#Writer Ron Milbauer

[my-supernatural-rewatch]

Episode Five: Bloody Mary

Dean Winchester in the Supernatural episode Bloody Mary

Never one of my favorites but on this rewatch I realized it's actually pretty damn scary.

A child's game of Bloody Mary unleashes the vengeful spirit of a woman who travels through mirrors and seeks revenge on those with guilty secrets.

This one will probably not be that long either.

Right out the gate, we get concerned Dean who wants to talk about Sam and all the bad dreams he's having. Sam isn't very forthcoming. Big surprise.

I know we get a lot of "no chick flick moments" and all from Dean in the dialogue. But we also get Dean consistently saying to Sam basically "LET'S TALK ABOU THIS" so the narrative that Dean doens't like to talk about his or anyone else's feelings is already dispelled within the first five episodes of the first season yet it stuck to Dean for the entire series.

Make it make sense.

Right here is where I'm going to remind anyone who might come across this and decide to read it that I am not writing full synposes of the episodes so if you haven't actually seen the episodes there's a good chance you will be lost reading these posts if you're looking for any semblance of a plotline. This is definitely one of those posts that will completely confuse you if you don't know the episode. Sorry/not sorry.

I'm wondering if this is the only episode where we see the brothers bribe someone? It probalby isn't but at least it's the first. Sam bribes the coroner's assistant with money Dean won in a poker game.

Which gives us more of Sam trying to take the moral highground when Dean complains that it's HIS money by dismissing it becuase Dean won it playing poker. As if that isn't working for the money.

Christ, Sam.

Also on Sam: Yet another episode where he changes his voice when talking to the family of the victim so he sounds more sympathetic. How did ai never notice this before?

Cute brothers moment in the bathroom when they're both standing in front of the mirror talking about Bloody Mary and both refuse to say the words.

Okay, an important plot point: Bloody Mary only kills people with a terrible secret that they're absorbed with guilt over. Spoiler: Sam feels guility because he had dreams of Jessica on the ceiling burning for days before she died and he not only didn't warn her but he also took the fuck off with his brother to find their missing father who isn't really fucking missing. (Hey, does this mean we can pin Jessica's death on John?)

Another Dean myth dispelled in this episode is his intelligence. I mean they already pretty much have shown us Dean's no dunce, but in this ep he spends a LOT of time doing research, absorbing the material, and explaining things. And in one scene, he decides to do a national search for dead women fitting Bloody Mary's profile, against Sam's judgement...and THAT is how they figure out who she is.

Check out the big brain on Dean, motherfuckers!

They drive from Toledo, Ohio to Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and back to interview someone, and my geography knowledge is so limited that I had to Google how long that would take. In one of what I would guess is one of their shorter trips, it's only about 3 hours round-trip. (THESE are the things I'm thinking about while watching the show?)

The name of this week's damsel in distress is...Charlie. I get there were over 300 episodes of this show but it drives me nuts how often they re-use names. (Amelia anyone?) Anyway...

Using his patented compassion and soft looks Dean's the one who gets Charlie to admit the thing she's guilty about (a troubled boyfriend who threatend to kill himself if she left him and then who DID kill himself after she responded "Go ahead").

In the Impala, the brothers are discussing how to call out the spirit and Sam says he has the guilt so he'll do the summoning. Dean has had enough of his emo, fatalistic bullshit so he stops the car and tells Sam to fess up his secret for fuck's sake.

Dean's concerns are that the spirit will kill Sam, and he reminds Sam that it isn't his fault that Jessica died. Someone should tell Dean we've decided it's John's fault because what does Dean say?

"Why don't you take a swing at ME? I'm the one who dragged you away from her in the first place."

Setting up a decades-long argument among SPN fans who think Sam made his own decision because he wanted to go back to hunting and those who blame Dean for goddamn everything.

To be fair to Sam, his response is, "I don't blame you."

Thanks for that, Sammy. (That's from me, not Dean.)

Dean really doesn't want Sam to call out the spirit but Sam is damned and determined to. It feels less like he's doing it to save poor first Charlie and more like he's doing it because he feels like he shoudl be punished for what he did (or really in this case didn't) do.

And thus begins the storyline of emo Sam feels guilty about everything that isn't his fault for the next two seasons culminating in Dean going to hell...

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Inside the antique shop where Mary's mirror is supposed to be, Sam is trying to call her out while Dean goes outside to talk to the cops who have shown up since someone is mucking about in the shop. When he can't convince the cops that he is the adopted son of Mr. Yamashiro, Dean knocks both cops out.

How often has Dean (or Sam) done this? I feel like not often.

We're also on a steady stream of slowly showing how well Dean can handle himself in a fight and I'm here for it.

Hey back to smart Dean (and skipping over pretty much the rest of the story): He breaks the first mirror that Mary appears in when she seems to have Sam in his trance and it gets Sam out of his trance, but it doesn't kill her. She shows up again and Dean...not Sam, Dean, gets the idea to hold another mirror up to her...and she kills herself when she looks in it.

Dean is a smarty. Stop telling me he isn't.

But not that smart...this time he only gets a handshake from the woman he saved...not even a kiss on the cheek. Oh well, Dean. Better luck next time.

We end the episode with Dean asking Sam what it is he feels guilty about...what his secret is, and Sam says this:

"Look...you're my brother and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep to myself."

Two things: Sam telling Dean he'd die for him is kind of huge. Up until now, he's been acting like Dean is an inconvenience. So I loved hearing that. But, again, we get Sam not opening up to Dean about his secret...and yet fandom lore is that Dean is the one who always refuses to open up.

Some notes for posterity:

The significant music from this episode comes from Def Leppard -Rock of Ages (the first but not the last time we hear this one!), Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down, and The Rolling Stones - Laugh, I Nearly Died.

The brothers pose as medical students from Ohio State but don’t give out their names. When they introduce themselves to the first victim's family, they give their first names and say they worked with the victim. When Dean is talking with the police he tells them he's the adopted son of Mr. Yamashiro.

This hunt takes place in Toledo, Ohio, and they take a trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Dean wears John’s jacket in this episode.

[bustyasianbeautiespod]

BABPod S1 Recap: Misogyny Awards

Dean ended Supernatural S1 with 33 total misogyny points accumulated over 22 episodes.

Meanwhile, Sam only accumulated 5.5 points, from exactly 2 episodes.

A breakdown of misogynies per writer shows that David Ehrman won big in his one episode, while John Shiban and Eric Kripke also often wrote Dean and/or Sam as misogynistic.

[click image for quality]

[ID: A table with columns Writer, Awards, # Episodes Written, Dean Misogynies, Sam Misogynies, Total (combined between the brothers) Misogynies, DM/episode, SM/episode, and Total M/episode. The data goes

John Shiban: 5 episodes written. 6.5 DMs (1.3 per ep), 5 SMs (1 per ep), and 11.5 total Ms (2.3 per ep). Awards: #1 Total M, #1 SM/ep, #2 Total M/ep. Eric Kripke: 4 episodes written. 9 DMs (2.25 per ep), 0 SMs. Awards: #3 Total M, #2 DM/ep, #3 Total M/ep. Sera Gamble and Raelle Tucker: 4 episodes written. 3.5 DMs (0.875 per ep), 0 SMs. No awards. Ron Milbauer and Terri Hughes Burton: 2 episode written. 3 DMs (1.5 per ep), 0 SMs. Awards: #3 DM/ep. Richard Hatem: 2 episodes written. No misogynies. All writers below have only written one episode each. Rachel Nave and Bill Coakley: No misogynies. No awards. Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner: 0 DMs, 0.5 SMs. Awards: #2 SM/ep. Trey Callaway: 1 DM. No awards. Daniel Knauf: No misogynies. No awards. David Ehrman: 10 DMs, 0 SMs. Awards: #2 Total M, #1 DM/ep, #1 Total M/ep. Cathryn Humphris: 1 DM. No awards.

/end ID]

Thank you for coming to the first BABPod Misogyny Awards, and we’ll see you next time!

[typographyinframes]

Idle Hands (1999) - Director: Rodman Flender Writer: Terri Hughes Burton, Ron Milbauer

[kane-and-griffin]

HOT TAKE: 407 is one of the best Kabby episodes ever

Y’all I just finished watching 407 and I’m here to tell you I would like us to keep Ron Milbauer and Terri Burton, the new writers who penned this episode, FOREVER AND EVER because they understand Marcus Kane and Abby Griffin down the deepest marrow of their bones and I am here for it.

First of all, let’s start with the mother/daughter feels because GOOD GOD.  Remember “you may be the Chancellor, but I’m in charge”?  Remember that half-assed Polis hug last season?  Okay, now contrast that with the Clarke we got tonight, who ditched Roan at the Rover to do all the barrel-unloading so she could get to the lab and hug her mom sooner.  Let’s talk about how Clarke verbally, explicitly, canonically, needs her mother.  Let’s talk about Clarke worrying whether Abby is sleeping enough, being concerned that she’s not as fine as she appears to be, reluctant to leave her even long enough to take a shower and get something to eat because she just wants to be with Abby.  Let’s talk about Clarke understanding why her mother is so tormented by the decision to take a life and standing right by her side, full of unquestioning support and faith in her mother’s skills, even removing from Abby the burden of having to choose which of them is expendable.  Let’s talk about how few episodes in four seasons have shown us a Clarke who values and appreciates and respects Abby. 

Also let’s talk about the Kellamy of it all????  Like oh my God???  Let’s talk about how hard Kane has worked to put behind him the person he used to be on the Ark, and how long it’s been since he really, truly had to confront the reality that just wanting to be a better man doesn’t erase the things he did back before he was that man. Let’s talk about how two contradictory things can be true at the same time, about how Bellamy can simultaneously feel respect and affection and trust for the Kane he knows now and also never be able to erase the memory of what Kane did to his mother.  Let’s talk about the “I’m sorry” outside the Rover in the rain and just how many different things are contained inside that, how many things Kane is trying to apologize for.  Let’s talk about how Bellamy’s desperation to save those two stranded men because he’s afraid he can’t save Octavia is a direct mirror for the way Kane begs Bellamy not to go out after them, not to risk his life, not to get out of the Rover, trying to protect Bellamy as a way to atone for all the people he hasn’t been able to save.  Let’s talk about how this whole season has been chock full of delicious Season 1 throwbacks and this stark reminder of Ark!Kane is one of them.  Let’s talk about how Kane, who hitherto has had some beautiful material but not much of an arc, is now squarely in a position where he has to face the two different versions of himself: the man he used to be, who did awful things he still torments himself for, but was an effective leader . . . or the man he wants to be, who is kind and decent and loving and wants peace and believes in the goodness of people, but who has watched every single thing he tried to build get destroyed, from the Grounder truce to Arkadia itself.

Let’s talk about the possibilities Jaha brings into this - Jaha who made Ark!Kane who he was, in some ways that were genuinely terrible, but also has shown this season that he’s a demonstrably more crafty and intuitive politician, and maybe we’re about to see what happens when they recognize how much they need each other.

And let’s talk about Dad Kane and Harper, another kid who needs him, another person he’s trying to save.  Let’s talk about Kane the Chancellor, who never stops working for his people, who just wants everyone to be okay, who is trying so hard to hold this fractured group of broken terrified people together. Let’s talk about “who we want to be doesn’t always win,” about how he gets punched in the heart by his grieving son, saying something he’s been needing to say and that Kane has been needing to hear for a long, long time, which has forced Kane to look head-on at the man he used to be - a man he doesn’t like very much, a man who made terrible choices - and recognize that wanting to erase that past doesn’t actually erase it, but it’s still important that you try.  Harper did everything right and a man still died, and there is nothing he can say to make that right, nothing he can do except tell her, “This feels brutally unfair because it is brutally unfair.”  And yet he also needs her to know what he tried so hard to tell Bellamy, that sometimes there are people you want to save and can’t and it will feel like it is your fault but it is not actually your fault.

And let’s talk about Kabby!  Yes, we want them back together, yes, this separation is making all of us crazy, but that scene over the radios was absolute gold.  It was the most Kabby that has ever Kabby’d.  Let’s talk about how the plot requiring these two be apart is annoying, but necessary (Kane is the Chancellor and Abby is the science goddess and their stories are geographically separated for reasons that are clearly legit), and how a lesser show that gave less of a shit about their adults would just be like “welp guess they’re apart for half a dozen episodes, who cares,” but instead the writers have chosen over and over to treat that separation as a plot point.  To show us both of them dealing with that separation.  To see how the separation affects their relationship.  

Let’s talk about these two being married as hell, two fucked-up but emotionally mature adults in steady and grounded love with each other, who know each other on so deep and profound a level that it is heart-shattering.  Let’s talk about Kane telling Abby her greatest strength is her humanity.  Let’s talk about Abby knowing that Kane is the only person she trusts to advise her on a question this huge and terrifying.  Let’s talk about how her hands stop shaking when she hears his voice. Let’s talk about how the line in the trailer we hear her say to Raven is another one of those classic Kane-and-Abby-use-each-other’s-words-in-times-of-crisis . . . like “there has to be another way,” like “they need someone to show them the way out of the dark.” 

Let’s talk about how Kane goes straight from being confronted by Bellamy (“you floated my mother”) into a sober and honest conversation with Abby about how careful you have to be when you make the choice to take a life.  Let’s talk about how in that moment he is the most fully Marcus Kane he has ever been, he’s the warm kind man who loves her and he’s the adopted father trying to protect his children and he’s the Chancellor leading his people but he is also the man who floated Aurora Blake on the Ark and ordered the Culling, and she knows that, which is why she asked him.  

Let’s talk about how every single thing that makes Abby Griffin who she is (her humanity, her empathy, her brilliance as a doctor, her scientific mind, her love for Clarke, her abhorrence for violence, her desire to save everyone, her relentlessness, her deep intuitive understanding of Marcus) and every single thing that makes Marcus Kane who he is (the way his past never stops haunting him, his desire to save Bellamy from making the mistakes he made himself, his empathy, his protectiveness of the kids, his leadership abilities as Chancellor, his stubbornness, his implicit faith that Abby will always do the right thing) were on display in tonight’s episode, no matter how painful it was to watch.  

[my-supernatural-rewatch]

Episode Two: Wendigo

Dean Winchester in the Supernatural episode Wendigo

Stealing this synopsis straight from Fandango:

Sam and Dean follow the coordinates left in their father's journal and land in the middle of the Colorado woods where they investigate the disappearance of several campers.

This is one of those episodes that I used to think I didn't like that much, but we actually get some good insight into Dean here.

While the first episode really tries to make Dean a stereotype, we get a better look at what makes him tick in this ep.

But first a little bit about the story.

I'm confused about Sam. Did he go to Jessica's funeral? He dreams about visiting her grave and then Dean brings up that they spent a week at Stanford after she died looking for the thing that killed her...but did he stick around for the services? Becasue the end of the Pilot episode and the beginning of this one make it seem like he didn't.

Does Jessica's family think he had something to do with her death? Becasue in the pilot episode it looks like he bails while they're still fighting the fire.

From the start of this one, the brother's following coordinates John left them, Dean's belief is that once they find John he'll 'know what to do.'

So they show up at the ranger station near where John is sending them and Dean's first reaction is to be impressed with a photo depicting a huge grizzly bear. I love that Dean never fails to let the most simple things impress him. But it's also sad. This guy grew up knowing monsters were real and he still has enough interest in the world to be excited by a giant grizzly.

When the ranger gives them the skinny on the "Hailey girl" looking for her brother, Dean immediately goes into hunter mode, tricking the ranger into giving him her contact info. For some inexplicable reason except Sam is just being a dick, Sam literally asks Dean if he's "Cruising for a hookup" instead of making the correct assumption that Dean thinks this woman's missing brother could be related to their missing father.

A common thread so far in these episodes is Sam immediately thinking the worst of Dean's intentions and given what we come to find out about the way Dean was the one who pretty much raised Sam I'm wondering what bug is up Sam's ass because he acts like he doesn't know his brother at all and we've already established it's only been two years since they had significant contact.

Sam has no interest in helping Hailey. He just wants to bail and go find John. (Where, Sam? You're following the instructions John gave you. How do you think you're going to find him otherwise?)

Dean is concerned about his brother...because of course he is...because he's in 'shoot first, ask questions later' mode and it isn't like him.

And now I get to talk about Dean with women. This episode is the first where Dean has significant interactions with a woman he isn't interrogating and it doesn't come across the way his reputation would suggest.

Hailey immediately impresses Dean by noting that is car is 'nice.' Based on his response, she already gained some respect from him. When she tells him she hired a tracker and is going to find her brother, he again is impressed with her taking control and not being afraid to go out there herself. He isn't leering at her, he isn't trying to cop a feel, he doesn't hit on her at all.

Sam, of course, was wrong. Dean is doing his job.

At one point during a conversation about what the monster could be, Sam uses the word corporeal, seemingly expecting Dean to not know what it means. He does, and even uses it back at Sam, but not before teasing him by calling him 'professor' for dropping a big word like that.

Sam wants to tell Hailey she can't go look for her missing brother, but Dean puts the kibosh on it, knowing she won't go for it.

"Her brother's missing. She's not gonna sit this out, Sam. We go with her- we protect her."

Episode two...TWO of the damn series and Dean is making it crystal clear to Sam that the job is protecting other people. But Sam isn't buying it.

"So finding Dad's not enough? Now we got to babysit too?"

Oh the glare that Dean glares at Sam after that. He's been doing this much longer than Sam and he is protective of what the job means. Sam's memory seems to be very short in that area.

Dean is all in on the whole "saving people" thing (I'll get to that in a minute) and seems genuinely annoyed that Sam doesn't get it.

When they all meet up in the woods to find Hailey's brother/possibly John/whatever is out there, Dean calls Hailey sweetheart. It feels like this is supposed to convey how Dean sees women. How he treats them.

And maybe it would have worked had there not already been scenes where Dean made it clear he respected Hailey. But there are...so it doesn't.

Hailey rightfully points out that 'biker boots and jeans' are not appropriate clothing for a hike, and Dean responds with, "Well, sweetheart, I don't do shorts" as he looks down at what he's wearing and realizes he is dressed inappropriately. He was being defensive, not misogynistic. Not in this episode, anyway.

When she finally calls him out for not actually being a park ranger and he fesses up by admitting he and Sam are brothers and they're looking for their father, his sincerity immediately convinces her when he admits:

"That's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman...ever."

Cute little Dean moment I didn't want to let go by. Hailey accuses him of not bringing any provisions and he pulls out an already opened, half-empty bag of Peanut M&M's...a man after my own heart.

Interesting to note that 20 minutes into the episode and they still have no idea what the monster is.

When they find the blood covered camp spot of her brother, Dean comforts Hailey when she's crying while Sam is under a tree being all emo.

There's something else that happens throughout the episode and, again, we're only at episode two, that I think a lot of fans forget when it comes to Dean. Sam might come across as the quiet, smart, one, but Dean knows his shit too (I'd argue better than Sam but that's for another day). He knows as much about Wendigos as Sam does...and the only reason Dean didn't land on the monster being a Wendigo was because he was being too literal and knew Wendigos didn't usually appear in that part of the country. So, yeah, Sam figured it out, but Dean would have too. (And Dean and Sam together explain what a Wendigo is and Dean's the one who tells Hailey how they can kill it.)

Sam goes from emo to pissy again and Dean has to get him away from the dick measuring contest he has with the tracker, telling him to "chill out." Dean is super composed in this ep compared to Sam and even says to his brother, "I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?"

Up until a certain point in the episode, all Sam wants to do is leave to go find John. (Again, with no idea on how exactly to do that.) We are still here right now. Sam doesn't care about the wendigo or Hailey's brother, he wants to go find John and he doesn't understand how Dean can put that aside to help these people.

And here is where Dean's motivation is laid out for us plain and simple.

He shows Sam John's journal:

"This is Dad's single most valuable possession. Everything he knows about every evil thing is in here. And he's passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people, hunting things. The family business."

And when Sam questions why John doesn't just show the fuck up and tell them what to do (something I agree with Sam about!), Dean says:

"I don't know. But the way I see it, Dad's giving us a job to do, and I intend to do it."

People like to talk about how Dean wants to be John at this point and how Dean will just blindly follow his orders. But in these quotes, in this scene, is obvious to me that Dean is so attached to John, among other reasons, because Dean sees the bigger picture. As much as we think he was, and as much as we discover how obsessed John was about finding Mary's killer, John wasn't always just led by revenge. He taught Dean (and you would think Sam) that helping people, trying to prevent what happened to the Winchesters from happening to other people, was not just a worthwhile endeavor...but an important responsibility.

And holy shit I can't believe I just defended John Winchester.

But back to Dean. Sam isn't buying any of this and tells Dean the only thing he can focus on is revenge.

And here is where Dean does something everyone seems to ignore or forget about.

DEAN WARNS SAM ABOUT STAYING ANGRY

"...this search could take a while, and all that anger, you can't keep it burning over the long haul. It's gonna kill you. You gotta have patience, man."

Sam sincerely asks Dean how he does it and, again, we're reminded that Dean truly believes in what he's doing.

AND IT'S ONLY EPISODE TWO

He tells Sam he does it for 'them' (referring to Hailey and her brothers, but meaning all the people who need help).

"I mean, I figure our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little bit more bearable."

Helping people helps Dean cope with how shitty everything is.

Although then he does then add: "What else helps is killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."

Establishing that John has successfully convinced Dean that killing is a necessary part of the job that is also satisfying to him.

He raised killers. They kill for a reason, sure, but they are still killers.

I feel like that gets forgotten a LOT within the fandom.

Some interesting notes: Sam was the one in peril in the first episode when the Woman in White gets him in the car, and now it's Dean getting nabbed with Hailey by the Wendigo. When Sam finds them, and cuts Dean down, Dean for a moment is genuinely hurt. Grunting, having trouble moving, something that doesn't happen a lot in later episodes. It's almost realistic.

Also, being in the cave and dragged away by the Wendigo causes Dean to get covered in dirt again...two episodes in a row where he gets all mucked up while Sam stays pristine. Did Jared Padalecki get that written into his contract? (It's reminiscent of the movie Ghostbusters where all the actors get smothered in marshmallow except for Bill Murray.) But I digress.

Dean uses both bastard and bitch to call out the Wendigo while Sam leads the siblings to safety. I feel like they use the word bitch so much because back in 2005 people were less likely to complain about the misogyny of it and it was one of the few swears they could get away with using on television.

Doesn't mean I don't get pissed off every time I hear it.

In his efforts to get the three siblings to safety, Sam basically abandons Dean to the Wendigo. I mean, it works out that Dean is the one who saves them all by shooting it in the stomach with a flare gun but, wtf Sam? They were running in the right direction. Your brother was all alone.

This episode has the first "person who got saved kisses Dean" moment after Hailey tells him she doesn't know how to thank him.

Dean's resposne to her saying that is to just smirk and she responds by saying, "Must you cheapen the moment?" to which Dean responds, "Yeah," with a smile.

That she kisses him goodbye (on the cheek) and sincerely tells him she hopes he finds his father shows she didn't take him seriously. He wasn't being a lech, he was just being Dean.

The episode ends with Dean, once again, trying to protect Sam's feelings by reassuring him that they will find John.

We're already establishing Dean as a lot more than comic relief in episode two. And Jensen Ackles is not-so-slowly showing us how much he can do with this character.

Some notes for posterity:

We get what I believe is Sam's first "Check this out" in this episode. (the precursor to 'get this')

Dean offers to let Sam drive the Impala at the beginning of the episode and Sam refuses but at the end of the episode Sam insists on driving and Dean lets him.

The significant music from this episode comes from Foreigner - Hot Blooded and Rush - Fly By Night

The brothers pose as Environmental Studies majors from UC Boulder at the rangers office and then tell Hailey that they are Park Rangers, and give her their real first names.

There is a movie reference, but Dean doesn't make it directly. During Sam's dream about visiting Jessica's grave, when he places the flowers down her hand comes shooting out from the ground: just like the ending of the movie Carrie.

This hunt takes place in Lost Creek, Colorado.

Dean briefly wears John's jacket in this episode.

We get Sam's first "Dean!" in this episode when the Wendigo takes him.

Recognizable Guest Stars in this episode: Corey Monteith and Donnelly Rhodes

[bustyasianbeautiespod]

Episode 5 Transcript: Carmen the Sewer Lady

[intro guitar music]

G: Hello, my name is Grey,

C: and my name is Crystal,

G: And this is Busty Asian Beauties, a Supernatural commentary podcast, where I, someone who has seen this show several times,

C: and, I, someone who only knows the show through social media, discuss every single episode of Supernatural from start to finish. Also, we are both Asian.

G: We are both Asian.

-

G: So for today's episode, we are discussing Season 1, Episode 5: “Bloody Mary,” written by Ron Milbauer and Terri Hughes Burton, directed by Peter Ellis.

C: I'm not familiar with any of those names.

G: Oh, they were both the writers for Season 1 Episode 2.

C: Oh, well, I have a grudge against them now!

G: [laughs] This and that are their only episodes of Supernatural, I think.

C: I guess they're probably heavier on the horror side because I think this is one of the few Supernatural episodes that I felt somewhat scared by, and I know episode 2 had some decent jumpscares, so that makes sense.

G: Yes. I also was a bit scared-

C: Yeah!

G: -actually, because we are doing this podcast, right? The whole time I was watching I was like, "How many times do I have to say Bloody Mary?"

C: Right, no, the whole time I was like, "Well, luckily my computer screen is matte, so it doesn't count as a mirror, so when I'm talking about the podcast, as long as I don't look at my phone screen, which is reflective, I'll be okay."

G: I come from a very superstitious country and family, so this whole thing really freaked me out because of the whole superstitious element. So now I'm like, "Actually, how long between each Bloody Mary are we allowed to give? Like, how many pauses are we gonna do?"

C: [laughing] But- okay, okay. Also, Sam and Dean solved it in 2005, so we're safe.

G: Yeah, so we're safe. And it was centralized in Indiana and Toledo, Ohio, so it's fine.

C: Yeah, right, so we're good.

G: I'm eight thousand miles away!

Before we start, Crystal?

C: Yeah.

G: What were your expectations before going into this episode?

C: Okay, I knew it was a Sam-centric episode, so I was very excited about that. I assumed that it would be based off of, you know, the Bloody Mary figure in urban legend. She was kind of big when I was in middle school, I believe. I also knew that, for some reason, she only attacked people with a terrible secret, and that this is the episode that we were gonna learn that Sam sort of had these psychic visions that predicted Jess's death. And I also saw some glittery gifsets of Sam crying blood which I thought looked really neat, so I was looking forward to that.

-

G: So we start in Toledo, Ohio, as I've mentioned. We open with a bunch of kids playing Truth or Dare in a sleepover. One of them dares the other to say Bloody Mary three times in the bathroom mirror, saying that if you do that, she appears and scratches your eyes out. And then one of them goes to the bathroom and does the Bloody Mary, and her two friends start knocking furiously at the door in an attempt to scare her. So, you know, it's just a bunch of kids goofing around. They all have a little laugh, etc etc, and then one of the dad- well, the dad of one of the girls, Mr. Shoemaker, asks them to tone down the noise.

C: Yeah, and he has bad vibes.

G: He has horrible vibes. Rancid.

C: Let the kids have fun!

G: While he walks back to his room, he passes by a couple of mirrors, and we see- dun-dun-dun!- a woman's figure looking at him. So he goes to the bathroom and notices that the veins under his eyes are popping out. So we cut back to the girls having a sleepover, right. Lily is the girl that is Mr. Shoemaker's daughter, and her sister comes in—so also Mr. Shoemaker's daughter.

C: I have a question about her sister. Is that what hair looks like in 2005? Was that what teenage girls were supposed to do with their hair, because I was like, "What decade are we in?"

G: I loved her look, though.

C: I mean, it was very fun, but I was like, "This feels vintage or something."

G: No, I think it was 2005. She has the look of someone that I would look up to as someone cool back in the day. She's very Y2K but the opposite of Juicy Couture, you know?

C: I only knew what half of those words meant. [G laughs]

G: She goes upstairs, and this sister—her name is Donna, which we find out much much much later, but her name is Donna—and she finds a pool of blood outside the bathroom door. She goes to inspect it and finds her dad dead.

C: And screams.

G: Yeah, and she screams. There was- there were a lot of classic horror screaming in this episode.

C: Right, because, I mean, this is an episode with a lot of teenage girls as characters, and I feel like all of the classic horror screaming is done by teenage girls.

G: What did you think of the teenage girls in this episode, by the way?

C: I.. I don't think they were very realistic.

G: Yeah, but they were stereotypical for the era is what I would say.

C: Perhaps so. Perhaps so. I just- I recall being somewhat off-put by Charlie as soon as she showed up. I was like, "Is that how people talk?" But maybe in 2005, it is.

G: I thought they were fun, the teenagers, because they all have very different personalities. They were very well differentiated. Charlie was this very fearful, you know, believer, and Donna was a skeptic, and Jill was, you know, "Sam and Dean are cute, and you're such a freak!" Yeah, the way she spoke was very, again, Y2K, as I like to say.

C: Yeah, they were all- they were all very much teenage girl archetypes, I would say.

G: Mm-hmm.

C: And I mean, we get to Jill's death later, but I feel like another, I think, horror movie thing is that, you know, how in horror movies, what, it's like the quote-unquote "slutty" girl dies first? I feel like, right, she talks about Sam and Dean being attractive, then they have her take off her pants, and then she dies in her underpants, which is so sad for her? But yeah, I feel like they very much played it up with all the teenage girl horror tropes this episode. Also, the 12-year-old girls... Okay, I don't know, was I just a very sheltered teen? Because I was not talking about making out with boys at age 12. That was way too early for me to do that.

G: I literally- [laughs] I have never talked about making out with boys with anyone.

C: Yeah, right, I, yeah, I've not had that conversation a single time. At age 12, I was definitely too busy screaming "ew!" every time Maria and the Captain kissed in "Sound of Music" to have that kind of conversation.

G: Yeah, I also was the kid who goes "ew" at everything, even until now! [both laugh] And I'm not even a kid anymore!

C: Oh, no, currently... Currently, if I see a kiss on screen, I start covering my eyes before remembering that I'm an adult.

G: I know, I know. Me too. I don't think we're the specified, what, like a sensitivity reader for this episode.

C: [laughing] Right, we are not- we are not a good model of what 12-year-old girls were like.

-

C: Now, we're at a scene that is tinted blue and looks absolutely awful. And it's, um, yeah, so basically, we're seeing Jess's death again but with a terrible filter on it, and then she's breathing a bit, and then she's asking "Why, Sam? Why, Sam?" and then bursts into flame. And Sam wakes up in a start and it turns out that it's a nightmare and he's been having these nightmares all the time.

Speaking of Jess breathing, was she completely dead when she was pinned to the ceiling?

G: Did she have this stab wound in her stomach like Mary?

C: She did have a stab wound in her stomach.

G: Mm. So I'm assuming she was dead on the ceiling.

C: Okay, yeah, so I guess Sam just added the breathing for a bit of guilt and horror.

G: Sam just added the voiceover.

C: Oh, yes, Sam also added the voiceover for the drama of it all.

So yeah, Sam wakes up in the Impala, and Dean's looking at him, seeming concerned, and says, "Sooner or later, we're gonna have to talk about this." I was like, "Aw, it's so nice that apparently when they're younger, they're actually willing to talk about their feelings and be somewhat healthy." They lose that soon.

G: I- this entire episode, I was enamored by Dean.

C: Yeah, me too. I was like, “Healthy communication and checking up on people and being normal? Wild.”

G: In a scene later, I actually started tearing up, like it was that deep for me.

C: Aww. Awwww.

G: So we'll get to it when we get there, but yeah.

C: I think I'm more enamored with Sam this episode, but Dean wasn't bad.

-

C: So they are in Toledo, Ohio, and they are trying to figure out how Mr. Shoemaker died. They head up to the morgue where his body is held.

G: So they walk into the morgue, which is in a beautiful building, and Dean introduces themselves as med students who are here to see the Shoemaker corpse. So the person they're talking to is stubborn and won't let them in to see the corpse, so Sam bribes the guy, and it works! Did you recognize the bill by the way? I don't recognize American currency so...

C: I wasn't paying too much attention, but I thought they were 20s. So he straight up handed this guy like, yeah, 60 or 80 dollars, which I think is too much for a bribe, honestly, but.

G: Wait. I'm doing the conversion in my head right now [laughing], so it's like, around like, 1200 pesos, 1500 pesos, and that's- I think that's fine?

C: I think it's quite a lot of money, honestly, for a bribe, but do morgue techs make good money? Maybe if morgue techs make a lot of money, then it's not that bad, but it's a lot! I would probably- if I was bribing someone, I'd probably just slap down a 20.

G: Okay, this is my correction, by the way. It's not 1200 it's like, 2500, which is a lot. That is a lot.

C: Yeah, it's a lot of money.

G: Almost 3000.

C: I think it's very cute that Sam's engaging in bribery after he judges Dean in episode 1 for doing credit card fraud, and then judges Dean right after the bribery for winning money in poker.

G: Yeah.

C: Like Sam, get over it! [both laugh]

G: I mean he did earn the money, even if he earned it in a poker game. Come on, Sam.

C: Right, like he literally earned it!

G: So they see the Shoemaker corpse, and the eyes were liquefied, and there were no signs of struggle, etc etc. And they get the police report by again bribing the guy some more, which like, you already gave so much money, dude.

C: I know!

-

C: Now they are heading out from the hospital, and Sam considers that it might just be a medical thing, but Dean says that's not possible, like every time Dad's inspected something like this it's always been supernatural. They head to the funeral of the guy who just died, in their leather jacket flannel getup [both laugh], despite the fact that they bought suits last episode and probably could change into them.

C: So they go to the back to talk to the Shoemaker daughters, Donna and Lily. They claim to be coworkers with Mr. Shoemaker and ask Donna about any symptoms of stroke before her dad's death. Then, Lily says that it's her fault and reveals the whole Bloody Mary story and says that it's her fault that he died. Dean says that oh, well it's not your fault, Lily, 'cause your dad's not the one who said it. And then they head out inside the house to inspect.

G: So they take a peek at the bathroom, and they start talking about the Bloody Mary legend. And Sam is the one doing the exposition.

C: Speaking of, was Bloody Mary a thing in your childhood?

G: Uh, I think it was a thing, but it wasn't as pervasive. I personally did not believe it because, I guess, just in my locality, there were other things to believe that were more believable, you know?

C: Yeah.

G: It felt very American, the fact that it's in English and everything. It's like "Bloody Mary." Like, okay, [C laughs] but we have like, nuno sa puns, we have aswang, we have tikbalang, like, you know, there are things that I was more likely to believe.

C: Yeah, I guess-

G: But our fam- like I said, our family was- is- very superstitious, and also believes in the supernatural.

C: Right.

G: So it still did affect me in the fear way because I was like, "oh, remember the Bloody Mary?"

C: Yeah. I feel like the main urban legend figure in my childhood was this girl from one of those chain mails—you know, like, forward this to 10 people or the ghost will kill you—named Carmen. And I remember forming a little club-

G: [laughs] I never heard of this.

C: I think this was very localized-

G: Okay.

C: -and created by one person on the internet. But I remember forming a little club at my weekly Chinese school where I claimed that Carmen was living in the sewers near where we had our recess, and every day we had to chant and feed some of our snacks to her to keep her appeased. [G laughs] And I don't think I believed it! I think I just enjoyed having everyone else throw their snacks in the sewer!

G: Our- my childhood, um, beli- my childhood whatever was in my school. Like, you know, how for some reason, I don't know if this is international or just in the Philippines, but for some reason, there's this rumor that literally in every school, there's a rumor that your school was once a cemetery, like...

C: I don't- I don't remem- I don't think that's a thing.

G: Like I thought it was- it was very local. I thought it was very local, I thought I was just in my school, and then I went to high school to a different school-

C: And there was also that legend?

G: And we were there, and apparently everyone was like, "oh, our school was a cemetery too!" [laughs]

C: Now that I think about it, I feel like there was a rumor at my high school that we were above catacombs? So yeah, maybe just every school has something like that.

G: Yeah, and then the rumor is that, in the bathroom, we had a little girl who haunts it, and I do remember not wanting to go to the bathroom [C laughs] because of that rumor, yeah. That was our school thing. But at home, we- we- at home, we had, if this is common- we had the ancestors thing, so like, your ancestors visit you. So like, it's just that kind of stuff, like, normal stuff.

C: Yeah.

G: I say normal but like, you know what I mean, right? Like that's typical stuff.

C: Yeah, no, no, yeah, like, chill stuff. They're not gonna kill you, you just have to leave out some fruit and incense or whatever.

G: Yeah, exactly, you just have to throw salt when they're getting a little bit feisty, yeah. Shit like that. Anyway...

C: Nice, yeah. Anyway, where are we? Oh, they were talking about the Bloody Mary legend, yes.

-

G: Yeah, they're talking about the Bloody Mary legend, and while Sam says the name, Dean does this bit where he points the mirror at Sam while Sam is about to say Bloody Mary. [both laugh] And then Sam pointedly moves the mirror away from his face and starts referring to Bloody Mary as "you know what," which I thought was so funny.

C: It's so cute.

G: Yeah, go Sam!

C: Um, while they're talking, and, well, they're leaving the bathroom, Charlie, who is one of Donna's friends from the funeral, shows up and asks them what they're doing here and who they are. She reveals that Mr. Shoemaker lived by himself so- or sorry, worked by himself, so there's no way that they could have been coworkers, and threatens to start screaming unless they answer her questions. Then they tell her that they're looking into Mr. Shoemaker's death and they think that something honestly unexplainable could have happened. Charlie asks, "Who are you? Cops?" and Dean says, "Something like that." What did you- what did you think about that scene? I was like, "I'm going to save that scene. I feel it's going to be useful in Supernatural criticisms in the future."

G: Yeah, I think it's, you know, they are, in a way, monster cops, right?

C: Yeah. They're fantasy cops.

G: Yeah.

C: They decide who lives and who dies and what the rules of humanity and goodness are that allow you to be a monster that lives or a monster that gets shot by one of their many guns. But also, I feel like at this point in the show there aren't really any morally gray creatures? Because ghosts it's like, well they're already dead and they're killing people. I feel like later when we get to vampires and werewolves and creatures that I feel like could very much coexist with humans as long as they had some kind of feeding mechanism put in place, then I feel like that's when it gets worse?

G: Yes, I think at this point, because they're just playing around with already typical lore, we don't get much complexity because, you know, Bloody Mary is just a common lore and then they just do a little twist, or that it's local, you know, shit like that. Later on it gets a bit more fuzzy. But at this point, there's two things I noticed at this point was: One, they don't do morally gray characters yet. And two, they have not done a single salt-and-burn.

C: Yeah!

G: Which I thought was interesting, especially this- like we already discussed the first part, but the salt-and-burn part is interesting to me because later on in the show, it's literally all that they do at some point. Like they just salt and burn, at least as far as I can remember. Of course there's always gonna be a twist, but it's pretty much just salt and burn to the point that it's part of the brand of the show already. The fact that they don't start with salt and burns, you know, at the beginning of the show, is pretty interesting.

C: Yeah, like I assumed in episode 1 that they were going to salt-and-burn the woman in white because I knew that as the Supernatural approach to ghosts. And yeah, they haven't done a single one of those yet.

C: So then Sam and Dean give Charlie their number and says that she should call if anything weird happens.

G: So they end up in the library where they're talking about the lore, which is that, you know, Bloody Mary is a woman named Mary who died in front of a mirror. So at this point, literally that could be anyone anywhere. So many people can fit the bill. So they mention that they're gonna have a hard time researching, and Sam is like, "No, not with the computers," which they check and are broken, so they are gonna have a hard time doing research.

-

C: Now, we're to Charlie and Jill—who is another one of Donna's friends—having a conversation on the phone. Jill says that Sam and Dean are cute, and Charlie is talking about Donna's dad's death. Jill starts making jokes about Bloody Mary, and then when Charlie gets scared, decides that it would be funny to go and say it three times into a mirror. And then first we hear Jill scream, but then it turns out she's just playing a prank on Charlie. She hangs up, and then, yeah, so she starts changing for bed, and...

G: Fall Out Boy starts playing...

C: Wait, was that Fall Out Boy?

G: It was Fall Out Boy! I can't believe you don't know Fall Out Boy.

C: I didn't recognize the song.

G: It was, uh, "We're Going Down Swinging." I don't know the actual title, I think it's "Sugar..." I don't know. I don't know the actual title of the song, but it's a Fall Out Boy song.

C: I don't think- I just- I don't think I've really listened to much Fall Out Boy, but yeah, okay, so she's listening to-

G: You were not a Fall Out Boy fan? That is so unlike my perception of you as a person. [laughing]

C: I- wait, what about me screams Fall Out Boy fan?

G: I don't know, you look like someone who would have been into like, the emo, you know. You know.

C: Interesting. No, I was never really into the Fall Out Boy or MCR or anything scene. Honestly, I feel when I was younger, I mostly listened to Taylor Swift, which was- which I regret greatly now.

G: Now that is unlike you.

C: It is unlike me, but that was when she was in her- her Fearless stage, you know, not her current whatever.

G: To be fair, okay- okay, I'm just going to clarify that Grey is a Taylor Swift fan, so if any Taylor Swift fans feel alienated right now, I'm right behind you. It's fine.

C: And I'm gonna clarify that I am not a Taylor Swift fan, and I hope everyone feels alienated. [both laugh] Well, no, actually... Actually, we cover... This is- this is our representation. Representation of Swifties and non-Swifties.

-

C: Um, yeah so she's getting changed for bed. Sadly, she takes off her pants, and then we see Bloody Mary in the mirror. And then Jill sees her reflection, and it's not actually matching her. It's wearing a sinister expression and staying quite still, but it's still her. And then the reflection-

G: It's such a good shot.

C: Yeah, it's such a good shot. I was like, "This is such a clever way of doing this."

G: I was so impressed. I've seen screenshots of this scene, and I was- like every single time I'm like, "That's from Supernatural? It looks so cool!"

C: I know, I was like, "This is- this is high quality stuff." Also, I'm impressed with the filming crew for this episode because I know that filming mirror scenes is difficult because you have to make sure you don't get the camera and the film crew in the mirror, so I think you have to splice together a lot of different parts. Good for them for all their hard work this episode!

C: So Jill's creepy reflection’s eyes start bleeding and accuses Jill of killing a boy, and then she sort of chokes to death-

G: -while blood drips out of her eyes. Okay, so we go back to Sam having the exact same nightmares as earlier, just a bit faster.

C: I really want to know the reasoning behind the blue.

G: [laughs] Yeah.

C: Why?

G: The blue tinge. Okay, let's- let's analyze it, right?

C: [laughs] Yeah.

G: [laughing] I have no idea how to start.

C: Well, you see, the curtains are blue because Sam is sad about Jess's death. Is it-? I don't- blue flame is hotter than yellow and orange flame even though it seems cool, so it's about- it's about unexpected reveals. I don't know. [both laughing] I don't know. It just looks so bad.

G: It does look quite bad, but it is good differentiation of like, "This is a nightmare, and this is not a nightmare," you know.

C: But also I feel like at the beginning, the point was that you don't know it's a night- you're not supposed to really know that it's a nightmare until Sam wakes up. So in that case, I feel like it would make sense to use the original filter.

G: Mm... no, but we know it's gonna be a nightmare-

C: Yeah.

G: -because Sam has had nightmares before, so.

C: That's true.

G: I don't- I'm not defending the choice, like I think it does look bad, but if you want good shots of Jess dying in the ceiling, you already have it in the first episode, so it's fine. AMV makers, you're fine, you know?

C: [laughs] Very true.

G: So he wakes up in a motel room and berates Dean on why Dean let him fall asleep while doing research, and Dean's like, "Because I'm a good brother." And Dean asks him what he's dreaming about. Sam deflects again like he did earlier, and Dean does lore stuff reveal, which is, the only reveal that he does is that they haven't found anything at all relevant to the case. And then Sam receives a call. It's Charlie!

C: It's Charlie.

So they go to the park to talk to Charlie, and she tells them about Jill's death and how it matches Mr. Shoemaker's, and also how she said Bloody Mary three times before said death. Charlie says, "It couldn't be because of that. I'm insane, right?" Dean says, "No, you're not insane" and Charlie says "Oh god, that makes me feel so much worse." And at this point I was like, "I like Charlie. I like Charlie a lot."

So Sam and Dean enlist her help to break into Jill's room so they can inspect it, and she lets them in through the window. They're looking around for something. They have the night vision on on their camera. So Sam's in Jill's bathroom and sees that there seems to be trickles of blood running from behind the mirror. He removes the mirror from the wall and then peels off the back of it and sees on there that there is a handprint and the words Gary Bryman written on it. And then they find out that that's an 8-year-old boy who got run over by a car which was in fact Jill's car, but-

G: Yes.

C: She- it was a hit and run, so she left. And then they go to Donna's house and look at the back of the mirror there, and it's the name Linda Shoemaker and the handprint, who they find out when they talk to Donna was her mother. And also then Donna's quite mad at them for asking, for being there, and she yells them- yells at them to get out of the house.

G: Okay, the implication here is that Mr. Shoemaker killed his wife, you know, because Donna's mom Linda died through an overdose of sleeping pills, as Donna said, but the implication is the father is responsible somehow. But they twist this a little bit later that-

C: Oh, yeah.

G: -he's not necessarily- he could be not necessarily responsible, he could just be guilty, like he feels guilty, not necessarily because he was actually at fault, just like Charlie later on.

C: Yeah, maybe their mother was just very depressed, and he kept that a secret-

G: Yes.

C: -or exacerbated it somehow, and then she committed suicide or something. Yeah, we don't know.

G: And it's never revealed, and I actually do like that. That it's never revealed. It keeps a little bit of a mystery in the episode.

C: Yeah.

-

G: Anyway, Dean does a nationwide search now for a Mary while discussing the lore with Sam- the lore being what we just said earlier. They find a Mary Worthington in Indiana who died in front of a mirror, so they go visit the cop who investigated the case and we get exposition.

C: For some reason he's totally fine with these randos coming into his house and asking him about this cold case. How did they get in?

G: He said they were reporters.

C: Reporters, yeah, but like, oh god, you bought suits, please just wear them sometimes.

G: So Mary was 19, a pageant girl, wanted to be an actress, and was killed alone in her apartment by a person who cut her eyes out. We get more exposition from the police officer and that he thinks is the local surgeon who she may be having an affair with, Trevor Sampson. And this doesn't really matter in the plot, but it's- I thought it was a nice touch. Did you think it was nice or did you think it was like, "ooh, what's the- what's the point?"

C: I thought it was- I thought it was a nice touch. I enjoyed the backstory. I thought that it was a good... it made her a lot more sympathetic, and we understand her motivations and how those could have gotten twisted while she was dead of wanting to kill anyone who had a secret about a death.

G: I thought it was like- I'm a fan of mystery stuff, like I was a Nancy Drew kid, I was an Ace Attorney kid, you know, all that stuff. So I was really into this. I was like, "Ooh, a mystery!" Anyway, we get what we're actually there for, which is the information that Mary was not buried. She was cremated and their mirror was returned to the family. So they can't do a salt-and-burn because the bones were cremated. And they figured out that maybe it's the mirror that she's attached to.

C: So now we're at school where Donna and Charlie are talking. Donna's still very angry that Charlie let Sam and Dean into her house and is also talking about the Bloody Mary thing. Charlie tells her not to say it and Donna's like, "You're crazy, I'm going to say it three times in the mirror." And then she does. Charlie says, "Why would you do that?" and Donna says, "Oh my god, there really is something wrong with you." Very- very mean teenage girl moment. We see Charlie walking through the school, and Bloody Mary is in the reflective windows. Then she's in class, and she sees Bloody Mary in her little makeup mirror.

G: Which- why would you bring out the compact mirror at this point when you know what's happening, right? She's- she's shaken...

C: I guess she just wanted to check.

G: She wanted to check her eye shadow, you know?

C: No, like, she wanted to- she wanted to check if it worked this time?

G: Oh, okay, you're right.

C: Yeah.

G: Yeah, maybe so.

C: So yeah, she checks, and she's in the mirror, she's freaking out, screaming, she picks up a stool and smashes the window of the classroom, which I thought was very good; I enjoyed that. And then her teacher's trying to get her to calm down, and she sees Bloody Mary in the reflection of his glasses. So she runs home, still- still yelling quite a bit.

-

G: So we go to Sam and Dean. And Sam is calling Mary's brother for the mirror who reveals that he sold the mirror to a store in Toledo, so that's the connection.

C: Yeah, just one week ago.

G: The greenscreen in this scene is so bad, by the way.

C: Oh my god, I know. I could see the edges of Sam's face. Like there was an outline. There was lineart.

G: On Dean's side, it's fine,

C: Yeah.

G: But on Sam's face, it looks so bad.

Anyway, they receive a call from Charlie, which, you know, we already know that she's freaking out. So they go to Charlie's house, cover up every mirror in it, and Sam uses his [whispers] ASMR voice to reassure Charlie that Mary won't come after her as long as he doesn't look into a mirror.

C: Yeah.

G: The way Sam speaks in this scene was, I thought was so funny. He- he's like, [whispers] Mary is fine. Like, what- what are you doing, Sam? Why are you whispering, bro?

C: I mean, honestly, I thought it was kind of sweet, like I- he was trying to be comforting, like... Ugh, this is very cringe, but honestly, I was kind of twirling my hair and giggling... [G laughs] Like I thought that he did a good job doing the soothing voice, but to each their own.

G: I hated it because he was like, literally he was doing ASMR, and I was like, "Dude, just speak up! Use your mouth, bro."

C: He didn't want to startle her!

G: Ugh, fine.

C: He was- he was trying to keep her heart rate down, her breathing slow. He was- he was trying to have a good bedside manner.

G: Good for him.

-

G: So Dean interrogates Charlie about what happened in her life to warrant guilt over someone's deaths. So apparently, Charlie had a boyfriend who threatened and pushed through with suicide after she broke up with him. So that's Charlie's backstory.

C: Yeah. I remember writing down "this is so depressing and sad."

G: I know! It's very sad, isn't it? Sorry if this episode isn't funny.

C: Yeah.

G: This episode is very sad.

C: Yeah, I don't know how to be funny about this episode 'cause I feel so bad for Charlie!

So she's crying, and then they leave, and they discuss how Charlie's boyfriend's death isn't directly her fault the way that the boy's death was Jill's fault in the hit and run. So they decide that the ghost probably just operates by some pretty broad rules of "if you have a secret about someone's death, then you die." Sam decides that the best way to get rid of Mary is to first summon her to her original mirror before smashing it, and Dean's like, "okay, sure, but who's gonna summon her?" And Sam says, "I will. She'll come after me."

G: Oooh!

C: Oooh! Yeah, no, he's got the- he's got the whole locked jaw, unblinking emotional thing going on, and Dean, yeah, no, is a good brother, and goes "okay, that's it" and pulls the car over to have a bit of- a give Sam a bit of a pep talk, and says, "this wasn't your fault, you have to get better, this is going to kill you." He says, "If you want to blame something, then blame the thing that killed her, or hell, why don't you take a swing at me? I mean I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first place." Which is, aww, Dean.

G: This is the part where I started tearing up. I was like, "Oh my gosh... It's a brother moment, guys!" [spluttering] I was- I was tearing up.

C: God, yeah.

G: I love a brother moment.

C: Also, yeah, no, Dean really just wants people to beat him up all the time. Like he really does.

And Sam says that he blames himself because he could have warned Jess about her death. Dean's like, "that doesn't make sense, you didn't know what was going to happen, and this isn't a secret, so this isn't going to work." And Sam says, "I haven't told you everything," but he says he won't tell Dean the rest "because it wouldn't really be a secret if I told you, would it?" Dean does not want to go through with the plan, but eventually, Sam convinces him by saying that Charlie and a bunch of people are going to die unless Dean lets him do this.

G: As you said earlier, the acting in the scene was very good. Sam's face... man, I've made that face, you know?

C: Yeah.

G: Like, when my mom was verbally trying to get something out of me, and I'm refusing to say anything, like, the locked jaw, the everything; it was so good. And I was like, "Oh, look at him. Look at him!"

-

G: So they reach the mirror shop and starts looking for the mirror. Sam finds it and thus, you know, calls out "Bloody Mary" three times. Ooh! And Dean had to go out because cops showed up because he tripped the alarm, and I'm just gonna combine these scenes together, but they're actually separated in the actual storyline. So the cops showed up and he says, "Oh, I'm the boss's kid!" And the cops go "Oh, you're Mr. Yamashiro's kid?" [laughs] And then-

C: We got our- we get our first Asian character, everyone! Representation!

G: Yes. Hello Mr. Yamashiro! Hi sir!

C: Hi Mr. Yamashiro! Do you want to guest star on our podcast?

G: Exactly! For being the first Asian character on Supernatural.

C: I know you didn't show up on screen, but you're really important to me in my heart.

G: So he insists he is adopted, and gets- gets tired of this bit and just kicks the shit out of the cops. Anyway, back inside, Sam is still standing in front of the mirror, and Bloody Mary starts showing up on the different mirrors in the store, which he, you know, um, smashes every one of them. His reflection starts moving, and then he starts choking and tearing up blood. So mirror Sam reveals that Sam had nightmares for days of Jess dying, and the mirror Sam says, like, "You're so desperate to be normal, to believe they were just dreams. How can you ignore them like that? How can you leave her out to die? You dreamt it would happen!" So this is our reveal that Sam had premonitions, right?

C: Yep. Dean shows up and smashes the mirror.

G: Yeah, in a very cool shot. Like it's sideways, and he smashes it-

C: Oh, yeah.

G: - and it looks very good.

C: Yeah, the shards are very nice, the way they reflect the low light.

G: Dean goes up to Sam and holds Sam's face, and he calls him Sammy, and Sam says it's Sam-

C: It's Sam.

G: Which I thought was so- so cute. So Dean starts to carry him out, but Mary comes back, and both Sam and Dean collapse to the ground. Which, I hate this.

C: Yeah, she crawls out of the mirror in some kind of stop-motion effect-looking thing?

G: No, I think Sadako. It's Sadako, right? You know who Sadako is.

C: It's what?

G: You know Sadako.

C: No?

G: She's- she's very famous in the Philippines. She's a Japanese character who crawls out of television sets.

C: Oh.

G: So she crawls out of the TV, and she attacks you or eats you or whatever.

C: Oh, geez.

G: Literally, Bloody Mary looked like Sadako in this, I don't know, in this- in this scene, and I was like, "Slay."

C: Do you kn- what- how old is Sadako? Do you think that Sadako originated as like, a "you kids spend too much time watching the TV"-?

G: I think Sadako was like, early 2000s, actually. Anyway, I hate this part because Dean also collapses, and I was like-

C: Yeah!

G: "This is Sam's episode! How dare you collapse!"

C: Where's Dean's dumb little secret about a death, huh? Huh?

G: Yeah, and later on, Sam was like- Dean was like, "Oh, you have to tell me your secret," and Sam should have been like, "You tell me your secret."

C: Yeah! You tell me your secret!

G: So, Dean points the mirror at Mary, and it awakes something in Mary, and her guilt for killing everyone that she has killed overcomes her, and she dies.

C: Yeah.

G: So Dean smashes that mirror again and cracks a joke about six hundred years of bad luck.

C: Which, I mean, it kind of-

G: Not inaccurate.

C: It kinda does happen! I mean, well, I think if we add up their times in hell, it still doesn't amount to 600 years, but maybe they have a really bad time in heaven as well.

G: We are "heaven is actually Chuck's doing" endgame truthing.

C: Yeah, The Good Place is the sequel to Supernatural; they just changed the names and the actors.

-

C: So now we're to Sam and Dean driving Charlie back to her house, I'm assuming. Did that, like, scare you for a second? Because I didn't notice Charlie at first, I didn't notice Charlie at first, then I was like, "Oh my god, the woman in white is back?!"

G: I know exactly what you mean. And I was also like, "oh my god!" And then I realized it was Charlie and I was like, "oh, okay."

C: Yeah, I was like, "oh, it's just our good friend Charlie."

Charlie's being driven home and she heads out. When she steps outside, Sam says, "Charlie... Your boyfriend's death. You really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen." And Charlie smiles and goes away. It's very nice of Sam, 'cause the whole time when she was revealing her backstory to them, I was yelling, "Somebody tell her that it's not her fault! Oh my god!" But they just didn't say anything, and she kept crying, but at least they finally got to this part.

G: I was also waiting for someone to say "it's not your fault!" and the whole time... And when they were in the car, when they were in the car, and they were like, "it's not her fault," and I was like, "why didn't you fucking tell her?"

C: Yeah. I wrote down in my notes in all caps, "why didn't you say that to her face??"

C: Dean tells Sam "That's good advice," 'cause, you know, he's supposed to get over the Jess thing. But we'll- we'll find out later that this is not a "sometimes bad things just happen" situation; this is a years-long longcon situation. Dean asks Sam to tell him what the secret is, and Sam says, "Look, you're my brother, and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep to myself." Which, I feel like there's a lot to unpack there. Do you want to- what did you think of that line?

G: First off, I remember this scene as Sam saying, for- I- "You're my brother, and I love you."

C: Aww.

G: So when he didn't say "I love you," I was disappointed. I was like, "where's the ‘I love you,’ bro?"

C: Aww.

G: But I get that, like they're not that "I love you" type, so it's fine. "I'd die for you."

C: Yeah, right. My first- my first thought, due to only caring about Cas and Cas is the only thing in my entire world-

G: Oh yes! That's my second thought.

C Yeah, yeah, okay, right! In "The Man Who Would Be King," when Sam says about Cas also like, "He's my friend, and I'd die for him, but we should still be cautious that he might be working with Crowley," I was like, aw, this is like, a Sam thing. He says that he'd die for people instead of saying that he loves them. Oh no! I'm glad- I'm glad we both had the exact same thought due to caring only about one character in Supernatural.

C: Okay, why do you- why do you think that Sam said "there are some things I need to keep to myself"?

G: I actually didn't think about it. I just thought like, of course you have some things to keep to yourself, right? I think there's- there's the thinking that Dean might think of him as “other.”

C: As a monster.

G: Yes.

C: Right. I was thinking that too. Because I feel like at this point in the show they don't get deep enough into monsterhood and hunting for us to come to that conclusion, but knowing what I know about the rest of the show is like, yeah, I feel like Sam is afraid that Dean is going to start seeing him as less than human because he has psychic abilities. Yeah, he's going to either distance himself or try to train it out of Sam or study Sam or something. I don't know if that was the writer's intention here yet, maybe so, but yeah, no, I guess it's- it's interesting to think about in the context of future happenings.

-

G: So- so they're in the car, right, when this conversation is happening. And then we get the iconic, iconic scene-

C: So good.

G: Where Sam looks out the side of the window, sees Jess on the side of the road wearing what the- the outfit she died in, the nightgown. And as the car passes by, we see Jess at the side of the road. What a slay.

C: Yeah.

G: What a beautiful scene.

C: What a slay.

G: The music, the slo-mo, everything; it was so good. And then the episode ends.

-

G: So, what did you think of this episode?

C: I thought it was very good for a Supernatural episode.

G: It was good.

C: I was pleasantly surprised? Yeah, I thought the horror was done well, and I think Sam's acting and the backstory of all the characters was done well. Yeah, twirling my hair and giggling at every time Sam's on the screen. Just- just good stuff.

G: Yeah, I also thought it was a good episode. Not- I'm not just saying that because it's Sam-centric, but I know we've been [C laughs] an asshole to Dean.

C: Yeah, we've been rather... but we were nice to Dean this episode! Don't say I never did anything for you, Deangirls.

G: Yeah [laughs]. Well, I think it's a good episode because of the horror elements are good, like it freaked me out a little bit, that's something.

C: Yeah, no, I was genuinely on edge.

G: Yeah, and it- it wasn't like they were repeating stuff like in last episode. I thought, like every scene was organic, but still fresh, you know? That doesn't make any sense, but whatever.

C: Also, this is such a low bar, I think, but I think because this is Supernatural, I was expecting a lot more misogyny with the character of Mary. Because I heard that, for example, she won a lot of beauty pageants, and I was like, "this is where they reveal that he cut out her eyes because she was very vain about them and thought that they were beautiful on her," but no, they don't- that's not why; they don't really say anything about it. So I was like, "ah, thank god." And then when Dean turns the mirror on her, I was so scared that the writers were going to do a misogyny moment where like, she's horrified at how she looks now, and that's what defeats her? But luckily, no, it was just the- it was just the guilt over killing people. I was like, "Oh, thank god. They were normal about women." [G laughs] They weren't normal about Jill, but they were normal about Mary.

G: Yeah, the Jill part was the only part that was like, a bit uncomfortable to look at.

-

G: Okay, so Best Line/Worst Line? What's your best line?

C: I liked basically everything that mirror Sam said to Sam um, you know, the whole "you killed her, you wanted so bad to be normal, how could you ignore that?" So yeah, just all of it, I thought was very good, I thought it was a good reveal of Sam's guilt and also his mindset while he was at Stanford. What was your best line?

G: I would say maybe my best line is "Mr. Yamashiro." [both laughing] I genuinely love that line. Because you took the serious route, so I'm gonna take the comedy route, and I thought that bit was actually really funny. Like I laughed out loud.

C: That was pretty funny.

G: The worst line of the episode. What's your worst line?

C: Uh, I think my worst line is when Jill says that Sam and Dean are cute.

G: Oh my god, I was gonna say exactly that.

C: Just because of the way it plays into the horror tropes of the "slutty teenage girl" dying first.

G: Also I would rather Sam and Dean not be attractive in the narrative, you know what I mean?

C: That too! I despise when shows keep bringing up how attractive their characters are.

G: Because I feel like there's a line, right? There's a line between what's actually happening in the universe and what we're seeing.

C: Like everyone's going to be more attractive on TV on average because that's what the acting industry is like.

-

G: So, uh, okay, I'm gonna look it up, but what is your guess on the IMDB rating?

C: Well, this is- yeah, like I was quite impressed by this episode, so I don't, like, but... I feel like in the past, we've always rated things below the pilot, just because the pilot seems to be highly-rated, but I feel like this is- I liked this more than the pilot, but I don't know-

G: Yeah, me too.

C: - if the general audience liked it more than the pilot. So I think I'm just gonna say a pilot rating, 8.7.

G: I would go 8.5, just because, well, just because. Let's see.

G: It's an 8.4! I was almost there.

C: Oh wow, you were really close. Ugh, people liked it that much less than- wait, okay, what did- what did "Phantom Traveler" get again?

G: "Phantom Traveler" got an 8.2.

C: Okay, "Phantom Traveler" got an 8.2, okay. So is "Bloody Mary" the second highest rated-?

G: The second highest so far. Which pans out. That makes sense.

C: I think it was better than the pilot, but oh well.

-

G: So that's it for this episode of Busty Asian Beauties. Next time we will be talking about Season 1 Episode 6: “Skin”! Oh my god, you guys have been waiting for this, probably. I know you Deangirls have been waiting for this. [both laugh] Leave us a rating or review whenever- wherever you get your podcasts.

C: Follow us on social media! We are on twitter at twitter.com/BeautiesPodcast and on Tumblr at bustyasianbeautiespod.tumblr.com.

G: You can email us any feedback comments or inquiries at bustyasianbeautiespod@gmail.com. Uh, this is the first episode we're recording where we're actually out as a podcast, so I just also would like to thank everyone who has listened to the first few episodes. I'm super grateful, thank you so much.

C: Yes, and also, I think, according to our release schedule, this is going to be the first one released in the new Lunar New Year, so happy Year of the Tiger, guys.

G: Happy Year of the Tiger! Okay, that's all, see you guys next time! Bye!

C: Bye!

[guitar music]