#1x08 rewatch

[itachi86]

alucard is the best

[cesaray]

[dykehelly]

MARK S. in S1E08 // HELLY R. in S2E10

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 1x08, "poison"

the diagnostics department is poisoning its devotees to act just like their idol. chaos ensues.

this one felt good. it feels good to be hit over the head with some over obvious messaging every once in a while, especially when that messaging is very fun, exciting, and character-driven. PLUS we get major house and foreman dynamic development! i am very pleased.

this episode very conveniently comes in thirds, represented by each time chase, foreman, and cameron misstep during the case (in that order). they're confronted with a helicopter mom who reacts, in their view, poorly to how the diagnostics team treats her son. in my opinion, she's one of the first to rationally question their central practice of treating to diagnose, so it's funny how they all immediately get pissed off and write her off as crazy. i'll break down this first and move into other sub-conflicts/plots.

house demands to know why foreman cares so much about the case from the very second he presents the file to house. he's asking nothing but leading questions, of course, because he can tell that foreman's base interest comes from just that - blanket curiosity - rather than a more cameron-esque bleeding heart. house identifies a burgeoning house-ism in foreman, and it's one of house's most dangerous.

chase's tendency to be cavalier causes the mom to toss him off her son's case. he doesn't often weigh the consequences of what he's going to say in conversation, so long as it gets the job done, gets the patient to comply, gets the diagnosis clear and under control. yet another house-ism. yet, unlike house, chase doesn't have the necessary thick skin to bear through the pushback his big mouth gets him.

cameron's stubbornness could not present in a way more dissimilar to house, yet it's their strongest and clearest connection. she's also the last of the ducklings to be sent in to deal with the helicopter mom and, frustrated that she's compromising the diagnostic process, says that "no, it's on you. you need to do better. right now. yes or no." it's easy to put those words into house's mouth, but, not long after, the mom also boots her off the case.

each of the ducklings embody their own house-isms, but to varying degrees of failure. it seems like 1x08 may be highlighting the missing component for us: house combines all 3 of the aforementioned traits, rendering him pretty darn miserable, which makes him less compromising, less kind, and more convincing.

above all else, though, foreman gets the spotlight this time, which is refreshing after several chase and cameron-heavy episodes. while investigating the patient's home, cameron comments that he's "deflecting a personal question with a joke. gee, who do i know that does that?" foreman, understandably irked by this question (because, for nearly the full duration of this show, i believe that foreman does NOT like house), retorts with, "yeah, i'm just like him, except for the angry, bitter, pompous cr*pple part." he misses all the true comparisons to be made between himself and house thus far: their ambition, love of the puzzle, and the same cynical way toward others. and, just like how house md presents love in all its dimensions across several characters, the show will also present these traits in their character foils as equal parts good and bad.

later, when trying to make another appeal to the mother of the patient, she freaks out on foreman, too: "you're just as pompous and superior as [house] is!"

1x08 also presents these foreman/house similarities as inescapable. house is thrilled that foreman isn't making up with the mother by the episode's close, but foreman doesn't know why he would do that at all. never fear - house knows! there's no reason to make nice with her if "you don't care about her. or her son." immediately following this, foreman and house leave together in the elevator, where house smugly realizes that they do, in fact, where the same shoes. ugh, to respect someone so much and detest them at the same time is such an insanely interesting character dynamic.

a brief chase/daddy issues moment rears its head, too. he's able to redeem himself for his prior failures with the patient when he fakes a phone call to the mom from the CDC, since she won't go ahead with house's treatment till she hears their second opinion. not only is this ingenious and horribly manipulative, it also impresses house, a rare thing. i'll never forget the absolute elation chase feels after earning this fleeting approval, complemented nicely by a literal glow passing over their heads between shots.

that's his DAD, you guys.

there's another separate thread i want to highlight happens during cameron and foreman's conversation about house. foreman is upfront about house and vicodin - he's an addict. he uses vicodin to get through the day and can't pass easily through one without it. but cameron is so resistant to this. disputing foreman's diagnosis, she says, "he's not an addict. he has to take drugs. he's in pain!"

there are so many distinctions throughout house md about the root cause of house's addiction, a conflict that will basically tear up his relationship with cuddy and (very nearly) with wilson, too, in the distant future. oftentimes they're insistent that his pain is psychosomatic, therefore "less real," or it's phantom pain, or it's just Not As Bad as he claims. cameron makes a unique divergence from this separation of disability, addiction, and pain, by removing all traces of responsibility from house. it's all pain, so it's all okay. most people claim the opposite and put all the onus on house without factoring in the hand life has dealt him.

this is very in character for cameron thus far, as she wants to bring out the best in house, the kind of "best" that may not even be there in at all.

and, finally, 3 small notes:

hugh laurie has just about Found House at this point. the above picture says it all. he's endearing and funny and still a little evil.

wilson was there. this was probably his most "i, too, am in this epsisode" episode to date. i do love that he showed up solely to read the love poem the 80-year-old syphilis patient wrote for house, give him the test results that he had no business handling, and then leave. and he looked good during it all!

cuddy said like 3 words all episode :(

[lavenderleahy]

Love how Bobby has special magic life-saving blood and we literally never hear about it again

[sammyvhs]

bugs : 1.08 — jess’s sister.

Sam doesn’t hesitate to answer your call. He does hesitate a little when you tell him where you are: Stanford.

“There’s, um, a memorial thing, I don’t remember the name— there's pictures and letters that she’ll never read and— people left flowers too.”

“Okay.” He frowns and looks over at Dean as he starts driving. He mouths ‘Stanford’ and he’s sure he’s not imagining the stiffening of Dean’s body. “Okay, why does that— why are you there?”

“Because I forgot her voice, I mean, they disconnected her phone and I can’t remember exactly how she sounds anymore. How was I ever a decent sister if I forgot her voice, Sam? I forgot my own sister’s voice.” 

“Hey, c’mon, stop, you're the best sister she could’ve ever asked for, she couldn’t live without you. She always— wanna know something crazy?”

You stop to blow your nose with him muted before telling him to go on. “She, Jess used to talk about getting a house, okay?” You can practically feel the tension on the other end when he says it but you can’t find it in you to care, “and she said she wanted to wait ‘till you had someone to get a house with first. So you could both be next to each other.” 

It weighs heavier in your heart than Sam could ever think. There’s no way your sister loved you that much. Putting her life on hold for you. Sure, you knew she loved you, you’re blood, there’s no way she didn’t, but you were almost certain you loved her more than she did you. 

“It's bullshit.” He continues. “She didn’t show it the same way you did but your sister loved you more than anyone else, all holidays needed to be celebrated with you and big decisions needed to be run by you first, her big sister. It’s all she thought about and I could see it in your eyes— the question of whether or not she cared.

“She did.” You step away from the ledge you were sitting on, drying your tears. “Hey? You with me?”

“Where are you guys?”

“Oasis plains, Atoka County.”

“Stay there.”

[yourgoldennotebook]

kinda blows my mind and twists my guts that chuck was all about betting with blair from the beginning. it starts with 108, when it's her birthday and he bets her that if nate, his best friend and her boyfriend of years, won't call her on midnight as per tradition, she has to spend the night with him. he goads her into telling him she loves him, telling her she has to say it first to get it from him. and then some of y'all have the audacity to say it's "uncharacteristic" for him to sell her for a night with his uncle to get his fucking hotel back. using the fact that he lets that hotel go bankrupt paying off her dowry later. it's always been an acquisitional relationship. that's also why they can't have sex without the games. chuck does love her. he just doesn't love her unconditionally, or for free. that isn't a love anyone ever taught him - though blair tries and tries and tries.

[mayabishopgold]

He's a conversational Jedi.

[personinthepalace]

sound on and watch his hand ;)

[shallowseeker]

Up and down the stairs; away and towards safety

"Run. Take your brother and go! Now, Dean!"

(The story is after us, Dean. It's after Sam.)

We hear the warning again later in the episode, with the overlaid message from John: "I can never go home" & "We're all in danger!"

And the thing is, they are in danger—all of them—from the story itself. The road, then, becomes armor, and motion becomes safety, insisting that they keep moving. Being in one place? That's what kills them. The idea of going off-road functions like a temptation, a lure. The safety of home is just an illusion.

///

Shelter is down

Even in the pilot, Dean is quite literally a marked impala, a prey animal, always on the run. I really love the contrast of Mary and John running "up" towards the fire and little Dean running away, visually "down," away from the fire.

In trying to escape the fire, Dean descends to safety. It is this need for safety (and the safety of his loved ones) that in a very real sense eventually drives him towards Hell.

///

Later in the episode, we see Dean descend the stairs again, when he's leading Sam away from Sam's apartment (an apartment that has been, unbeknownst to them, marked for death by Azazel).

"Going down" will be a mode of movement that follows Dean pretty much his whole life. Dean goes down into the valley, into the shelter, into Hell.

Dean remains on the move for much of his life, but when he does get a true home of his own, it's underground. When he's on the run from Billie/Death in 15x18, he plunges further still, deeper underground, until he loses the love of his life in his safest spot: the bunker's dungeon.

///

Until then, the car is the safest spot they've got.

But the narrative is at work, trying to take control of the car; trying to chisel and shape its targets the way Constance tries to chisel and shape her targets.

When the car charges them on the bridge, Dean is frantic to get out of the way, diving "down" off the bridge, into the safety of another road—into movement, the churning river.

Meanwhile, Sam keeps hanging on. Sam's Taurus-like personality and stubbornness means that he's always trying to cheat a rigged game. Sam tries to stay in the "high place" and not get burned.

Sam monkey-arms and contorts himself to stay on the bridge...

...and Dean comes crawling out of the river like a drowned rat.

///

We see ups and downs for Constance's family, too.

Sam forces her to go home, taking control of the car (narrative) and hurling her into her ruined, dilapidated house.

Inside, she's faced with her guilt: and her guilt is up.

The deceased family members are upstairs. They went up, but they never came down.

These children have obviously been paralleled to the pain that Sam and Dean go through at the hands of John's cruel overpreparedness, but these two are also an off-key echo of John and Mary's innocence.

The narrative killed its "first children." Mary's body was consumed alongside John's faith in the future. They are the ones who went "up" and were murdered (Mary) and damaged (John).

///

In many ways, Constance's story is a study of opposites to the Winchesters.

Her first children were drowned. The narrative burned its first children.

Dean's mother Mary ran towards the danger (and we will see she continues to haunt her house as a supreme protector of children). In contrast, Constance runs away from her house. She killed her children.

Constance's ghost is out to prove that deep down, everyone is flawed, operating in a Luciferian mode of engineered hopelessness. She haunts the road in a Trickster-tempter-style of hunting, not just preying on "unfaithful men," but trying to prove that in fact, all men are scum, i.e. "Even if you're still faithful, I'll make you unfaithful."

Many of SPN's villains are out to bring out the worst in people; the writer's task is to prove that anyone (everyone) will break under the right circumstances:

KEVIN TRAN (APOCALYPSE): Michael doesn't want to kill you. He wants to break you. He said for me to tell you that, 'Even if you win, you still lose.' I'm sorry. 13x20 Unfinished Business

We get this from Chuck too in 15x09 The Trap, as he works to drain Sam of all hope.

CHUCK: Um, short version – Sammy lost hope, and now I'm free. Hey, take it easy on the kid. It took a lot to beat it out of him. [Chuck crushes the sphere, destroying the spell] 15x09 The Trap

We also see this attitude reflected in many of the angel characters, reaching all the way into SPNwin The Winchesters, with the OG mindset of Gabriel/The Trickster wanting to prove how horrible humans are:

GABRIEL (unhinged): When the chips are down, humanity always chooses the selfish way out! Always! 1x08 Hang on to Your Life

//

As we learn more about Mary, we unravel that she did do some running of her own—running from hunting, from her parents, from her own childhood home. But here, at least, despite being dressed in white, Mary is in many ways Constance's opposite.

John are Dean are the ones doing the running, afraid to go home. In some ways, Constance is more like John than she is Mary, as John is victimized by Mary's lies and mistakes. John, like Constance, is driven into madness and despair. And of course, John breaks so hard that he hurts his own children.

After what happened, Constance went out on the road, looking for monsters. Making monsters, too.

//

The off-key parallels continue:

A married couple burns upstairs; a pair of siblings drowns upstairs.

The Winchester family faces tragedy in the comfort of their pajamas, while Constance's family are in their daily school uniforms—the period clothing giving off an eerie feeling that they're in "work clothes." (The suit and tie on the boy, especially!)

When Constance faces them, they embrace her, loving her as they bring her to justice.

Dean and Sam are "below." Safe. Looking on as the family is reunited and can finally rest together.

//

Sam goes home.

When Sam ascends up the stairs to his apartment, he leaves safety. There are horrors waiting for him "above," as Jess too is on the ceiling, a sacrifice to the narrative gods (the audience).

Like how Zachariah had to put extra pressure on Dean in 4x17 It's a Terrible Life to get Dean back on the road, Azazel has to burn down Sam's home to get him to play ball.

Sam had roots in this little apartment; he was even looking for a way to stay nearby with regards to his interview:

LUIS: So there you go. You are a first-round draft pick. You can go to any law school you want! SAM: Actually, I got an interview here. 

So, Azazel burns the garden.

///

Meanwhile, after he notices his watch stop, Dean rushes back and kicks open the door, much like a firefighter coming to the rescue. Dean is running into the fire the same way both of his parents did, acting in his parents' stead to save Sam:

Dean quickly spots Jess, and susses out that Sam's destiny is after him, and he works immediately to get him to safety—down the stairs.

Afterward, with the memory of Mary heavy on his mind, Dean turns, knowing.

He got Sam out, but like John, Sam isn't okay.

Sam is "down and out," the light of his happiness snuffed out. This was foreshadowed by "Sam's light going out" in the headlight scene:

(We will later see Dean lose his light too, in season 7, after Cas dies.)

Sam is safe from the fire, but he's, in a very real sense, no longer the same Sam. Despite that Dean is the one wearing John's jacket, it is Sam who is now set on the path to revenge, to "becoming" Azazel.

Sam's broken.

SAM: Yeah. I kinda mean, well, like ever since my head broke, and we lost Cas. You ever feel like he's going through the same motions but he's not the same Dean, ya know? 7x09 How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters

Sam's season 7 self could be talking about his season 1 self here! Loss does things to people. (But the narrative did it to Sam so early!)

///

DEAN: So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it? SAM: No. Not normal. Safe. DEAN: And that's why you ran away. 1x01 Pilot

Despite his extreme efforts, John couldn't keep Sam safe from Azazel's designs.

And Dean can't either.

[itachi86]

aw olrox protecting his bf

[angelsdean]

when people still think sam, to this day, holds hate for john in his heart over the stanford stuff and think he still resents john for all that i am just like. babes. that was literally Resolved in s1. they laughed together abt john spending sam's college fund on ammo (1x20). sam is the first one out of him and dean to use the phrase, "He was just doin' the best he could" (1x08). sam also tells dean in 1x08 that he wants to find john and apologize for how he left things, after also gaining more context by learning that john was proud of sam for getting into stanford and used to check up on him too to make sure he was safe. sam may still resent john for their childhood and the neglect, but he's quite literally moved past the stanford stuff specifically.

[wawamouse]

S1E08 "A Game of Checkers" Details

Mukada has a copy of "Too Busy Not to Pray: Slowing Down to Be with God" (1988) by Bill Hybels on his desk

The cigarettes that Whittlesey smuggles Ross are Bollards (prop brand cigarette created by The Hand Prop Room)

It's mentioned that Oswald is located somewhere off Route 7a

McManus wears this wristwatch looped through his pants

When the riot breaks out, the TV is playing shoot-out scene in an old western

If he was 9 going on 10 during the Attica riot, McManus is ~35 years old in season 1

Oz Screencaps Album || Some Additional 1x08 Screencaps:

[rathalthisass]

I fully believe Arthur is in on it at this point. Actively doing what he can to help Mordred escape through blonde incompetency. Though I have to admit as a person married to a man, this level of idk is plausible.

Myth: PLAUSIBLE

[winnie-the-monster]

[sammyvhs]

in between : 1.08.5 — jess’s sister.

They end up staying there for an entire day before you’re able to meet up with them. They rent out a motel for the night when you text Sam that you’ll be there in five hours (it’s midnight) and Dean hasn’t said a word to Sam the entire time.

“C’mon, man, talk. I know you’re angry, alright?”

“I’m not angry, Sam.” Biggest lie of the century, Sam’s sure. “I’m just tired, we both need sleep.”

“I thought you liked her, okay? Why are you so uptight about meeting up with her now?”

“Because you’re not meeting up for coffee, she’s gonna wanna to stay on the road with us.”

“That’s not fair, she has a life—”

“No she doesn’t!” Sam’s eyebrows furrow, both in irritation and confusion. He won’t take dean's talking shit about you, that’s for sure. “That’s not what I mean— she's just, she’s greiving. If that was you… I wouldn’t have a life outside of mourning you either. And she has questions, I could see it the second she found out I was a cop— which by the way, genius, how do we explain the box of fake IDs and trunk full of weapons?”

“Dean, she won’t come on the road with us, trust me. And she’s not grieving anymore—”

“She wasn’t in Stanford, Sam.” Now Sam’s really not sure where this conversation is going, he’s not even certain they should be having a conversation right now. It’s late and they’re both in the car tired as hell.

“How would you know that?”

“When you put her on speaker, when she— when you told her the story about the house—” not the story about Jess, the story about the house. “The wind and her sniffles, she was on a roof.”

Sam’s sure his heart is just stopping at this point but he hopes he can make it get back on track if only to respond to Dean who’s walking away from him. Sam follows, slamming the car’s door behind him too. “Sam, drop it.”

“Are you really going to just walk away? From me? From her?” He says it like it’s supposed to mean something to Dean. Like you’re supposed to mean something to Dean.

How weird is it that you do?