerability Dean showed in this episode. If there were more moments like this throughout the show, instead of portraying him as the picture of toxic masculinity, I might be more prone to like his character. I'm not entirely certain, but this mom and son might be the same ones that feature in Season 5, if that is true, this is good foreshadowing of what is to come. I have not decided if I will continue these reviews past season 5 (where I believe the show should have ended) even though I have watched the more recent seasons (to a point).

Andrea is a good character, despite eventually falling into the category of "damsel in distress". Lucas is also an interesting character, although it is never explicitly explained why he suddenly became able to speak after the ghost got its vengeance. Perhaps what was stopping him was fear because he knew the thing that killed his father was still out there. I do also wonder about the 7 drowning victims which were never named and what their relationship to Ben and the sheriff might have been. Still, I rate this episode high because it did a good job with character development and execution.

Supernatural: S1, Ep2: Wendigo

I gave this episode a 8 out of 10, a little higher than the first because there is less leachery (although it is not altogether missing) and there are quite a few good brother moments. The suspense and horror are also on point. I took off for a few things that might be considered continuity errors. I'll get into that in my review.

This episode starts out at a campsite at night. Three men are camping and something is obviously stalking their campsite. We hear rustling and growling as we're given the monster's vantage point before zeroing in on the campers. Two are playing a game, the other is sending a video message to his sister telling her not to worry, that he's safe, and that he'll call the next day. The two playing a game are arguing and one tosses his handheld device down in frustration before exiting the tent. The other protests that he's being a sore loser, but the first just says that nature is calling. He goes to relieve himself a few feet from camp and it focuses once more on the winner as you hear the scream. Once more it is a good use of the violence off camera affect. We don't see what happened to the first camper, so our terror is heightened. So each of the campers is attacked until we zero in the last one. He puts out his light, hoping to protect himself and he hears the creature circling outside his tent before his tent is slashed open by sharp claws.

The next scene shows Sam visiting Jessica's grave to bring her an assortment of flowers because she "always said roses were lame" and apologizing for not protecting her. He goes to lay the flowers on her grave and a hand reaches out of the ground and grabs his wrist. This is when he wakes up. It was a nightmare. Dean asks if he's okay, and Sam lies and says that he is. Dean shows obvious concern here. They are discussing the coordinates their dad left them while driving in the car towards said coordinates. They are wondering why it is a spot in the middle of nowhere, in the forest. Next we see them at a ranger station talking about the spot when a Ranger asks them if they are planning to go there. They tell him no, that they're students doing a paper, but he doesn't believe them. He thinks they are friends of a girl named Hailey who has been inquiring after her brother. He tells them the brother is not missing since the time he requisitioned has not expired yet. Dean asks for a copy of his permit, so they can convince Hailey, and then they leave. On the way to the car, Sam berates Dean thinking he is only looking to hook up with this Hailey girl. Then Dean asks since when Sam was the kind to shoot first and ask questions later and Sam says "Since now." This is a good exchange because it spells their characters out so well. Sam is acting out of character and Dean is pointing it out, but Dean is acting just the way Sam expects him to act. 

The next scene shows the brothers on Hailey's doorstep introducing themselves as rangers. Hailey asks to see ID and Dean shows her a laminated card which seems to appease her. She invites the boys in. She tells them she is worried about her brother because he was checking in every day and they haven't heard from him in three days. She shows them her video and Sam asks her to send it to him to which she agrees. She tells them that she has hired a guide and she'll be going to get her brother the next day.

Now it shows the brother, hung from the ceiling of a creepily dark room as a creature prowls just out of sight. His hands are tied and he is hung like a slab of meat from the ceiling in an upright position with his arms above him. He is still alive. He watches in horror as the monster bites into another person (presumably one of his fellow campers) and we hear the man scream. I want you to remember this for later, because this is the possible continuity or plot issue that I was talking about.

The brothers are researching the disappearance and they find out that, every 23 years, like clockwork, eight campers have gone missing. There is one survivor from one of the attacks, but he was a child at the time. The go to see the man. At first the man insists it was a bear (which is the official story) but upon prodding the man admits that the monster, whatever it was, unlocked the door to their cabin, and was too fast to be seen. He shows them a scar the monster left him with and they leave. They still don't know exactly what they're dealing with, but it is corporeal since it needed to unlock the door, so they decide it can be killed. Dean says they've got to protect Hailey but Sam objects. He wants to find his father not "babysit". 

The next scene is Hailey arguing with the guide to allow her other brother Ben to come with her in search of the missing one Tommy. Sam and Dean pull up and Hailey introduces them as rangers. They say they came to assist in the search and they all head out into the forest. The guide is prickly and takes and instant dislike to Sam and Dean. Then they come upon the campsite. It has been ransacked and there is blood. One of the two follows a trail until it mysteriously vanishes. The campers were dragged away. Then they hear someone calling out in distress and they follow the call just to find... nothing. It was a trick. Their supplies have been taken. They are cut off from the outside world. Sam and Dean realize they are dealing with a wendigo (a man who turned to cannibalism in order to survive and consume too much human flesh and gained supernatural powers like heightened speed, agility and immortality), and that their weapons are useless. They try to get the others to leave, but the guide mocks them and Hailey refuses to leave without finding Tommy. Sam and Dean set up a campsite perimeter that the wendigo can't cross as the guide continues to mock them for it, calling them crazy. When the wendigo shows up, the guide shoots at it and then chases it leaving the protection of the circle. He is grabbed from something in a tree just after calling out that he has found the monster. Before the monster shows up, however, Sam and Dean have a moment where Dean again asks if Sam is okay, and tells him it is not healthy to bottle it up like this. Sam wonders why they're here instead of out looking for their dad. He has obviously not been here. Dean tells Sam he thinks their dad wants them to continue to hunt monsters for him. Sam says he needs to find his dad and "the monster that killed Jessica" before breaking down.

The next scene is the following morning. Dean tells Hailey that her brother might still be alive because wendigos keep their victims alive and eat them slowly to get by in times of famine. This is where I feel there is a possible plot hole, because Tommy is the only one still alive when they get to the wendigo's lair and it has only been five days. If the wendigo keeps its victims alive as long as possible, how are the other two campers already dead and gone at five days max? Also, Tommy doesn't express any concern for his fellow campers or their fates. It seems the wendigo keeping its victims alive was a plot device used to keep Tommy alive long enough for the brothers to show up. Dean goes on to say that guns and knives will not kill the wendigo, but fire will. 

Another blood dripping from above trope is used before they discover the guide's body. Then Dean and Hailey are taken. Ben asks Sam if the wendigo keeps its victims alive then why did it kill the guide, and Sam postulates that it was because the guide shot at it which made it mad. Ben finds the candy Dean brought with him to snack on. Dean has left them a trail of breadcrumbs. They follow it to an old abandoned mine. They are in the mine when they hear something and hide. They see the wendigo leave. Then, while exploring, they fall through the floor and end up in the room where the wendigo is keeping Dean and Hailey. Ben runs to Hailey and Sam runs to Dean. They cut the two of them down. After they get their bearings, Hailey notices Tommy, he looks lifeless and she cries out and rushes to him. But he starts awake. He is alive. They cut him down and they all go to leave but the wendigo has returned. Dean and Sam find flare guns, which will work against the wendigo because of fire. Dean tries to lure the wendigo to chase him so the others can escape, but the wendigo goes after them instead and Sam wastes his flare. As the wendigo closes in on him, (slowly, because if it went as fast as possible there's no way they'd stand a chance) Sam protects the others by sheltering them behind his back. Then, in the nick of time, Dean shoots the monster with the flare gun, and it bursts into flames and dies.

The episode closes with the survivors concocting a tale of a bear mauling and saying goodbye. Dean gives Hailey a suggestive look when she asks if there's anything she can do to thank him and she chastises him before giving him a chaste peck on the cheek goodbye. Dean then tells Sam that they will find their father, and Sam says "I know, but in the meantime, I'm driving." Dean looks at Sam as if he's about to argue before tossing him the keys and they drive off.

A few notes -- I liked the brother dynamic in this episode. It really showed how much Sam and Dean look out for one another, something that will become a common theme throughout the show. Obviously, I didn't like the moments when Dean was hitting on Hailey, but those were surprisingly few in this episode. I liked the secluded forest setting. Very good territory for a monster that hunts it's victims. I'm not sure about the lore. I guess they're going off the ancient practice of some tribes indigenous to the Americas of eating the flesh of their enemies to gain their strength. I haven't really studied up on Native America lore as much, so that is less familiar to me than Judeo-Christian lore and mythical creatures associated with it, like vampires. 

Of the side characters, I liked Hailey the most and the guide the least. The guide is meant to be an abrasive character so his death is less impactful, I think. I was sad that they didn't include some amount of grieving for Tommy's fellow campers. It was as if they hadn't been there at all when the show concluded. I did find it a little unbelievable that they were able to just find their way back without a guide. I mean, that forest was dense. Perhaps there is some kind of wilderness survival training that was included in their upbringing, or maybe the guide's GPS was recovered and they were able to find their way back with that. It is never really explained.

T.V. Show Review -- Supernatural: Season 1: Episode 1

Okay, for those of you who have not seen Supernatural, it is a dark suspense/horror show about two brothers who hunt monsters after their mother was killed when one of them was a baby. The show opens when the oldest (Dean) is 26 and the younger (Sam) has just passed the test to go to law school so probably about 22. I'll be reviewing the show episode by episode, and I'll try to do as many as I can within a week, but it all depends on time and energy so I doubt I'll be cranking a new one out every day.

Okay, so to get to the meat of my review. I gave this episode an 8 out of 10. It's up pretty high because I think it's a good kicking off episode but I took away for a couple of things which I found distracting. I'll get to that in a minute.

The episode starts with the event that catapulted the boys into the hunting biz in the first place, their mother's murder. The suspense and horror are on point in this scene as she sees a flickering light (one of the horror tropes I think actually works really well without the use of jump scare tactics) then realizes the man standing over her baby in his crib was not her husband. It is well acted when she runs to her baby and the scream is realistic enough to make you startle right along with her husband, who rushes to find his baby in the crib seemingly fine. Then the blood drips from the ceiling (another trope that works well in this scene) and he looks up to find his wife pinned right before she spontaneously combusts along with his house. He frantically removes the boys and then tries to save his wife to no avail. The scene then cuts to the present day as Sam celebrates his test results with his girlfriend and best friend. There was a line in this scene I didn't really like. Sam says "we're not exactly the Brady Bunch" talking about his dysfunctional family and his friend says "Well we're not the Huxtables" which I felt might be a bit of a micro-aggression but I couldn't be sure. Anyway, back to the script. Jess and Sam go home and Sam is attacked by an intruder and they fight. Before long, however, Sam realizes that the intruder is his brother Dean. Sam introduces Dean to Jess and the way Dean eyeballs her in her pajamas is kind of painful to watch, but it sets the mood for what his character is going to be like throughout the show. Dean tells Sam that their father is hunting and hasn't come back for a couple of days, and Sam sends Jess away to discuss the private family matter with his brother.

Here is where they do the exposition, in the form of an argument, on what has gone on in the past 18-20 years or however long it has been (I'm sure it had a caption at the very start but I'm not re-watching just for that). I didn't really like this route to exposition because it felt a little bit forced. People don't really argue like that. If I were to write it, I might go about it a bit different even if I were going to keep it in the dialog, but I feel like a better exposition might have been to have Sam say something about how they were raised and then show a flashback scene of the things he was talking about instead of him going into explicit detail about it. It just felt awkward. Maybe if Sam were telling someone else, but for an inside argument, naw. It doesn't work. 

Sam finally agrees to go with Dean to find their missing father and the scene cuts to show the monster at work. The monster this episode is definitely some kind of ghost who preys on men driving along a stretch of highway. She is a good looking woman, dressed all in white, tattered garments, the picture of a damsel in distress. The guy picks her up, she asks him to take her home. He drives her there only to find out it is abandoned some years ago. Something spooks him and he goes to leave but she appears in his back seat as he's driving away. He freaks out and crashes into the guardrail of a bridge. Then it cuts to the outside of the car and you see blood spatter across the windows indicating that the man has met a gruesome fate. The blood spatter without showing the actual massacre is another trope I think works really well to build suspense.

Then the boys show up. They come upon the abandoned car on the bridge surrounded by police cars and Dean pulls out a fake badge from a box in the glove compartment filled with such stuff. They go to have a look and Dean flashes the badge to the detective before asking him some questions. The detective observes "Aren't you a little young to be U.S. Marshals?" to which Dean responds by playing it off as a compliment that he looks younger than his actual age. Dean then says something derogatory to the detective for which Sam not so subtly stomps his foot. Having gotten their information they go to leave just as two FBI agents walk up and Dean makes an x-files reference (he calls them agents Scully and Mulder). They go to research the case on a public computer and find out that a woman jumped off that very bridge and committed suicide.

The boys go to get a hotel room just to find that their father has a room already paid for a full month. When they break into their dad's hotel room, they find out that their father had already solved the case, but are puzzled as to why he has not yet vanquished the monster (a lady in white, which is to say a woman who found out her husband was unfaithful, murdered her own children and then committed suicide). They are about to go dig up info on where the body is buried so they can salt and burn it, when Dean is arrested by the local cops who have by now realized that he is not a U.S. Marshal and that he is using a fake credit card. The cops grill him while Sam goes to talk to the husband of the woman suspected of being the lady in white.

While being questioned by the detective, Dean finds an important clue in their father's journal which the police are using to interrogate him. He then escapes custody by unlocking his handcuffs with a paper clip (a trope which I do not enjoy seeing as I think it is overused and implausible) when the detective has to rush off because they got a 911 call about shots fired. Turns out the call came from Sam which Dean jokingly admonishes him for. Sam is heading out to the burial site to dispose of the lady in white by salting her bones and burning them.

As Sam drives he passes through the ghost who stood in the road to block his car. Then she appears in his back seat and demands that he "take her home" he refuses. She takes control of the car and drives to her house anyway. He tells her she can't hurt him because he's never been unfaithful. She tells him he will be and proceeds to sexually assault him then try to rip out his heart. Just in time, Dean shows up and shoots at the ghost, which chases it away just long enough for Sam to drive the car into the farmhouse. There, the woman picks up a photograph of herself with her two children. Then she starts attacking the boys, but the children are there. They run to her and I can only assume what happens is that they've drug her down to hell because they disappear into a puddle in the floor with a fiery fury.

As they drive away, Dean tells Sam where their father's coordinates are and says if they book it they can be there by the next day. Sam says he has to get back for his Law School interview and Dean agrees to drop him off. The show ends as Sam, having just entered his apartment lays down on his bed. The same blood dripping from the ceiling makes him look up and see his girlfriend Jess trapped just as his mother had been before combusting in the exact same manner. As the firefighters douse the flames, Sam is at the back of his brother's car looking at weapons. Dean approaches and Sam tells him, "We'd better get a move on." an indication that he has changed his mind about going to law school in the wake of this tragedy. This is where the show ends.

Some final notes: I didn't really like the way Sam's character starts off. He comes off as a bit of a snob. Understandably, it is because he wants to get away from his childhood and the way he was raised, but I really like his character later in the show and was disappointed that he came off as a bit of a prick in this one. Dean comes off much better, even if he is that kind of character that just exudes toxic masculinity. I did like the way, even at this early stage, the Impala was treated almost like a character all to itself. This is an important detail as the show progresses and especially going into the 5th season finale, so I thought this was an especially nice touch. 

When they read the newspaper article about the woman's suicide it said that she left her two young children in the bathtub unattended for too long and they drowned, then the woman was so distraught that she took her own life. However, seeing the ages of the children when their ghosts showed up to drag their mom to hell, there's no way anyone would buy that story. A child of three or under might drown, but there's no way a child three years older than that would. Not in a bathtub at any rate. I also noticed that the husband while being questioned became aggressive when Sam suggested that the wife had murdered the children, I think this indicates that he knows his wife murdered their kids.