Supernatural Summary S1 E14 – “Nightmare”

Today’s summary comes courtesy of Zeroth, who kindly took over the task for me. I’ve added counts, but if you want all the luscious screenshots, you gotta click the link.

Thank you, Zeroth!

Content note: suicide, interpersonal violence, child physical abuse

This week,  Sam’s nightmares are coming true, people are dying, and Dean gets shot.

The cold open starts with an ordinary oldish car being driven at night through a suburban neighborhood. The middle-aged man driving the car pulls into his garage. As the garage door closes, the doors suddenly get locked and will not let him out.

The engine turns back on and the exhaust starts suffocating the man. He struggles to get out of the car, eventually succumbing to the fumes.

Death by Monstrosity: 1

After a flash of light, Sam wakes up, sweaty, in yet another seedy motel room. He pushes Dean to get up and get to the victim Sam just dreamed about.

In the Impala, Sam pretends to be a Michigan state trooper and calls in the license plate details he saw in his dream.

Dean insists it’s just a nightmare, not a premonition. Sam confirms the victim exists and gets the address. Sam asks how far away they are, and Dean says a couple of hours.

Sam glares meaningfully almost into the camera and says, “Drive faster”. As the Impala pulls up, Sam and Dean watch the emergency crews as they process the death of the man Sam saw in his premonition.

The brothers casually ask what happened and get the story from onlookers. Sam’s dream was accurate, but everyone thinks its a suicide. Sam emotes and walks away.

Sam and Dean discuss the premonition and the murder Sam saw. Sam angsts over not being able to save the guy before he died.

The next morning, Sam and Dean show up at the house in priest costumes, with Sam muttering about how this is a new low for them. Dean gives the alter-egos of “Father Simmons and Father Freely”, which is a KISS band reference(Gene Simmons and Ace Frehly).

Excellent costumes and fake names, Dean
KISS at last

As the brothers socialize with the family and friends, they dig into the apparent suicide for details, looking for ghosts or other supernatural signs. Sam talks to the bereaved son, while Dean flirts with the now-single wife.

Definitely Hetero Dean:1

Dean gets no clues that point towards ghosts or demons, so he heads upstairs with a very fancy and advanced EMF meter… that we never see again. It even has a camera and green lasers and everything!

With no clues, the brothers return to their motel, where we see Dean cleaning and oiling their arsenal. It appears to be quite a few guns and is spread across one of their beds.

Toxic Masculinity: 1

Suddenly, Sam gets an intense, spiking headache, and he gets a vision of the Jim’s brother, Roger Miller. A shadowed figure whooshes across our view dramatically, whereupon Roger turns around and doesn’t see anything. He closes and locks a window in his kitchen. Something invisibly unlocks and opens the window.

He turns, looking a bit creeped out. He tries to shut the window, and failing, sticks his head outside, looking up. The window comes slamming down, we get a spurt of blood and a brief glimpse of the head rolling into a flowerbed.

After a flash of light, Sam gasps out that something is going to kill Roger. As the brothers drive to Roger’s house, Dean checks in on Sam, using distancing humor, pretending to care about the upholstery if Sam vomits in the car.

Brotherly Love: 1

Sam opens up about his concerns about the premonitions he’s experiencing , and why he’s getting them. Dean tries to reassure him, that they will deal with this, and pretends that the whole situation doesn’t freak him out.

Toxic Masculinity: 2

The brothers pull up, calling to Roger, who tries to evade them, thinking they are priests.

Foiled, they use a fire escape to try to reach Roger’s apartment in time. Unfortunately, as they’re running, they hear a slam, and find the dead body. Realizing that the police will be checking for fingerprints, they start cleaning the evidence they were there.

Death by Monstrosity: 2

Blood and Gore: 1

The brothers are pretty sure its something about the family. Dean says its a curse, which leads Sam to observe that both their families are cursed. Dean says its just some dark spots, where Sam says, “Our dark spots are pretty dark”

The next morning, back in their priest costumes, Sam and Dean talk to Jim’s son, Max. They ask after anything unusual, and he starts obviously lying to them.

The brothers drive off to interview the neighbors about the Millers at their last house. One of the neighbors tells them that he saw and heard Jim and Roger beating Max, and how the stepmother, Alice Miller, would just let it happen. The neighbor also tells them that Max’s real mother died in an accident.

Sam starts getting another premonition.He sees Max confronting his step mother for not stopping the abuse. The knife she was using starts vibrating until it floats in the air, menacing her. Then she dies. Sam and Dean race to save her before Max attacks. Sam empathizes and understands Max’s choices. He wants Dean to not kill Max, while Dean insists Max is a monster.

Toxic Masculinity: 4

The brothers burst in before he can start menacing his stepmother. Unfortunately, Max sees Dean’s gun, and realizes what they’re planning. Dean draws the gun, which is taken away by Max’s telekinesis.

Sam tries to talk Max down, by empathizing and relating his own situation, his own visions. Sam convinces Max to let Dean and Alice (Max’s stepmother) go upstairs.

Max eventually tells Sam that after his powers appeared, his father, Jim, beat him the week before. And then Max tells how his mother burned to death above his crib, just like Mary Winchester.

Unfortunately, despite the bond Sam builds with Max, he’s too desperate and angry to let it just be over. He starts walking upstairs, while locking Sam in the closet with his telekinesis.

Toxic Masculinity: 5

Max walks into the bedroom where Dean is tending to Alice’s injuries, and throws Dean against the wall. Max floats the gun into the air, pointed at Alice. Dean tries to step in between, and tells Max, “You want to kill her, go through me first.”

Toxic Masculinity: 6

Max says, “OK”, and shoots Dean in a bloody headshot.

As the camera lingers over dead Dean, there is a flash of light, indicating the end of a vision for Sam. In desperation, Sam yells defiantly and moves the armoire that was in front of the closet doors using the power of his mind.

Sam manages to stop Max from shooting Dean in time by barging in, and starts trying to reason with Max again.

Finally, Max agrees with Sam, and uses his powers to shoot himself in the head.

Death by Monstrosity: 3

The next scene is Alice tearfully giving the brothers a cover story to the cops, that they had wrestled with the gun until Max turned it on himself. The brothers both look awkwardly on as Alice grieves, “I lost everyone.”

As they walk out, Sam berates himself for not saying the exact right thing to change Max’s mind. Sam points out how lucky the two of them were for John. Under the same situation as what Max and his father went through, John saved and loved his boys, protected them, and raised them to defend themselves. Sam observes that they turned out okay thanks to John Winchester[Editor: HAH.]

Sam observes that whatever killed Mary and Jessica and Max’s mother, maybe it was after Sam and Max, for their powers.

Dean reassures Sam that they’ll find their mother’s killer, and kill it. Betraying a long cycle of lies and deception, Sam tells Dean about his telekinetic powers that got him out of the closet. Dean is visibly unsettled, before he starts cracking a joke.

Toxic Masculinity: 7

“Healthy Processing Of Our Emotions”: 1

Sam worries he’ll turn out like Max, and Dean says that Sam has something Max never had – Dean. Dean promises nothing bad will happen to Sam while he’s around. [Editor: HAH x2]

Dean breaks the tension by insisting they should go to Vegas because of Sam’s visions.

FIN

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Supernatural Summary S1 E14 – “Nightmare”
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